Buy I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

I played as a Nazi Scientist and removed the spinal chord of a young Jewish boy FOR SCIENCE.

10/10 would question my own humanity again.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a fascinating piece of work. It's one of those games, much like Scratches, that works wonders with atmosphere, but not so much when it comes to the actual gameplay. Although where Scratches had a really tense, frightening atmosphere, No Mouth is more mysterious and depressing. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream works more with fridge horror, I feel. Yeah, it's creepy, but it's only truly scary if you sit back and think about it. And you will, because it's a tale that provokes thought.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was originally a famous short story by one Mr. Harlan Ellison. If you get the chance, I recommend giving it a read, as there's a reason it's so famous. Actually, that's a lie. I don't recommend reading it. I really recommend listening to it. The I Have No Mouth audiobook, read by Harlan Ellison himself, is truly a treasure of audio. Ellison is hammy and over-the-top, but man does he sell it. The man gets completely into his story, and it benefits immensely from it.

If you've done the above, then I think you'll be more than pleased to hear that Ellison also plays AM, the maniacally hate-filled, torturous supercomputer who serves as your antagonist and tormenter for the duration of this game. He's every bit as hammy and over-the-top, and it's hard not to hang on his every word. The other voices in the game vary in quality, but you won't really notice the dips as you'll be too focused on the unfolding storylines, and also on WHAT DO I DO

So let's start with the story. You play five different characters, who comprise the entire remaining human population of Earth. AM, a colossal supercomputer which resides beneath the crust of the Earth, more or less got frustrated with his lot in life and unleashed the world's supply of nukes at... well, the world. But it kept five human beings alive to be his playthings for the remainder of eternity. For over a hundred years, these five humans have been subjected to ungodly torments, and now AM would like to play a little game.

Each character is thrown into a scenario built especially for them, expected to be horrible and miserable for AM's amusement. The true goal before you is to fail AM, and prove yourself above his petty games. It is in these scenarios that you will learn about each character, their faults, their history, and a little bit about AM himself and what's going on behind the scenes and beyond your view.

This obviously differs from the original story, as these scenarios never existed. They were created (with major input from Ellison) especially for this game in order to give more backstory on the characters. Things change. The story as a whole changes. But it's still very much I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

Let's talk about the gameplay.

It could be better.

IHNM is presented in a classic SCUMM format. You have a list of verbs and an inventory at the bottom of the screen, both of which can be used to interact with the world around you. You will talk to characters, solve puzzles, find objects. All the familiar trappings of a good point-and-click adventure. So far, so good. The first major hitch is that eternal adventure game hellspawn, the unrelated event. You know what I'm talking about. When you do a thing, which triggers an unrelated thing to happen somewhere else which you have no way of knowing about and no reason to think might have happened. So many point-and-click adventures have fallen prey to this design flaw (Myst IV and Hector 3 among them, just thinking off the top of my head, here), and I wish it would stop.

I had one point in the first scenario I picked where I didn't know what to do. I looked up a guide, and it didn't help. I thought maybe my game was glitched, as I had done everything the guide had ordered. And then I saw it. A very subtle thing. A line in the guide telling me to exhaust a certain character's dialogue. All I had skipped (for reasons that we'll get to in a moment) was an entirely unnecessary rude line that doesn't actually help anything. But lo and behold, when burning off that one useless line of dialogue caused an unrelated character to appear in a different location, freeing progression from the devs' icy cold grip.

There are some other annoying bits, here and there. Some items and interactables that aren't exactly obvious on the screen. Two scenarios allow you to progress past important items or before doing mandatory bits. It's problematic, and very confusing when it happens. Luckily, it's possible to die after this moment in one of the scenarios, bringing you back to the character select where you can choose to try again. For the other one... well, just keep multiple saves, is all.

In addition to simply making through each scenario, every character has a personal spiritual meter. The better the spirits they're in, the lighter the background behind their portrait in the lower-left becomes. Practice good morals and make progress to lighten it. Screw up, be corrupt or evil, or just cause your character to freak out to darken it. If the meter turns white as the scenario draws to a close, you've perfected that scenario. This is not always easy to do. I only managed it in two scenarios.

