INMOST is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. This 2D retro pixel platformer (yes, one of so many thousand on Steam) is more of a walking sim trying to be an art exhibit than an actual game that gamers would want to play. Which is not to say there isn't a game here, it's just that the game itself is unrelated to a fairly horrible dark narrative. I think if you could distill and weaponize pretentiousness, the resultant product would be called INMOST.

Don't get me wrong, games can be art, but art is where the finest craftsmanship meets the greatest expression... and this doesn't have either. It's a retro pixel platformer, for crying out loud. Games are a sum of their parts and when some of the parts are a huge negative, the rest of the game suffers greatly.

The pixel art here is extremely polished, and you know what they say, you can't polish the proverbial but you can roll it in glitter. There's lipstick on the pig, here. The game looks awful and has been polished anyway. That just strikes me as a waste of effort.

Anyway I guess I should relate what the mobile app actually is... it follows the story of a girl and basically rams it down your throat, I won't spoil the plot but it's hamfisted and dark just for the sake of trying to make people feel uncomfortable, as far as I can tell. You can see what I mean when I say this is pretentious. The gameplay itself is pretty bad... it's plodding and slow and clunky puzzle platforming, carry this here, climb up that, etc etc. You know how Super Meat Boy did really well despite having terrible graphics because the gameplay was so fluid and fun? This is the opposite of that.

From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.

While there are options to change the resolution for the mobile app, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the mobile app, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals.

The controls and game handling are notably very clunky and unsmooth here. It's janky and unsatisfying to play... and any experienced gamer will tell you, the handling, responsiveness and general gameplay feel of the control scheme must be well polished for this kind of game to succeed. Unfortunately, this is something the developer seems to have phoned in, with little to no apparent gameplay testing. They dropped the ball on this one.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the mobile app unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.

Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.

These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

So, should you buy this mobile app? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

INMOST has the greedy, cash grab price of $11 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the mobile app, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $11 asking price for this game could get you games like "Monster Hunter World", "Grand Theft Auto V" or "Deep Rock Galactic". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

$11 for an iPhone app. Jesus wept.

exceptional!

Loved the style of the game. Mostly dark themes but still an enjoyable short game.