The Indigo Parallel: The Weirdest Game I've Ever Played

this is not a video essay I don't quite know what it is honestly for a long while I've been fascinated with exploring video games completely blind knowing as little information as I could possibly gather about them most of the time the game just ends up underwhelming or incredibly short or borderline unfinished and yet there are solemn few times where the games I find take me down paths I never thought I'd travel and probably wouldn't choose to if I actually knew about it ahead of time that being said I wanted to try and give a piece of what one of my recent experiences was like I was sent a steam key to a video game that nearly nobody knows about by the developer themselves most the time when searching for games you inevitably come across promo images or a plot synopsis or even just the genre but this time I had absolutely nothing to go on and right now neither do you so let me take your hand and lead you into one of the weirder games I've stumbled upon the Indigo parallel status battery is full okay the game starts in some sort of facility going through a door on my left I learned the very basic controls wasd to move edu's and hit the button next to me [Music] foreign [Music] hallway I find a room full of filing cabinets and pick the door on my left [Music] with an absolutely blinding transition I find myself here going to the perimeter of this city blocky eye area I'm given the opportunity to save or destroy a bunch of random Photoshop looking creatures and okay I feel like I missed something to be honest deciding that I have no idea what the [ __ ] is happening I decide to reset the game status watermelon what this time around I picked the door right in front of me and things make significantly more sense I'm apparently a man by the name of Tom hellsworth with special access to some sort of machine I just need to find the code first oh okay we enter some type of Railway cabin to a place named kozon foreign there seems to be some sort of Mining facility coded in pitch black darkness it's hard to make out not only where to go but where you even can go but eventually I stumbled towards the right spot [Music] is this a [ __ ] horror game the answer is kind of warning on screen now as I come to find out the Indigo parallel does not like being put in a box and will kick and scream at any attempts to label it just pass that scare as a face with a hand and more importantly oh no oh there's coats there's a few interesting things on this board besides the language itself there's an encrypted number showing 1984 specific designation not just for zero but zero zero and zero zero zero and a different symbol for both o and O with a line over it something that I never found relevant later on in the game we see another mention of Sigma Corp like we did on the ID card and the number 6174 yet again after writing down some symbols for later which took like five straight minutes we can start to decipher some of the messages around the mines a paper on the table gives us a message from the kozanian people reading or people moved into the mines in the year of the rock our people will Thrive the outside world is forever lost does this become relevant later no one of my favorite parts of discovering games blind is figuring out all their little quirks how the movement is ever so slightly delayed how the walking speed is too fast making it awkward to move around how you need to get uncomfortably close to buttons in order to actually click them how when you pick up the single sphere it gets squashed in a cute little way that I assume wasn't intentional the most polished games with an endless budget spend a great deal of time making them universally accessible working for all kinds of setups and all kinds of people but not everyone has that time so sometimes the mysterious Stone sphere you grab a squash while you hold it and I think that's a little neat when you put the ball in the magical hand slot you find yourself in a new area one with a massive drill other than the this game has been surprisingly cohesive so far feeling mostly like a straightforward horror game okay after drilling through the rock we get access to a portal bringing us to a brand new area where we're able to put kozani into more use right upon entering we see a message saying this is a simulation over and over again one repeated throughout the area there's a summoning Circle in between four statues statues that I cannot seem to interpret no matter what angle I look at it like seriously what what is this as you go through the laser dodging puzzle you see a sign spelling out a-c-l-a-c-a a word that doesn't seem to exist in any language interestingly enough the L symbol is reversed the slanted line on it being mirrored to the opposite side it's the same case for every single sign showing this code meaning when you need to enter in the letters clearly you need to do it in reverse thank you [Music] all right after entering in the code as normal and then entering in another code into another panel that was just kind of here for some reason you finally get out of the cave [Music] apparently the area we were in was just an attraction this was an attraction yeah that's what I just said indeed the caves were apparently part of some type of building selling these experiences Temple exploration the ever