Inaria Original

Inaria Original is a compact action game from Viridian Games with the kind of straightforward design that makes freeware from the early 2000s so easy to appreciate. The experience focuses on movement, enemies and challenges rather than drowning the player in menus, statistics and twenty different crafting systems. Its presentation may be modest, but there is a clear emphasis on keeping the gameplay moving and rewarding experimentation. Games from this period often had to make a strong impression with limited resources, and Inaria Original fits comfortably into that tradition. It is an interesting little snapshot of independent PC development, when downloading a small executable from the internet could reveal anything from a brilliant hidden gem to something wonderfully bizarre.