They say you need to get a white meter with each character in order to see the best ending, and that's going to require either a guide or multiple playthroughs. I wonder, though. I'm pretty positive I did in fact get the best ending, despite not having all whites. I think it's probably possible as long as each character has almost a white meter, or a couple characters have white meters and everyone else is close? Or something? Though don't quote me on that, I really don't know, and there's a surprising lack of entirely helpful documentation on this subject.

Anyways, my advice is to not worry about it. Do your best and get an ending, whatever that ending may be. Give the finale a few tries, though, because you'll probably screw it up a couple times.

Anyways, point is, the game looks great and sounds great, and the story will draw you all sorts of in. Just be aware that you may need to consult the Internet at times, and be sure to rotate your saves. Or do what I did and just make each save a new one, because this game seems to have infinite slots. Which is a nice feature.

For all its faults, I still enjoyed the majority of my time with I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. And if you're a fan of the original story, or games which not only don't shy away from adult themes, but walk straight through a minefield of adult themes and take it all in stride with a sly grin upon their lips, then I think you'll enjoy it too.

Every choice in this game is deciding if you want to either suffer or suffer.

This is the most twisted game I have ever played, you start the game with 5 tortured prisoners being held by a psychotic computer named AM (he is voiced by Harlan Ellison, the guy who made this game with Cyber Dreams & the book version that he wrote), it's a choice driven point and click adventure game so you can pick any character or decision you want.

As you progress through the past of these 5 characters you'll feel what they feel about themselves like for example Gorrister's Guilt, Ellen's pain, Benny's ignorance, Nimdok's desires for torture & Ted's lust. The main goal of the game is to either satisfy AM by making the wrong choices or you can fix the past by making good choices.

The whole point of the game is to lose, there is no hope for humanity & overall if you feel that games aren't dark enough then play this awesome classic. (Warning if your sensitive to ♥♥♥♥, torture, murder, satanism, sacrifices, lust and etc. then this game isn't for you)

UPDATE: I found this awesome interview from Night Dive's website about the game & some of Harlan's opinions http://www.nightdivestudios.com/harlanellison_interview.html

UPDATE 2: If you liked this game & you want to hear more from Harlan Ellison then I suggest taking a look at his youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XrlRQsRxYfuc47CCJN05w or his twitter http://www.twitter.com/HarlanEllison9 (I thought Harlan was anti-digital but he's slowly liking technology & the internet)

UPDATE 3: The original story is available on Good Reads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415459.I_Have_No_Mouth_and_I_Must_Scream

I just finished this game, it truely is a unique but terrifying game. Not in the sense that you get scared but rather that you get slightly disturbed by its event.

The game features 5 stories, each per character and a final act that ends the game. Each character has a mayor flaw and fear which they have to conquer. Make sure to save frequently! I had the pleasure to replay 20 minutes of gameplay after i clicked the wrong option...

Oh and, what a WONDERFUL voice cast. I truely enjoyed every voice work done in the game, especially Benny, Ellen and Nimdok have a wonderful voice.

I have no mouth, and I must scream is a classic adventure game first released back in 1996. Since its release, it's acquired a large cult following, hailing it for its dark and very mature storyline. It's based on a short story by Harlan Ellison, released in 1967.

Story
The game takes place 109 after the destruction of mankind. A computer calling itself AM, which was originally created to wage war with the other super powers. Wars had become so complex that humans could not oversee them, which resulted the three super powers (USA, Russia & China) creating their own super computers, which ended up wiping out humanity.
AM hates humans. It hates humans for what they've done. Hate drives it to torture 5 specific humans, the last living humans on earth, making them immortal, so that it can torture them forever. These 5 characters are the characters that you play as.
Each character gets its own short (<1h) storyline, where you have to guide them through their own personal hell, based on what AM view as the most just punishment for their past deeds.

Gameplay
The game plays like a typical mid 90's point & click adventure game. You have an inventory, and most of the puzzles are about figuring out which item goes where. Many sections have multiple solutions, and depending on which solution you find, you'll get a different final ending ("kinder" solutions generally result in better endings). Actually solving the puzzles needed to progress the story is quite easy, far easier than the puzzles of most contemporary adventure games, but figuring out how to get the good ending often feels like you're trying to read the puzzle designers mind. It feels like this was made with replay value in mind, as the game is quite short, but it ends up being rather frustrating, as you can end up getting a bad ending simply because you walked through a door at the wrong time, without the game properly warning you about it.