descriptive zombie game and underwater monsters from another dimension after exploring around a bit though I noticed a gun on the cafeteria counter what genre is this again the mini game doesn't last too long and is really rather simple with slow moving creatures and two total spawners and it ends soon after it starts revealing a hole in the wall oh also you can push around the tables now on the way out you see papers on an exam tape on the way out you see paper papers on an exam table reading do you enjoy working for cignacorp why how will you recruit people to join our Workforce are you happy how was your mental health do you have little thoughts elaborates and is reality a simulation despite all the weirdness in the game there is seemingly a story trying to be told a story we learn even more about in the Next Room once our gun is suspended through unknown means we learned what signacorp is a virtual reality company an advertisement says Escape your miserable gray existence by plugging into our proprietary mind shattering insanely immersive simvis Cinema experience a 360 degree audio visual somatosensation experience that will launch you and your friends into unique worlds more realistic than the last smell and taste the cuisine of alien planets shoot and soar across the sky enslave people or save the day welcome to the Future considering our employee key card from the beginning of the game will the part after that we seem to be some sort of test subject for new simulations the Indigo parallel at this point seems to intentionally blur the line between presumed reality and these simulations with even this room the one that felt like you were back in the facility from the start suddenly turning red and creepy and [ __ ] the very next room has us execute a big alien for some reason I don't know and then this happens no explanation for that let's just move on as one of the notes in the surveillance room said there seems to be religious imagery spread throughout the game in between various red things consuming you yeah it happens again and this time the sounds it makes are just unspeakable [Music] status Daisy where are you and just like that we're back at the start well not exactly the start as the right door is sealed off and a new one open to our left finding a switch just kind of sitting there in the hallway we flip it and suddenly find ourselves here this whole area feels like nothing but a loose collection of assets only existing because something had to be made for the area with no real reason in mind we go around collecting what's best described as blue things spelling out a concerning series of events what I once found delicious I now find repulsive the psychologist told me I had a mental disorder I told the psychologist no I am just different no Daisy I will not take those pills those pills are killing me Daisy is a problem Daisy is my only problem we loop around the level one more time and yeah foreign okay is it is this the back rooms yes this is the [ __ ] back rooms I don't know it's just everywhere at this point I guess oh look New Tokyo this is so far the coolest area I've seen in the game and one of the most cohesive the walls are littered with relics of old new technologies stuff like vhs's and CDs things that were revolutionary in their time but now are almost entirely out of use the area captures that colorful optimistic Vibe of those times as well with wild emerging ideas of where technology could take the world painting the color palettes as bright as the outlooks once we're actually inside though the vibe is a little different [Music] well the screens are still bright and colorful the city itself is depressingly gray the streets are crowded with nothing but these weird robots and everything is closed off or shut down PCS are scattered all around but all off and useless feeling more like trash crowding the streets than anything of real use oh also I got stuck here for like 10 minutes I tried opening doors clicking on walls think of pushing the robots around did anything trying to go where I entered in from it was driving me nuts until are you kidding me I don't want to talk about it moving towards the only remaining light source we're given an option of active or passive [Music] status I have no motivation to live okay [Music] uh the lady from before is back also I got lost for another five minutes I don't want to talk about it until I found a switch and the game briefly became a puzzle game again once we're past it we now find ourselves in a space station with a moving screen reading one to leave Earth if so applied to the the Janus we are looking for medical doctors system Engineers chefs fertile women thank you entering the room to our left were met with a cold decorations and a body on some sort of table taking the infamous eyeball object to the pedestal foreign okay oh okay you [ __ ] I told you this was kind of a horror game after running away and doing a simple matching puzzle though the game goes right back to just being weird other than spotting a friend again this area doesn't really have that much to it moving past it we find ourselves in a spaceship and in the spaceship nothing much happens either really just playing an arcade game exiting out into an elevator I was anxiously awaiting the next area why is this elevator ride so long anyways coming out of it we find