In-between

As its game page will tell you, In-Between was created for a game jam with a 48 hour limit. And the trouble with reviewing games made within such strict limits is that you’re aware developers had operated at a certain disadvantage and it naturally tends to blunt one’s criticism, but only to a point. In-Between might be a short, 15-20 minute game, but that’s not the problem, far from it. I’ve played a few equally short games that managed to be worthwhile because of their cohesion and focus, which are exactly the things In-Between lacks.

Let’s begin with the aesthetics. Yes, all the watercolour levels look very nice, whether you view them in the night-time Ghost world or the daytime living one. However, they only exist as static, dead backgrounds, while all the action occurs on the primitive, white bars that serve as platforms for the game’s 8 or so single-screen levels. Graphical design is successful when it immerses the player in the game; design of In-between puts a solid wall between them. There’s also the tutorial screen (3 of them, in fact) which convey the game’s mechanics and controls through Arial text on ugly olive-green background. Granted, telling this stuff organically takes time, and I can forgive understand forgoing it within 48-hour limit. The olive-green background that looks nothing like any of the game’s vistas is quite unfortunate, though: even reusing a watercolour from one of the levels would've been a better decision.

To continue with the graphics, the facesets are another high point for the game; there are a lot of them, they’re done in the same art style, they’re quite expressive and they match the situations in which they’re used. The animations during normal gameplay are all quite stiff, however, and the monsters' animations are way too jerky. The sound design is thankfully pretty good, however. I really liked all of the tracks and the way they changed from daytime to nighttime worlds and vice versa. The environmental sounds are lacking as an understandable consequence of time limit. There’s the generic “Mario” jump sound, a solid crunch for the ground pound attack and a couple of other sounds (including the screech made when bird enemies connect with the protagonist).

Now, we can cover the gameplay. It’s going to be brief, because there isn’t much of it. Our protagonist (who is named Symphony for some bizarre reason, as music never figures in the storyline) can walk around and jump stiffly, as well as perform a ground pound that can kill one of the two enemy types and activate moving platforms near the end. She has two feathers in her inventory, which can be used an infinite number of times in order to switch from the ghost world to day-time world and vice versa. It has little gameplay function besides allowing her to talk to a ghost in a subway in the ghost form and pick up health and MP-restorative angel feathers in the “living” daytime form. Some of these feathers are already present on the level, while others are dropped by some of the defeated enemies. Defeating enemies also gives XP, which levels up both Symphony and her angel dog Wishbone, just like how enemies will damage both her and Wishbone in spite of her traversing alone, with the dog always watching from afar. It’s bizarre, but it’s only the first of the many logical inconsistencies that plague the game.



One example of game's platforming screens. Also, walking to the edge will keep on triggering the boss fight (in a supposedly polished version).

For instance, you might ask what’s the point of gaining XP in a platformer game. Well, that’s because it ends with a final boss fight that’s fought as a conventional turn-based battle. That battle again has some very pretty animations, but is very poor gameplay-wise. Both Symphony and her angel dog only have one skill, and it’s just to hit harder, with no tactical nuance to it. Narrative-wise, it would’ve made perfect sense for the dog to act in support role with heals, buffs and such, given that he guides you through the levels and stays on the sidelines throughout the whole game, but that opportunity is missed. Moreover, Symphony’s Strong Attack is a “ghost punch”, according to its description, which truly makes one wonder why she couldn’t punch anything during the platformer sections and had to resort to that ground pound. A kick of some sorts would’ve been more appropriate and helped to bridge the gap between platformer gameplay and that one battle. Lastly, it’s just far too easy for the last boss battle: I just had Symphony and the dog use their strong attacks every turn and they defeated the boss with no need to use either health or MP-restoring items.



Damn it, why couldn't you use that on those birds earlier?

The storyline might’ve been In-Between’s saving grace, but it's not sufficiently focused to do so. It begins with Symphony learning that she’s dead from her angel dog, Wishbone, which she shrugs off in a couple of sentences.



I suppose it's not like there were things you wanted to do back in life or something?

Wishbone then instructs her to close the gate of souls and disappears. We follow him to subway and learn from another ghost that the portal to the afterlife is broken and without it souls of the dead will disintegrate in time, a revelation that serves to some urgency in-universe, if not during the gameplay, which is remains equally placid for the next 3 screens.



You sure? Then again, at least she shows concern now.

As Symphony manages to surmise on her own, thousands of souls must’ve died for good due to that broken gate, and so it’s reasonable to assume that this is what the climax will be about. Instead, we get a practically unforeshadowed revelation (angel dog saying “Bad dog!” a dozen times doesn’t really count) that would’ve had worked in another story, but here it comes off as cheap pull at the heartstrings, and leads to the aforementioned boss battle, which feels forced for the sake of it, the antagonist’s motivation so loose it’s very difficult to care. And once that battle is over, the final revelation effectively grabs the spotlight and the gate is not addressed at all. If anything, it would’ve been best cut out, as the final revelation makes the whole idea rather unworkable once you think about it, so it's hard to get closure when your mind is likely concerned with "fridge horror" of the situation.



Those final screens are still nice, though.

All in all, In-Between has a few nice things about it, and again, it was made for a contest with tight deadline. I could've recommended it if it was just a little bit better in some key areas, but as it is, it just works against itself a bit too often for my liking.