Iji

By: Derek Yu

On: September 2nd, 2008

Daniel Remar’s Iji is undoubtedly his most ambitious game. It’s also his best by far. No small feat from the guy who brought us Castle of Elite!

In the game you play the titular heroine – a human-turned-cyborg equipped with alien nanotechnology. Waking in a space station in the midst of an alien invasion, she must use her new-found powers to save what’s left of mankind. Somewhere else in the station is her brother, Dan, who guides her via the speaker system.

Iji is broken up into a number of very large sectors, most of which have multiple paths. Depending on what weapons and upgrades you have, you can brute force your way through each sector, or take a more pacifist approach by sneaking around and cracking systems (via a simple minigame). Or anything in between! These choices have the potential to alter the game’s narrative and affect new outcomes.

Combat is visceral and feels good, especially with the game’s excellent soundtrack pumped up. Once again, you have a variety of attacks at your disposal – you can, of course, take on enemies head-on, blasting them with your Nanogun or kicking them to death (if your Strength stat is high enough). Alternately, you can crack an opponent’s defense systems and sabotage their weapons, or perhaps defeat them in other, even less direct ways.

Overall, I’m just really impressed with how much there is to do in this game, and how much choice the player has in each situation. It’s a testament to Daniel’s strength as a designer that very little of it feels forced. And considering that there are also four different difficulty levels and a wealth of unlockable bonus features (some hidden in remote areas of the game), you can bet that you’ll be (happily) spending some quality time with this one. It’s destined to be a classic of some sort.

TIGdb: Entry for Iji

Posted in Freeware, Highly Recommended, Platformers, Windows | Tags: DanielRemar

reallyjoel

Every time I post about this game, Daniel thinks I sound like a hired marketing guy that tries to hype the game. So I wont say much about, other than it took you long enough to get it on the front page ;-)
Movius

This is the best game ever. 100% true facts.
Jay

Yay i really like this game.=) Reminds me of ‘Out of this World’ and ‘Cave Story’ =)
nervozix

Any game in which the main female character looks and sounds like a trannie is far from being a classic; a “classic of some sort”… probably
muku

This game is indeed super awesome. I’ve been blasting through the Tasen lines like a lunatic so far and have just killed the first boss, but I’ll be sure to go back and play more stealthily in order to see how far-reaching the consequences of the player’s actions truly are.
michael

titular
moderately hot chick

Cracking doesn’t seem to be very effective against enemies.
http://lumberingdream.com/ !CE-9

I can’t wait to boot into windows again. Even tho programmer art, I’ve got no qualms against the graphics (apart from the main characters walking animation). If it feels half as awesome as it looks, it’s a great game.
http://lumberingdream.com/ !CE-9

I mean, I don’t mind it being more than half as awesome as it looks.=))
Pyrrhon

Wow, this game really sucks you in! It feels very polished. The gameplay is a perfect mix between slow paced games like Flahback and fast paced action. This is indeed an indie classic!
AmnEn

Wow. To me this is the gem of the year. This game is superb.
Nillo

Hot damn. What is this and why have I never heard of it before? It’s totally awesome. It feels like Deus Ex turned into a platformer.

I’m going to play this some more and say my final opinion later.
HandCraftedRadio

Really cool game, but for some reason some of the sprites don’t have transparency for some reason. Is this happening to anyone else?
JOOLA

I haven’t played it yet but doubt it will be better than Garden Gnome Carnage.
Vincent

I fucking hate Game Maker-Games! Because they never run properly on my system! (Windows XP newest SP, newest DirectX)
Nillo

It runs good enough on mine – a bit of lag sometimes, but it works. However when I tried to Alt+Tab it the game crashed. Odd.
Valkyrie

Great game. Went run-and-gun on Normal first time and pacifist next time on Hard, though somehow still managed to kill 6 people…. My only problem with the game is the ridiculous lag I get in a boss battle, though everywhere else it runs great, even in chaotic battles.
Jay

Just finished the game! It was great! I went trough with guns blazing :D

The only problems were at the Assassin boss and the end boss, i got heavy lags there.