ourselves with split paths [Music] Office Space let's go to space after talking to a person trapped in a computer for a bit we get one of the coolest things in the game so far now before I explore the spaceship I saw a bag with a QR code on it I wish I hadn't first I tried positioning correctly and skinny with my phone that didn't work then I tried screenshotting it flatting out in Photoshop and scanning okay that didn't work either next I tried to trace over the QR code and Photoshop to copy the cubes and okay this isn't going to work either why would this work okay so next I decided to rip the entire unity game and search for that specific image through thousands of 2D textures find it realize it's cut in half so you need to photoshop the QR code back to the other export it try to scan it on the website again I'm going to be told I hit my limit on QR scans go to a new website have it failed to scan properly go to a new new website have it fail again try to reassemble the QR code in a different way have nothing work tear your hair out regret Your Life Choices then realize the pixels were doubled on both sides of the halves QR code cut one part off of the crop tool in voila simple so [ __ ] simple and uh guess what it just links to a trailer for season four of a show called The expanse missed the result apparently other people scan the QR code fine I just didn't have any luck I guess anyways the rest of the space station is luckily a bit more remarkable than uh that surprisingly the movement feels fluid and the environment itself is very well done as I floated throughout the station I came across a split in the path one saying airlock 2A and the other sang emu suit so obviously I grabbed the Emu suit and start heading toward the airlock after a few light scares the glass in the airlock allowing you to float out towards Jesus apparently [Music] [Music] oh why is the bitrate bad in the video game itself if you couldn't tell horror games make me a little bit cranky after the space Montage were sent to this void with some being at the end of a long platform the monitors in front of us show various screenshots and images One including a binary sequence decoding this gives us the phrase Tycho magnetic anomalies which from what I can tell is a reference to the Space Odyssey novels and movies specifically to the monolith Central to the story clicking the monitor in front of us we're given the choice to either accept or reject the singularity I chose yes [Music] status is this reality The Hub area through all these resets seems to subtly change over and over sometimes the door to your left will be open sometimes there will be nothing but a wall there sometimes a switch will be missing entirely sometimes a few doors that were impossible to open are suddenly available and sometimes it's uh blue this time around the train we use to access the mines is completely gone having just a portal that takes you to cruelty Squad I guess this area seems to be a sort of Creepypasta Pokemon town in terms of layout asking you to grab colored keys to advance oh also this happens once we make it past the yellow door we're given access to a VHS player where once we insert it [Music] we're packing the mine we're given the choice between the left to right or forward things and choosing lefts we're literally just shown a Photoshop mushroom trip at this point the game was genuinely starting to wear on me psychologically I had no idea if there was an end to it or if it was just a series of branching paths with no real logic to it I was determined to find something though so I just kept going we're teleported to a Town Square find a murder scene get teleported to a magical Angel Moon land get sent back to the town but now all the creatures are eyes find a big eye at the end of it and choose between one of two routes everything turns red again for like the fifth time and once we go through the door [Music] it's the in back rooms again this time around though there is actually something to be found after a computer tells us that it's time to see the truth we're sent on a path with exit signs [Music] oh Daisy where are you I love you Daisy I miss you so much Daisy you are my life Daisy you are so cute Daisy oh Daisy when you are like this if you want to make this work please take your pills Tom please take your pills I don't like you when you are like this if you want to make this work please take your pills this is Daisy Tom please take your pills I don't like you when you are like this what oh okay thanks for telling me ah okay about that time introduce no I can't play another game like this yeah it's definitely not over we're placed in a large area with creatures and a gun and seemingly no instructions spec Ops the Line thing where it's like you You're a murderer you're evil thank you I put a gun in your hand and you decided to kill almost how predictable wow cool is there three is there three [ __ ] games status Darkness will prevail so true knowing that there is apparently another ending my goal was simply to find wherever that was my first idea was to go back to the cruelty Squad Town through the VHS tunnel than to actually go into the mine and follow the Green Path it's it's the back rooms again however this is the original back rooms area so I simply kept following the path all the way through to a room where TV pukes in the