Indika, an adventure game following a nun’s integration into the church while she also has some kind of connection to the Devil himself, often deploys mundanity to great effect. One of the game’s most memorable moments has very little to do with the church or God. There’s a segment when Indika is asked to fetch pails of water. This means walking back and forth through cold slush as you slowly lower a bucket down a well, dragging it to a barrel, and doing it all over again until it’s full.
Once you do that, another nun in the monastery just walks outside and dumps the barrel onto the ground. The entire process can take around 10 minutes, and all your hard work gets tossed aside in a matter of seconds. Plenty of games waste your time through poor design decisions or intentionally obtuse grinding, but Indika makes you do something incredibly monotonous, then spits in your face as a reminder of your place in its world. It is maddening and mean-spirited, and when all is said and done, all you can do is laugh. Or cry.
Those are just a handful of memorable moments we loved in games in 2024. For more of Kotaku’s year-in-review coverage, check out our most-read stories from last year.
