Innocence
Island

Innocence Island (2022) is an adventure game where find yourself in a strange land without even the memory of how to walk. You explore the world by observing and learning skills from the creatures around you. It stands out as a journey through a world where knowledge is hard won and even the simplest of tasks must be learned from first principles.

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The game starts as you wake up in a new land, not even able to move around. As you observe animals in your sightline you gain understanding of movement. You then must learn other ways to traverse the huge world. For example, gaining the ability to jump after watching a monkey or swing a sword after watching someone using it during a fight.

As you progress you choose between a peaceful and respectful path or violence and destruction. The choice you make is noticed by the world which evolves accordingly. From here you seek out new people and animals to learn from and steadily gain the usual skills of an adventure game: fishing, forging and combat.

This enables you to not only travel deeper into the world, but also solve puzzles and help the inhabitants you meet to unlock past memories and the mystery of your arrival here. Eventually you can harness the power of the Spell Statues and ride animals' spirits.

The result is a game that takes the Metroid trick of disempowering the player to its extreme conclusion where you can't even walk. It's a peculiar idea but one that is both entertaining and intriguing. The visuals and audio of the game build with your returning abilities to come to a creciendo that is surprisingly affecting, especially if you have lived experience of amnesia.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Innocence Island 17 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 months ago.