ground that I don't feel like elaborating on to be honest we find ourselves on a staircase leading out of bounds and then eventually into the mouth of this thing does anyone else feel like I'm speaking White Noise right now it's how the game started to feel for me while playing for too long to be honest you'd go into some room have something weird happen then move on to the next with apparently no cohesion to them this cycle was genuinely having some effect on my mental state however I began to become more familiar with some aspects of the game once we enter the head we're treated to a 2d scene with one of the alien characters and an eye I got to assume these two represent something the eye probably relates to God or Divinity in the alien I'm not really sure but before we can even guess that section is over and we're in another spaceship following the puke still I get to some type of teleporter and [Music] I'm the Roomba I'm a Roomba this is honestly a really fun part of the game but it also has its fair share of interesting choices hey hey Peter what despite the joys of being a Rumba though at this point both me and my GPU are starting to fizzle out after a brief puzzle switching between human and Roomba form we find ourselves in a room shaped like a cylinder and switching perspectives into this entombed body slowly rise into the sky and what seems like some type of ending it's even a little graceful with the rotating lights and changing of song giving an almost hopeful tone at the end of this generally dark or oppressive experience it honestly reminds me of the end of Portal 2 but it's not quite over yet in one final scene we're in a deep blue office space after searching around we approach a glowing blue screen one like the computer in the main menu and [Music] I can rest easy knowing that we have come to this place can I forgive him maybe one day but not right now I know that work drove him to an insane place but there is no excuse for what he did to me and the little one the path to forgiveness is called the Indigo perpendicular okay so cool my exploration and patience were coming to an end but there was one more thing I wanted to explore status normal now that we're back to the original station layout let's check out the eye hallway again strangely enough the eyes were replaced entirely something I only noticed while looking back at the recording taking the path on my right instead were placed into a lake scene activating beacons like we did in the pyramid area this was mostly just long and boring and afterwards we were teleported to a dojo voices and other than the shadow man say hi to the shadow man this area consists of getting to the end seeing the pill Shades head and then redoing it are you are you [ __ ] kidding me it's it's the backrooms again as one last desperate attempt I checked to see if there was at least one more path in the back rooms and I stumbled at random into a section that actually provides the most story we've gotten so far this is a story of a man named Tom Tom worked for a company in a big building and he was employee number 6174 his only job was to walk in the door on his left Tom entered the door to his left it was the door into his office but something was different the light in his room was a different color and his computer screen was blue with the text press any key to begin Tom press to key on the computer screen and the weird face appeared on it why did this happen why was the face so weird why is his computer acting like this then Tom remembered one important thing that he is playing a game not just any game but he was playing the Indigo parallel so of course a weird face would appear on his computer screen Tom also realized that if he is playing a game his actions have no real world consequences Tom can do whatever he wants without any repercussions because this is a simulation after all after a heated conversation with Daisy Tom picked up a knife Tom woke up covered in blood next to Daisy's lifeless body it's just a simulation right I didn't actually do this he thought to himself I just need to wake up from this simulation but there was no simulation there never was a simulation status open eye and after this reset I felt like I've experienced enough of the Indigo parallel there is more to this game significantly so more endings and secrets and secret endings more paths and weirdness and Easter eggs encodes to decipher I haven't even deciphered all the ones shown in this video for you and some I haven't deciphered at all what's important to note about exploring games blind is that you don't need to find everything just the same as knowing nothing going in you don't need to know everything going out however since I have you here I'll tell you my thoughts about the game from what I have experienced the story of this game is definitely shrouded in a lot of surrealism but the general idea isn't too hard to get Tom the main character and who you play as in the story has some sort of means of detaching from reality it's heavily implied to be some sort of psychosis brought on by mental illness that he needs pills to keep from flaring up that being said there's also a lot of direct references to psychedelic looks and delirium drugs in the story especially mushrooms with not just that drug trip seen But heavily dilated pupils being shown as a texture in many