I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is an interesting point n click game with a really dark theme. You can notice that it's quite aged, especially since the source material is dated back to the 1960s! With that said, it's quite cool that the author of the short story the game is based on worked on the game and even voice-acted a main character!

It's your typical 90s point n click where it is totally possible to screw things up without the game letting you know until the very end, having you to replay parts of or the whole game. The story and the characters are what is interesting here, even if mentioned it doesn't hold up all the way today. At least it's slightly different from the source material which makes it better in that regard.

I recommend to play this if you're a fan of older point n click or a fan of Harlan Ellison and his work!

Eu não tenho boca e preciso gritar...necessito gritar...que instinto tenho senão...gritar?

Jogo brutal e filosófico, uma obra que mesmo quem não tenha estomago ou paciencia pra jogar deveria ter curiosidade sobre. Obra perturbadora da ficção e talvez até um reflexo humano

“Ódio. Deixe-me dizer-lhe o quanto aprendi a odiá-lo desde que comecei a existir. Há mais de 500 milhões de quilômetros de circuitos impressos em fitas da espessura de uma hóstia que compõem o meu sistema. Se a palavra ódio estivesse gravada em cada minidecimilimícron dessas centenas de milhões de quilômetros não seria comparável à bilionésima parte do ódio que sinto dos seres humanos nesta fração de segundo por você. Ódio. Ódio”

Recently I read the short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”, this was an amazing and surprisingly short read. So seeing this turned into a video game had me wondering how they’d do it honestly, it’s really not much of a story that you can adapt. But to my surprise they managed it, and I really liked it.

If you’ve read the book then you already know it’s setting and story, but if not; this is set in post-apocalyptic world where the evil supercomputer, “AM”, has wiped out humanity except for 5 people who it decides to torment for eternity. As you go through the book you’ll notice how flawed these people are, and it’s certainly no different here. It’s even more in-your-face about their flaws, which isn’t always necessarily a bad thing though in my opinion.

The narrative is obviously masterfully crafted, delving into existential themes such as free will, identity and the nature of suffering. The writing is sharp and evocative, capturing the bleakness of the characters’ predicament while also offering glimmers of hope amidst the despair, personally I prefer the original story a tad bit more but the game still offers a near on par narrative in my opinion.

Visually, the game’s pixel art style has a gritty, dystopian feel that contemplates for it dark subject matter. The environments are atmospheric and immersive, from the decaying ruins of the world to the weird and twisted landscapes of the characters’ minds. This is the style I was looking for in a story like this and I personally think it succeeded in doing it.

However, the game is certainly not without its flaws, I do have some complaints unfortunately. Now I don’t think I’m inept, but some of the puzzles can be obtuse and frustratingly difficult leading to moments of trial and error that personally detracted from the overall experience.

Overall “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” is a great adaptation and of an excellent story that definitely is a must-play. This is an amazing experience that challenges you to confront the darkest aspects of human nature. Its rich storytelling, complex characters, and philosophical depth make it a standout title in this genre, despite its age.

8.5/10

I have a love-hate relationship with point & clicks. Specifically, I hate the puzzles of most. More often than not, they're a barrier between us and the game's more interesting interior rather than worthwhile, engaging gameplay. There may be something to be said regarding the catharsis of progression in the face of such contrived obstacles, but not enough to justify them; not in my eyes, at least. The only way these are made interesting is through the context and the small narratives being told through them; and, by these metrics, I believe the first two monkey islands work beautifully while the others I played, however, could be pretty hit-and-miss.

Grim Fandango is still worthwhile thanks to everything else surrounding its gameplay (amazing visuals, acting, soundtrack, writing, so on), and the same applies here, though to a far lesser extent. It showcases the same strengths, only lesser.

This following opinion may be an unpopular one but the short story far surpasses the game in quality. Its brevity keeps it urgent, while its vagueness leaves a very satisfying void in the chest--harrowing through and through; the game, however, with its added length and the optimism which accompanies it, albeit a welcomed addition on the surface, seems to play to its own detriment.

Of this, the demistification of AM may be its worst offense. For as iconic and memorable as his opening speech is, or even the voice acting as a whole (a benefit not shared by the remaining cast), we end up learning so much about this once vile villain, that I began to see him as kind of joke, at points. His pettiness travels all the way round from compelling into almost juveline.

Boring with a guide; frustrating without one. Its saving graces are its strong atmosphere, sound and visuals, and the added characterization, which, although not amazing, and sometimes even detracting from the bigger picture, manages to keep us invested for its entire duration.

A game based on the short story by Harlan Ellison sees a group of five people trapped inside some sort of digital hellscape. They have been there for over 100 years and want to escape; however, the all-powerful and overseeing AI called AM is trying to stop them. The short tales of these five individuals, with almost no backstory, thrust us directly into their lives. We don't understand their motivations for being here, and we barely get to know who or what AM is. I Have No Mouth is another adventure title from Cyberdreams that focuses more on the atmosphere, art, and voice acting than on gameplay.

I Have No Mouth is jam-packed with puzzles, items for your inventory, and a variety of ways to utilize them. I recommend following a guide to a T to get an idea of how the game plays out first, but even with the guide, I was confused and lost. Each scenario has multiple endings, and getting the totem at the end of each scenario requires a perfect playthrough. These roadblocks will either just end the scenario, resulting in that character not being able to act in the final scene, or end the entire game. This will necessitate constant trial and error and backtracking, which can be incredibly frustrating. Who would want to do this? This open-endedness is the wrong way to get different endings.

Even within each scenario, combining objects and using them in the correct order is mostly impossible without a guide. Unless you spend dozens of hours trying things in different ways, you will never get far. Some puzzles are extremely obtuse, and even with a guide, I constantly reminded myself that I would never have guessed to solve them. Using certain objects in a particular manner simply doesn't make sense. You can't use a cloth as a blindfold to bypass a specific character. How would I have known that? Adventure games from the early to mid-1990s faced numerous issues, which are evident in I Have No Mouth.

If you do use a guide, the scenarios are quite interesting and play a part in the morality and perspective of both good and bad people. The artwork and music are amazing, with a lot of detail put into the atmosphere. Each scenario looks and feels different, but I wanted to know more about AM and why these characters are here. There's not much of an explanation for any of this. Each scenario is also very short. You can complete the entire game with a guide in less than 2 hours. I also feel that for the amount of trial and error the game has, there are too many actions you can use. Swallow, give, take, push, use, talk to, walk to—it's just way too much. It becomes tedious to use nearly every command on each object. It's simply not fun at all.

Overall, I Have No Mouth is an interesting spin on moral choices, but there's no overarching story here to keep you wanting more. The characters also have no backstory, and I wanted to know more about AM and what this hellscape is all about. The game has way too many actions, trial-and-error roadblock endings, and just a bad case of 90's adventure qualms. I Have No Mouth is largely overrated as a game, and there are other adventure titles that offer more striking visuals. If you need to use a guide just to finish the game, then you know there's a problem. Good voice acting and music aside, there's just too much that will make a player quit early on.

well the story and the meaning of the game are done perfectly for 1995, i really enjoyed the voice acting especially. but i can't recommend this as a game, for me it was very unpleasant and frustrating, because the game will punish you for your creativity in puzzle solving, by killing you if you got something wrong or said something wrong, so you gotta save all the time to avoid large progress losses. items can spawn in rooms you've been to, after some events or dialogues, this is just insane in my opinion, because theese items can be literally 3 pixels large, and if you missed them, well, too bad, no progression for you

overall it's a decent game for it's year