Exploring the environment in INDIKA plays a key role in shaping the player's experience. As developers, we aimed not only to reward exploration with collectibles but to fill the world with expressive and distinctive visual content that would encourage players to discover every corner of the virtual space on their own.

One of my contributions to the project was designing the interiors of abandoned rural houses. To achieve visual authenticity and emotional depth, I drew from personal experience: I traveled to a Belarusian village in the Mogilev region—my childhood home, where my family’s house now stands empty. This trip allowed me to immerse myself in the atmosphere of deserted countryside interiors. I gathered references there, which became the foundation for my work on the project.

Our goal as a team was to ensure that the game’s interiors felt neither generic nor impersonal, but instead told a story—complex, layered, and unsettling. We aimed to infuse each space with distinct features that reflected the personality and inner world of its inhabitant, while also capturing the domestic characteristics of a specific historical era. Every house was designed in such a way that its layout, details, and atmosphere conveyed themes of sin, inner brokenness, and psychological distress.

One of the first locations created was the icon painter’s house—a mandatory stop on the player’s route. To give the resident a unique trait, we decided to remove the eyes from all the icons he had painted. At the same time, the player can find sketches of eyes in the room, suggesting that the painter is indeed capable of drawing them. This raises a question: why does he deliberately leave the faces of the saints unfinished? The answer unfolds as the player ventures deeper into the house—on the bed lies a “pleasure doll,” hinting at a shameful, hidden side of the character’s life. Thus, the icon painter’s refusal to depict eyes becomes a symbolic act—a desperate attempt to hide his sins from the all-seeing gaze of the saints.

Next to the icon painter’s house stands the home of a character embodying the sin of gluttony. Visiting this location is optional, but attentive players may stumble upon it through exploration. In INDIKA, one of the game’s striking visual techniques is the use of exaggerated scale for objects that held significance in the lives of people at that time: oversized animals, monumental churches. At the heart of this house stands a giant samovar—a symbol of the central role that constant indulgence plays in the resident’s life. Notably, there is only one chair at the table, subtly telling the player that all the food is prepared for a single person.

Another house in the village belongs to the hoarder. He is one of the few villagers the player can see physically. After the accident at the paint factory, which led to the emergency evacuation of the village, the resident of this house—driven by greed—tried to save as many of his possessions as possible. However, unable to bear the weight of his load and the harsh conditions, he froze to death along the way. His body, partially embedded in the snow, lies on the ground in front of the house—surrounded by the very belongings that caused his demise.

Another sin depicted in the game is pride. On the grounds of the fish factory, players can find a workers’ break room featuring a productivity ranking chart. One of the employees, who had held the top spot for a long time, couldn’t come to terms with falling to second place one month. The consequences of his inner collapse are conveyed through visual details: on the table next to the ranking chart lie a memorial photograph, a glass of vodka, and a piece of bread resting on top — traditional symbols of mourning.

Some interiors in the game speak not only of human sinfulness but also reveal other somber themes. For example, the undertaker’s house near the village graveyard tells a story through a tense juxtaposition: in one room, small coffins for children stand side by side with a puppet theater meant for them. The setting tells of a woodworker who crafts objects both for the living and the dead. It is a story about care—and the fragility of human life.

One of the places in the game that explores the theme of human downfall is the homeless shelter in the city of Spasov. As players explore this location, they discover that its residents are former members of the intelligentsia—writers, musicians, and artists—who have fallen from grace, much like the characters in Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths. Though they’ve hit rock bottom socially, they haven’t lost the memory of their past lives. This is reflected in the visual design of the interior: drawn in charcoal on the walls are images of furniture, food, fine clothing—all the things that once surrounded them in better days. These drawings serve as both a reflection of lost dignity and a fragile attempt to hold onto the shadow of a former life.

Many interiors contain hidden easter eggs: quotes and portraits of team members, as well as objects reflecting moments we experienced during development. These elements add an extra layer to the game world—a personal, almost confessional one—allowing the player to sense the presence of those behind the game’s creation and to glimpse traces of their lives embedded within the fictional space.

You can see more scenes and in-game shots on the team’s ArtStation pages:

Elena Alt
Maxim Skobelev
Daniil Lempert
Arthur Nizamutdinov
Anton Shvedov
Georgii Posedko
Dmitry Svetlow

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