Graphics & Sound
The graphics is quite good for the era. While the animation quality might not be up to par with the greatest games of its genre, the scenes are very atmospheric and all feel like they're made to convey a certain mood.
The voice acting is also good, but not outstanding. Compared to its contemporary counterparts, it would be considered really good, but voice acting tends to be a bit better these days. Still, all the voices fit, and the voice actors do a good job at conveying how their characters feel when they speak.

Final thoughts
I have no mouth, and I must scream is a game that I feel has a well deserved good reputation. While it might be a bit too short, and trying to figure out what the developers were thinking when you try to solve the puzzles if you want a good ending is not always fun, but the story is very well told. When I say that the story is "Mature", I don't mean mature as in there being a lot of gore & nudity in the game, but rather it's a story dealing with some very dark subjects in a mature way, and this helps lift the game above the masses. It might not be a perfect game, but for anyone who enjoy point & click adventure games aimed at a more adult audience, it's a must play.

Based on the classic dystopian sci-fi short story by Harlan Ellison, this has some of the best writing you'll find in an old-school point-and-click adventure game. Ellison also provides some truly fantastic (especially for its time) voice acting as an insane AI.

The gameplay suffers from a number of glitches (though none that I saw made it un-beatable) and a very rigid, archaic game design. For example, a number of progression events will only occur after you say or do things that are completely unrelated to the event.

Unlike most adventure games of its time, there are multiple solutions to many puzzles...but usually only one "good" way. You'll have great difficulty getting the best ending (and yes, there are multiple endings) without a walkthrough. Of course, given the underlying subject matter, it's rather fitting that the (relatively) happy ending is elusive.

All that said, it's worth playing for fans of adventure games and especially for fans of the short story - as the game's plot is very different.

10 Reasons why "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is awesome and you should totally buy+play it before your next birthday...

1. Starring ... HARLAN ELLISON
For those unaware, this P&C Adventure game is based on the dystopian post-apocalyptic sci-fi short story of the same name, written by Harlan Ellison in 1967. Nearly 30 years later, a team of game devs decide to make the game, and they contact Ellison for permission to make the game, and not only do they get permission, they *get him to voice the villain* (who is, in some sense, the story's chief character). "AM" wouldn't be half as awesome without Ellison. He was about 60 at the time and about 80 now ... yes, still alive ... and it'd be great if Steam players newly discovering the game wrote him fanmail about how the game inspired them to read his work, etcetc... ^_^

2. Aged Gracefully
For a 1995 PC game, the game's graphics are decent, the audio is of the same variety as (but in many ways superior to) the first two Elder Scrolls games, and the engine is surprisingly stable. Based on other reviews I've read, your mileage may vary, but I had exactly zero crashes in a multi-faceted playthrough (testing different fail-states and endings, etc). As a huge Adventure buff, I can assure you that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of games released in the past two decades that won't be as valuable 20 years down the road as this one turned out to be.

3. Not just full VA ... *good* VA
I'll have to take exception to Dr. Nimdok, whose slow, aged German accent sometimes misses the mark, especially as to which words or syllables to stress. Other than that, the character VA in this game is leaps and bounds beyond its 1995 peers. I suspect this is because the actors were getting to read lines either directly from, or inspired by, the original short story, which is quite well-written. So good.

4. "Dude, that's not PC!"
Real characters have flaws. Real characters don't give a crap about whether they're being politically correct or not, especially when they're on their own and have survived 100+ years of torture by a mad machine. I'm not praising this as though it's something to be cherished: rather, I'm saying that the surly nature of Benny, the rugged trucker-ness of Gor, and pretty much the entire Nimrok scenario make for a pretty provocative game. I suppose the open talk about Ellen's plight would also apply.

5. Fail-States exist, but they don't over-punish
Because this game is paced out *just right,* if you accidently off your character and lose progress, it's not a huge deal. The five scenarios are each short enough that you'll a) remember the puzzles well enough to quickly recover progress if needed or b) you'll have saved like 2 minutes beforehand and then it *really* doesn't matter. That said, there are ways for characters to die -- some more easily than others. And in the end scenario, it gets really tricky...

