The Monster Inside

Noir movies are designed to be as bleak as possible in terms of atmosphere, especially since they are usually filmed in black & white. However, the characters, the story and the soundtrack play a huge role as well, because all of these elements must work together in order to provide the viewers with a memorable experience. Thus, the recipe is quite clear, but it’s difficult to get it right.

The Monster Inside is a fun adventure game with text-based gameplay mechanics and a bit of visual aid in the form of a handful of black & white dioramas. You play the role of an investigator as you tackle a variety of mysteries, some of which feature beasts and powerful magic. Naturally, you navigate these cases by making decisions every time text appears on the screen.

Your character also suffers from a strange illness that forces him to follow a pretty strict treatment in order to stay alive. Even if he has to take pills every morning, that doesn’t stop him from smoking two packs a day and consume quite a bit of alcohol over the course of the day. Hence, this is textbook detective material, although in this case there’s quite a bit of humor involved.

The cases you investigate are a bit more serious, on the other hand, and they can actually keep you interested in spite of the simple mechanics. Your character approaches every situation in his unique way, although sometimes you are in control of the decisions. It would appear that the story follows the same route regardless of your choices, but the illusion is quite convincing most of the time.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the emphasis is on the story itself, so barely any effort went into the backgrounds. The dioramas are fairly well-designed, but don’t expect more than a handful of them over the course of the game. However, the soundtrack is much better, since every track immediately sends you to a dark place and helps a lot with the atmosphere.

In the end, The Monster Inside is a tad too short to really make an impression on you, but the atmosphere is spot on most of the time. Hence, it’s definitely worth a shot if you are a fan of the noir genre and mystery games in general.