Quick Review: INK

I’m tasked with painting an accurate picture of this game; I thINK I will do just fine.

Wall-jumping and double-jumping.
In theory, those two abilities can get you anywhere.
You better get good at using them.

INK is a creation of ZackBellGames and was published to Steam on August 5th, 2015. In this abstract game, you control Roy G. Biv, a simple white square, moving around grand areas of emptiness. Roy leaves colors behind wherever it goes. It can jump on walls and even double jump; and when it double jumps, it splatters color all over the place. You can’t see the platforms until you color them by your movements and jumps. No seeing red doors and painting them black here. The bottom of the screen will kill you; normal, it’s like endless pits, right? Wrong! While later levels can scroll up, down, left or right, coming into contact with the edge of a level, be it the very top, the far left or the far right, will also kill Roy. At least, when Roy died, he splatters some more color, so you can see the level a little better.

Getting tougher...

Every leap is a leap of faith.

I’m a bit green at this; I’m sure Roy will end up black and blue by the end. Well, it dies in a single hit. Good thing it’s not leaving only red behind, huh? Not like its fellow “lives in a platformer Hell” indie star Meat Boy. Well, Roy has roughly the same life expectancy – it dies if it merely brushes something dangerous, be it spikes or enemies (said enemies are, also, simple shapes). It may not be quite Platform Hell, but damn if it comes close. When there’s an achievement for dying 500 times in a game that contains 75 levels, you have some idea of the difficulty. It’s almost sadistic – but again, if you played anything like Super Meat Boy, then you know what the game is like. Let’s just say, I made use of some, ahem, colorful language on several occasions.

You know things are serious when they get their guns out.

Yes, all the clear triangles are guns.
All the full triangles are bullets.
And you are an almost-defenseless square.

As usual, new elements get added over time. Spikes; enemies to kill; cannons that shoot in straight lines; moving platforms; keys and locks; and cannons that shoot Roy-seeking missiles. Lord knows the platforming wasn’t already hard enough!

The graphics are simple, which is the point – part of the gameplay involves adding color to the world, after all. The music’s fine as well. As for the skill level required… I won’t lie, it’s a tough game, and my fingers even hurt when I finished it. If you like extra-hard games, it’s right up your alley. Heck, if you’ve got determination and patience, have too much free time, and are a little bit crazy like me, you can probably finish it after some time. Hey, I got the 500 deaths achievement on my first playthrough. It’s a fun one.

INK costs about 4.99$ on Steam.