INK is promoted as the world’s first splatformer and, for lack of a better description, that’s exactly what it is. Like other fast-paced platformers, INK has you moving from platform to platform and wall jumping, all the while you are jumping on enemies, avoiding falling to your death, and defeating bosses. Think N++ or Super Meat Boy, but with one not-so-small difference – the levels are almost completely void until you splash ink on them to uncover where platforms and walls are located in each level. Some levels will show you the location of enemies, giving you an indication of where they are in order to avoid certain death by jumping into them, but aside from that each level is a blank canvas.
Anywhere that you jump, slide or bounce from will cause ink to spray from your white marshmallow-like body, revealing the location of areas that are safe to jump on. With jump as your only real form of movement, you find out early on that you may double jump while in the air or wall jump when you run into any wall. Hitting a wall will allow your double jump to reset so you can catapult off of the wall and double jump onto the next platform. This pretty much sums up what you’ll be doing as you progress through the 75 levels of INK. As you progress further through the game the difficulty and enemies get harder, but even before you get very deep into the game the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly.
Thankfully, there are no set number of lives in INK, which you’ll appreciate as you’re bouncing your way through a level and just miss your platform or slide off the other side heading for certain death. The level simply restarts, anything that you have uncovered with your ink remains that way, but the enemies are all back whether you had killed them on your last attempt or not. With no set number of lives you’ll feel better about trying different ways to progress through the level since there is no “game over” when you fail. Dying also sends ink exploding all around, uncovering even more area for you on your next attempt.
Progressing through levels can sometimes feel out of your control as well. Bouncing off walls and enemies sends you hurtling in what appears to be random directions. With no apparent rhyme or reason as to which way you’ll fly off, it becomes hard to plan out your path and soon you’ll be bouncing off platforms and walls uncontrollably in an attempt to stay alive. After several attempts you may find that you need to give your thumb a break before proceeding. Whether the platforms should have been a little bigger or the bouncing a little more contained, one way or another it’s hard to not feel like something should have been tightened up just a little bit in order to make you feel a little more in control.
On the technical side, the graphics look nice, but a little dated. Not necessarily in a bad way, it just looks more like a game that would have been at home on an earlier console. The exception to this is in handheld mode as the smaller screen makes the colors pop and hides the rigid edges of squared off objects – making the game look absolutely gorgeous. Though playing in hand held mode does not feel as good as playing the game docked with a Pro Controller, it looks beautiful.
The music is where the game really shines as the soundtrack is atmospheric and a treat for your ears. It perfectly matches what’s happening on screen and you may find yourself stopping just to listen to the music at times while resting your thumbs.
One thing we wish was present here is some sort of leaderboard. You can turn on a timer and compete against your best score, but it would be fun to compete against friends and other players as well.
Recommendation: INK is a challenging fast-paced platformer, so anyone who enjoys games in that genre like the ones mentioned here should definitely give INK a shot… especially on the Switch where games in this genre are rare. The added value of uncovering the levels with ink makes the game equally fun for casually players and speed-runners alike, but regardless of where your skill level falls expect a pretty good challenge if you hope to complete the game.
*INK was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.