I’ll try to be a pacifist next time, too :D
Greender

Good game so far, seems really complex and fun.
But some sprites don’t have trasparency in my machine too.
Andy Hull

This game was so good i had to play through all at once.

I killed massive amounts of dudes. :)

The different ways to level up really feel like they could change how you play.

I maxed out health, cracking, and strength by the end, so I never got the last level of either set of weapons. But you don’t really need them anyhow… go figure. (i had the rockets and red blaster though, and all combinations)

The kick seems like it sucks, but it is quite good if you level it up. You can air-juggle dudes and shoot them as they fall, and it will save you TONS of ammo.

btw– was anyone able to actually shoot the last boss to death with guns? I didn’t have any of the top level weapons or nearly enough ammo capacity. :(

I dont know if ill play though again soon, but I was super impressed.

It was super annoying that you cant shoot while jumping, or aim up or down or diagonal. So many things I wanted to shoot while jumping :

And the secrets must be super hidden. I don’t think I found one. Rocket Jump? You can Rocket Jump? You cant even aim the rocket at the floor!
Valkyrie

The rocket jump is when you get nailed with a rocket and fly backwards. You can see it in the trailer when Iji flies through some glass.
johnny

wow, looks great.
love the fluid movements of the character.
Dominic White

Blazed through Normal difficulty as a pacifist – got what I assume is the happy ending, but there’s still at least one plot thread still not covered. Looks like I’ll be replaying this one.

Also, because I’m a genius, I’ve already figured out where the entrance to Sector Z is and how to get there. Unfortunately you need all 10 hidden posters from around the game on the higher difficulty settings to access it. Bah.

Anyone got a savegame?
reallyjoel

Yeah, I do.. I even got debug mode!
reallyjoel

@ JOOLA: No, only one game is better than GGC, and that’s Cake Game.
Ryan

Ugh. I played through the first couple of sectors late last night, but now I have so much homework and classes that I probably won’t have time to pick it up and play it some more before this weekend.

Why couldn’t I have gotten this at the beginning of the labor day weekend? Argh!
wat

I just got to the stage where the 2 alien races start fighting each other.
Is it just me,or does the music here sound a lot like tom sawyer?
The “DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO, DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO” part of Tom Sawyer.
You guys know what I’m talking about.
UnrealClock

I can’t say I’m to excited about the character art. It looks a little iffy, but the gameplay sure seems fun
GeneralValter

Argh! There’s so much to doooooooo! I’ll never finish it all!
Pyrrhon

Seriously, the second boss i awesome! This game is keeping me from getting my beauty sleep, and trust me, i need it.
Lim-Dul

Hmmm – I’m not that impressed with the game. No, that’s not the right choice of words.

I AM impressed with the game and I clearly see where all the development time has gone to BUT in my opinion less would have been more in this particular case.

I don’t dig the gameplay, the RPG elements, the story etc. even though the graphics remind me of one of my favorite games – Another World (a.k.a. Out of This World).

It’s back to Tecno the Base, Action Doom2 and Lyle in Cube Sector for me. ^^
Quetz

I feel like I’m missing so many items and stuff! I’m at like sector 8 but I’ve only gotten about 3 supercharges and I think i stopped finding Mia’s bows around sector 4. Still, it’s a great game and I’m totally enjoying it instead of writing the paper due tomorrow that I haven’t started!
Andy Hull

supercharges? huh? what be those?
Quetz

They give you an extra point to spend. A log somewhere says that there’s one in every sector.
Andy Hull

what do they look like? oh daddy.
Zeno

They look like kinda like an atomic model. It’s like three nano-things spinning around a middle part.

Anyways, I just beat the game as a pacifist, at least, I only had six kills. I didn’t get all the ribbons though, and Iji went a little nuts near the end.

