Another Ink Inside [Review]

Ink Inside is a creative take on a video game that feels more like a Saturday morning cartoon. Developed by Blackfield Entertainment LLC, founded by Richard Mansfield as the creative director, the indie company works on various mixed media projects with different companies, including the Steven Universe: Unleash the Light video game for Cartoon Network and numerous non-video game projects. However, Ink Inside is a video game, and a very charming and captivating one at that.

The game presents a unique juxtaposition between live-action videos of a little girl named Hannah and her drawings that seem to come to life within her notebook. The game effectively captures your attention by playing these videos in the background as a movie, gradually revealing more of the story. On the other side of the story, we follow an unfinished doodle of a stick person named Stick, voiced by Brian David Gilbert (Who was my favorite Polygon member and youtuber) and Deneen Melody from Evangelion. Stick is an amnesiac who has recently moved to town and is determined to help the town with its “sog” problem. He achieves this through a beat ‘em up/dodgeball-style battle system.

In these battles, you use “cores” (dodgeball balls) to throw at enemies until their health bar is depleted. While the gameplay is straightforward, the chaos intensifies as the number of enemies increases. Additionally, the game offers co-op mode, allowing the second player to control another dodgeball-playing doodle. The game is easy to play due to its captivating story and the larger mystery that unfolds, which you can theorize about while playing. Unfortunately, our gameplay was cut short due to a major glitch on the PlayStation version of the game that prevented us from interacting with a crucial NPC. We later picked the game back up on the Nintendo Switch and had a blast. Ink Inside is available now for the Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5