“A nun has to deliver a letter” can’t be high on anyone’s list of dream video game concepts, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work. Along with plenty of more easily categorizable games, PlayStation Plus this month adds one of 2024’s most idiosyncratic games, following a nun in late 19th-century Russia on a quest of hardship, faith, and platforming puzzles.
Indika is a strange beast from the very beginning. The game’s opening scene shows its heroine, the nun Indika, falling from the sky in the style of a retro arcade game, collecting pickups as she tumbles. That ends with her crashing back to reality, the camera in tight close-up on her face as she apologizes to the other sisters — clearly not for the first time — for getting caught in a daydream in the midst of her duties. That leads directly to an interminably long sequence of Indika slowly walking the grounds of the convent to collect potatoes and water, as the screen occasionally changes to show a skill tree noting that she’s gained points in (completely useless) stats like grief and duty.