First time I started on this I just went all-out killing everything, then it really disturbed me when she stopped saying “sorry” after killing something, so I redid it with as few kills as I could manage.
Ryan

Yeah. Hearing her say sorry after killing people prompted me to kill less people. :(
Quetz

I never even noticed her say sorry… I did notice when she started saying like OHHHHH YEAH and similar violent exclamations when killing enemies later in the game. I haven’t even attempted to be slightly pacifistic yet.
Advenith

I just got this today and played up until the final stage, but the last boss lags like hell. Actually, all the bosses do… And my PC is pretty recent. Any suggestions on reducing the boss lag to manageable levels?
popopopo

Anyone else crashing? I’m crashing right after I destroy the desk with the gun at the beginning of the tutorial thing :(. Tried it 3 times, 800×600 fullscreen XP. Someone help!
MP

This game is made of win.
CMspice

The sprite graphics is the only thing I have to complain about but seriously. I don’t really care. There’s an overall aesthetic and that’s whats important as far as graphics goes.

I’m just past the assasin boss. Reading through these comments, I realize I should probably be paying a bit more attention to whats actually happening in the game. The notebooks get kinda annoying and I sorta jump read them. I never heard anyone say “sorry” or anything. I guess the pacifist route is out for me. Starting on hard might not have been the best idea either. The gameplay is so solid. The level design is good. Most importantly, the game is has that quality that makes you forget you’re playing a game.

This is the sort of game you hope for and comes around maybe once every other year. It might not meet the homely all-rounded perfection of cave story or have an immense mysterious luscious (actually more like decaying) world of la mulana, but the few faults are easily overlooked and seriously, the game is just flat out AWESOME.
Carnivac

Indie game of the year for me by far and easily one of my all time faves. I love pretty much everything about it. And it’s the first game in ages where not only have I felt compelled to finish it, but I’ve even looked forward to playing through again and again.

Bit odd some people getting lag. My computer ain’t state of the art and the only time’s I’ve noticed any lag at all was when there were a lot of opposing enemies blasting the crap out of each other (the slight slow down being quite nice so I could see everything that was going on).
Xion

this is an awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome game. I literally did nothing for four and a half hours as I played through it. I’ma play through it again this weekend (more passively).
It did slow down a wee bit on the final boss, but nothing too bad. Just a little. Loved the cutscenes tho. Sorta Flashbackish. Only stiller. But cool nonetheless. ANYWAY.
I just had to express my love for this game to the world. So it’s cool I guess.
Melly

Quite awesome so far. Still haven’t beaten it, and I’m actually playing two consecutive save files, one pacifist and the other mowing down everything that moves.
Cybolt

I spent the whole day on the game and finally finished the game. Wow, that was awesome! I can’t wait to go through it again but in a different style.
AmnEn

Heh, my Computer could handle Crysis just fine but had lots of trouble with some of the Bosses.
The last Bossfight took me about 20 minutes, for the sole reason that I was playing with about 2-3 FPS. The Slowdowns are a real killer for an otherwise perfect game.
Ultimortal

Thanks for the comments everyone.

The only thing I can think of that makes the final boss in particular slow down is because it (and most of its weapons and special effects) is drawn with polygons, not sprites, and some graphics cards may not like Game Maker’s way of handling polygons. Several other bosses use a lot of lines, circles or polygons in their special effects too. So unfortunately, the only advice I have there is to try playing it on a different computer.

As for the sprites turning into black boxes, there’s an option in the pause menu called “Reload graphics” which is specifically made to counter this problem. If that still doesn’t take care of it, again, your graphics card doesn’t like Game Maker’s way of doing things I’m afraid.

As for the game crashing outright, I have no idea. It’s never happened on any computer I’ve tried it on. Sounds like a possible conflict in your drivers or Direct X – I can’t find anything in the game which would explain why it crashes on specific points.

I knew I should have learned a proper programming language…
fartron

>michael said about 3 hours later:
>
>titular

It means “female”
Neon

Love this game.
Best game I’ve played in a very long time.

Level 5’s music is half YYZ and half Tom Sawyer solo.