6. Endings galore
There are, in fact, five bad endings and one good ending. It's in the end scenario that the game takes the strongest departure from the short story: the latter offers a fight scene between two of the characters that, due to the way the game is structured, simply wasn't going to happen. However, the five bad endings of the game combined make up, in essence, what Harlan Ellison originally wrote. Each character will deliver those famous words after describing in wretched detail what AM has done to them for the rest of eternity after their failed assassination attempt. BUT, should you get the "true" ending (not at all in Ellison's story, but apparently Ellison-approved since he voiced his dialogue for this ending), there's something horribly fascinating waiting at the end, including some excellent philosophy that fits very much with this and Ellison's other tales.

7. Click what where with what, oh it's too much! -- No it's not.
One thing I've found in the Adventure revival of the past 5 years is an over-abundance of items in my inventory. It gets to be a bit *too* much. In IHNM, however, the standard view of the inventory shows only 8 slots. This will actually expand (and has to in at least one scenario). Yet, in another scenario, the number of items only goes as high as three. As for interaction options, you have the basic set: Walk to, Talk to, Look, Use, Take. Give, Push, and my favorite, Swallow. And that's it. That's all you need to get around, and with the narration and a little bit of clever thinking, you'll find many of the puzzles solve themselves. That said...

8. Walkthrough-friendly
Should you need to turn to a walkthrough (GameFAQs has three at present), it's pretty easy to figure out where to look. Most people won't need it until they reach the end, and if they find themselves exasperated (especially by which character order to use) then a walkthrough can spell it out. Quickly, and painlessly, without the pain of a thousand qualifications ("if you've done this, don't do that" etc). The complexity of this game is in its narrative. The mechanics and puzzle-solving are less dense, though they can still be tricky even on that surface layer.

9. Did I mention the length?
This game is of the perfect length for most 21st-century gamers. The devs were ahead of their time in this regard. Its peers were often packing in filler content to brag about how many hours the player could get out of it. And then, on the other hand, there are a handful of P&C Adventures so pathetically short that they're hardly worth calling a game. This one fits just right: 2 hours with a walkthrough, 5-8 without (that range I'd give based on players' range of problem-solving capabilities and/or desire to skip voice acting with right-click spam).

10. We vote with our dollars
If the other nine points have convinced you that this game might actually be *good,* let me remind you here at the end: Steam notices what kinds of games we buy. How much of any given title is purchased will mean something to them. Financially it also means something to the rights-holders of this game. And while it could crash and burn miserably, I'd not be opposed to a huge overhaul / HD remake of this very game -- sometimes the risk pays off. Or, perhaps, it would inspire other developers to do decent P&C adventures with weighty/heady sci-fi short stories from other great authors. This game proved it could be done, and done well.

Alright, this has been a wild ride and I haven't even managed to get to the ending yet but here we go.

A brilliantly twisted story of survival through and through, you will play as one of five people unfortunate enough to have been handpicked as a devilish child of an AI's playthings. Seriously, you'll love to hate (HATE!) this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. After 109 years of endless torture, these five humans are about to bring the Big Bad Baby to its knees. Succeed, and they may have a chance to return to the world outside AM's eternal straitjacket. Fail, and suffer a fate worse than any they've endured.

Basically, IHNMAIMS will mess you up. It will give your brain a swirly and laugh about it.

Pros:
- Classic point and click adventure format for nostalgia boners
- 10/10 storytelling and characters.
- Grotesquely beautiful landscape.

Cons:
- This is not a game for the faint of heart and covers a lot of sensitive topics. If you are potentially triggered by ♥♥♥♥, abuse, torture, holocaust/Nazi themes, cannibalism, animal cruelty, and general nastiness, either reconsider your purchase or brace for impact.
- Almost impossible to beat without a walkthrough. Luckily, they are available just a shift-tab away.
- Bugs. Bugs everywhere.

Overall, I give it a 9/10. Give it a go if you feel you're up to it. It's definitely considered a classic for a reason.

"He withdrew, muttering to hell with you. And added, brightly, but then you're there, aren't you."

I Have No Fingers, and I Must Review