Like solving puzzles with little to no help? INFRA might be for you

Voice acting equivalent of The Room

Some games just hand out answers to puzzles — if you can even call them that — with numbers or solutions written nearby. While the first-person adventure INFRA does this a bit, it certainly isn’t holding your hand most of the time.

In INFRA you’re playing as someone who inspects infrastructure for a living. Basically someone who looks at bridges, buildings, roads, and so forth to make sure they are safe for use. If you were to go into the game blind without watching the trailer, you’d probably think, “What an odd concept for a game. I literally just walk around and take pictures of cracks in bridges and dams?” before finding out something more insidious is going on.

Long story short, some rich guy bought up a lot of businesses in town and financially bankrupted them and is in cahoots with the local government, or so I gathered in my time with the game. While I enjoyed a lot of what I played in INFRA, I also found that it isn’t a game for me. So instead of doing a full numbered review, these are my impressions for those of you who would surely love it.

Most of your time in INFRA will be spent solving puzzles involving buttons, levers, and even some platforming. When those things work, they work great, but other times it can almost feel like you’re glitching the game. For example, at one point I came across a saw mill and couldn’t find a way through it. I did, however, find some crates that were able to be picked up and stacked, so I did just that to get on the roof and jump across to continue the game. Was this the solution the developers had intended or had I just “cheated” my way forward? I have no idea.

“I have no idea” is a great way to describe many of the puzzles. I like to think of myself as a person of some intelligence, yet many times I felt I was just randomly pressing buttons or levers till I stumbled across the solution. Other times I’d piece together tidbits of information found on stationary or posters nearby to give me an idea of how to complete a puzzle, but most of the time there was no hand holding, for better or worse. 

INFRA runs on the Source engine, but it makes good use of it; crumbling buildings, murky water, vibrant caves, and green foliage stand out while not being wholly impressive. For an indie title from a team that no one has ever heard of, it gets the job done and didn’t make me want to tear my eyeballs out. If anything the graphics not being top of the line and striving to be realistic help set the tone of a city falling apart.

I had hoped for a story driven mystery, but the story presented suffered heavily from a shoddy localization with bad grammar abound. On top of that, INFRA has some of the most unintentionally funny and awkward voice acting I’ve heard in a game. Upon starting the game, you’ll be greeted with a boardroom where your boss is going over assignments with you and coworkers, and everyone is fully voiced in a scene that I’d call the video game equivalent of The Room as seen below. That is a both a compliment and a complaint by the way. If the original trailer hadn’t had such wonderful voice work that got me to play the game in the first place, I wouldn’t be writing this, but I also kind of love how awful it is. 

After six hours, I got to the point that I felt I couldn’t be bothered with stumbling through any more puzzles by chance. I don’t think INFRA is a bad game by any means, just not one that I’m not ready for. It made me question whether or not I’m stupid or if some of the puzzles just didn’t make sense, but it was often enjoyable. If you’re looking for an interesting take on the first-person adventure puzzle game that will make you scratch your head, this is for you. Otherwise, maybe wait for a sale. 

INFRA launched on Steam with the first part of the game available now, and the second part to be released later this year for free. Judging by the very positive Steam reviews, you’ll get between 12 and 15 hours out of what is currently released for $15.