An adventure-pinball game that's more of a stage-demo than anything. Great atmosphere and play for 80 MS.
Inertia pinball-gameplay is a great idea: switching on zero-gravity to bounce around the level works quite well
Aesthetics are simple yet immersive: haunting empty space-sounds and glimpses of the moon are effective for sense of place
Level 9 (last level) is pretty sweet: not to spoil anything, but the end level is where things come together
Only 9 short levels: the game feels really short on the whole, maybe 30 minutes of play through. Slight re-play ability.
More a stage-demo than anything: there's a nifty game mechanic here, but that's about it.
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Team Hermes' Intertia! struck gold recently at the DICE 2011 Indie Game Challenge, winning the Non-Professional award and Game Design award, with some nice cash to boot. Considering the finalists, that's saying quite a lot actually [http://www.indiegamechallenge.com/finalists/]. So what's so great about this XBIG game that's been mostly overlooked?
For starters, it's got a really great central game mechanic. Appropriate to the title, at any time you can switch on zero-gravity, and watch as your momentum (or Inertia!) flings you around like a pinball to traverse the vestages of the crumbling space ship you're trying to escape. It makes for some solid play, as you'll want to grab as many microchips as you can scattered across each level, and do so as fast as possible for best times. Even aside from the slight exploration and speed factor, simply switching on the Inertia mode is a joy to play with. Gracefully rolling through space, the moon traced through the ship's window - it's a surprising joy to behold.
Assisting this experience is the overall solid aesthetic. The sound in particular is quite good. Rather than stuff a musical score into this game (for the most part), all the sound is pure ambient space noise, much like exploring a giant space craft might sound, fragmented only by sound effects for bouncing off walls etc. The visual design, though limited, is also pretty good. The moon plays a pivotal role, as you'll catch glimpses of it from time to time, and really gives Intertia! a sense of place. The levels themselves are quite bland for the most part, and don't look anything like you'd think a space-ship to look. But these limited offerings do quite a lot here, surprisingly.
I'm not sure that's I'd call Inertia! a full-fledged game, however. The 9 levels are all quite short, and simply involve traversing the space. Sure, you can grab microchips lying around and try for speed runs, but mostly this is a platformer with one pure objective: reach the end of the level. This does serve to display the Inertia game mechanic quite well, but as a game it feels limited at best. I finished all 9 levels in about 30 minutes, so do the math. I will say that the final level (9) almost makes up for this, however, though I won't spoil the surprise. Let's just say, if the first 8 levels feels like a pin-ball trial run, level 9 is the payoff.
On the whole, Intertia! is a solid game for 80 MS points, though you should expect a short stage-demo type experience. The inertia effect and overall ambiance is good enough to check out, though it's limitations keep it from entering the cream of the crop of XBIG platformers.
7.8/10