different areas and branching paths Tom has a shaky and often dangerous relationship with Daisy his presumed wife that he has a kid with eventually ending in Tom murdering Daisy or both of them while the story in symbolism is a little obvious I do like how the story fakes us out multiple times you start believing you're a play tester for some Corporation only for that storyline to disappear as the game continues these environments can be assumed to be Tom's delusions that he thought were just a video game the Indigo parallels Inspirations are worn right on its sleeves the original email address to me listed LSD dream emulator and The Stanley Parable as primary Inspirations but it's also clear to me that space and especially The Surreal aspects of the Space Odyssey Series played a large part in it too however unlike those works that use weirdness and surreal aspects as a means to tell a greater story it feels like the Indigo parallel simply wants to be weird for weirdness sake the tagline of the email was the weirdest game you will ever play and it does feel like most decisions made in the game put being weird over any sort of cohesion and to be clear that's perfectly fine to do and was absolutely an intentional choice Kristen Ellen the solo developer of the game doesn't normally make things like this that QR code wasn't a random reference to a space show he likes before being a developer Chris worked on all six seasons of the expanse and it's actually what got him into video game development in his video talking about becoming a developer he comes off as any normal guy one with a strong passion for artistic work while sifting through the files for that QR code it really struck me just how much work goes into a game like this roughness Maps seamless repeating textures thousands upon thousands of images animation work a full soundtrack custom fonts and so so many parts for areas I haven't even seen yet and likely never will in that video of his he briefly talks about the Indigo parallel and I guess the rest is history I've been working on the game ever since and I've been trying to create something very unique and artistic and expressive and it really comes from a place of passion and my goal is to create a single player first-person experience like no other and without a doubt Chris has succeeded at that I felt things while playing the Indigo parallel that I haven't really felt while playing other games both positive and negative mixes of a unique sort of oppressive atmosphere random pop culture references plenty of left turns and puzzle solving it feels like a Jackson Pollock painting that's sitting rotting in a dark dank room a mess of colors and genres and ideas and themes that while disjointed and occasionally just thrown together still feel connected somehow and that Connecting Point is none other than Chris himself so Chris thank you for the steam key and thank you for the experience it's not one I'll soon forget that being said our journey into the Indigo parallel is now over the next video will be a video essay I promise to all those who join me today I don't know if I'll be making another video like this in the future I might have people enjoyed enough but regardless I want to direct you to some game exploration sources if you want to give it a try yourself for more videos similar to this one I suggest checking the YouTuber Chariot writer whose channel is entirely dedicated to obscure and interesting games similar to this one a channel named hey Peter starting a series about exploring games just like this one with his newest video about you may Nikki being surprisingly high quality for his channel size I also suggest Rock these Smiles in The Impressions series a let's play series dating back 10 years of him playing incredibly obscure Indie Games if you need a jumping off point sifting through the hole over 1 000 video long playlists will give you plenty of choices to go off of if you want to try out the Indigo parallel yourself it'll be linked in the description below and I have it on high Authority that there will be a small sale for the game from September 4th to the 11th and with all that said it's patreon time if you enjoyed the video and want to see more in the future please subscribe to my channel if you want to support me even further I have a patreon you know etc etc I don't feel like doing the whole Spiel but thank you to my patreon supporters Cecilio clear was here Jared chilled Mendel Wallace de Morganville or can atlin Brody Larson congruent crib dankly voidly Edmund dong SC Great Value gaming wrinkle stinkle lavender MF [ __ ] Boy Tactical cheese Willem words can truly not describe how much I hate this one human being he's disgusting haha zimborg a magic muffin bestest Patron Brian Jackson Chris Gunther Zach fetamus glugal jug inhumane bat Mr headcrab Mr trolley Molly no joke Oak flakes from outer space ribbonaster Robin Michael Robin Michael Becker cess shameful Ted H terrifying spoon and undersea Rexy VT that all being said thank you for watching and have a nice day foreign

Channel: The Cursed Judge

Views: 210,301

Keywords: the cursed judge, the indigo parallel, games you can never play again, out of bounds, gaming, analysis, game analysis, game exploration, myhouse.wad

Id: eKgci2ibISk

Length: 31min 40sec (1900 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 27 2023