I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream • Retro Analysis.

which your new five would like to play okay oh this is a really good one hi this video is the 8th in my series of retro game analysis throughout this series have been looking into and analyzing some games of hope to see what if any lessons they can teach us going forwards and today I'll be analyzing I have no mouth and I must scream first off let me just say that this video will include spoilers for both the game and the 1967 book and that I recommend reading it and having played the game before watching as familiarity with the subject material will make it easier for you to digest the content of this video I'm nicer aesthetics let's dive in I have no mouth and I must scream launched in 1995 and access an expansion on the Hugo award-winning short story of the same name the story was written by one Harlan Ellison and is one of the seminal pieces of 20th century speculative literature it follows the harrowing journey of five survivors in the post apocalypse as they journey together to find canned goods only to discover that their hateful diamond according to AI god didn't give them a can opener there's a lot more to it but this isn't a literature course the game seemingly picks up after the books ending but retcons some events in the book making it so that each of the five survivors is alive and not a miserable blobby thing yes when it came to developing the game there was an understanding by the developers that they had something great in their hands Pollan Ellison himself was even on board to do the material justice there was a lot of back-and-forth with some minor issues stemming from Allison son familiarity with the interactive medium but that unfamiliarity also freed him from tunnel vision Allison was not a big fan of video games as he felt they didn't teach anything worthwhile he wanted very much for this game to set the precedent that games should be more than a way to waste time to that end this game was designed to include various ethical dilemmas and questions about morality it's a thinker for the purposes of a fair representation I'll be assuming that this game like all thousands work was the scientist shocked people to make them question the material and user cognitive abilities in essence I'll be assuming that the game was designed to make the player question the material according to a monologue in the opening of the game in this reality the Cold War didn't end but rather escalated and got to a point that the military strategies became too complex for men to comprehend so a subterranean computer was built to handle the war for them actually three of these computers were designed one by the Americans housed underneath the Rocky Mountains one by the Russians and the third by the Chinese but the three computers were equal so the word eventually reached stalemate it wasn't until the American allied master computer achieved sentence that things began to change firstly because it evolved from a program designed to kill humans the now renamed and began to despise humanity and that hatred eventually drove him mad and assimilated the other two master computers and after hacking his way into various institutes of learning and stealing all he could know and launced enough nuclear force to practically wipe out the entire human race but am saved five humans so that he would have something to vent his hatred on those five were gorrister Alan Benny NIM doc and Ted and using Nazi Science kept the survivors alive and for 109 years delighted in torturing them one day and decided to design games and he promised the survivors that if they played they'd get a chance to fulfill their deepest desires of course and actually designed the games to see the survivors broken beyond old repair something very interesting about the games with an designed is that they generally draw from the survivors worst traits actually that's something which really sets this game apart from the stock and standard pointed clip titles it has a good grasp off and an interesting handling of characterization it uses contrast the five main characters all play the same but their desires their psychological profiles and their Follies are different enough that each of them feels distinct the player's goal is always to make the most ethical choice so they must always think about ethics in terms of the characters they are playing as that adds a lot of depth to what might have been just a stocking standard point-and-click adventure affair and on the subject of gameplay there are some nuanced touches like the spiritual barometer which represents the efficacy of the blade sources the command buttons with player uses to decide upon a direct actions which protocol texts then there's the standard inventory screen which always includes the character's psychological profiles if you've ever played a point-and-click adventure game this screen should be very legible to you if you haven't I still doubt you'll have much trouble figuring things out in the beginning of the game and asks which of you five would like to play my little game and the player gets to choose the order in which they finish their characters stories it is essentially an arbitrary choice but it gives the player some breathing room if they mess up one story so they might not feel inclined to repeat that same story multiple times just to unlock the next one it also gives the player the ability to jump in and just quickly play through their favorite one I'm just going to go through them separately left to right the first story is that of course the foreign took over the planet gooris there was a truck driver whose wife suffered a mental breakdown and had to be committed to an asylum gorrister blamed himself revision and decided his game around his feeling of despair prior to the game and after having taken over the world that spent the last 109 years torturing gorrister the result of the torture was that gorrister had turned immensely suicidal but an had always been very careful to deny chorister that that he's so craved however as motivation to get corsa to play the game and the promised gorrister that there would be a way out for him knowing that gorrister partook and was sent to a sapling in this game the player learns much about gore stirs past and if they fall prey to ants tricks they fulfill a desire to see gorrister fall into a deeper state of despair however if the player made ethical choices then gorrister will use this opportunity to reconcile with the past and leave it behind he learns that his wife's insanity was his fault and although he isn't allowed to die as anna promised him he needs the game having had a sense of despair and self-loathing expunged frustrated at this development and ends the game and sends gorrister to an electrified cage and then moves on to the next survivor and for our purposes that survivor is Ellen before Anne took over the planet Ellen was a successful engineer who suffered a tragic miss carrots which led to a divorce one day when she was leaving the office a maintenance man in a yellow jumpsuit locked her inside an elevator with him which is where he spent the next three hours molesting her this event cost her to have crippling claustrophobia and an immense fear of the color yellow the trauma she suffered led to her being unable to testify at her rapists trial and eventually she had completely blocked the memory the game and decides for her centered on her chastity after Anne took over the world he spent the next 109 years torturing Ellen with a big source of his joy being that she was the only woman in the group in a book and presumably the game and had even made Ellen a slave to her sexual desires to incentivize her to play his new game and promised to take Ellen to his innermost depths where she might use her knowledge of machines to shut him down she gets sent to a junk pyramid where she's continually made to suffer her fear of the color yellow this falls right in line with as desires which is to see her rendered to a hysterical mess the yellow environments and the cracked spaces service build-up for the moment ellen is reunited with the maintenance man who ruined her life apparently and has brought him back to life specifically so he can spend the rest of eternity torturing Ellen throughout the game Ellen had been forced to face her fears and Ann's plan falls apart when Ellen decides to fight the management instead of cowering to him Ellen then gains access to some of am systems and contacts an entity claiming to be a mess innocence Ellen learns much about em and after she activates the chaos traveler he pulls her out and sends her to a yellow box which continually threatens to seal her in although Ellen learns that an can't be shut down she overcame her fears and having seen two of his gays ruined moves on to the next survivor which will be penny the four and took over the world Benny was a military commander renowned for his cruelty it extended to his enemies and his comrades some of whom were considered weak for not being able to carry their own weight and others still he considered liabilities for being willing to carry too much weight the penance for displeasing him could be as dire as death so it's fitting that his game is centered on his lack of empathy after M took over the world he started torturing Benny and this torture is arguably the most traumatic if only in appearances and transformed Benny from a handsome man with strong features into an almost simian ape creature whose digestive tract was ruined whose legs were crippled and whose voice was destroyed often times and with manipulate Benny's intelligence making him practically devolve into an ape and am also enjoyed keeping Benny starved as incentive to partake of Anne's game Benny had his intelligence restored and was promised a chance to find something to eat Benny's game starts humbly enough with him falling down a stairway because of his crippled legs and from there making his way to a nearby tribe and created this game specifically because he wanted to see Benny fall prey through his beef Steel desires however if the player made ethical choices then Benny's interaction with a mother and her child teaches him that he is capable of entropy that experience leads to him obtaining forgiveness from the Allies he killed while in the military and the game culminates in Benny refusing to let the tribal sacrifices to Anne go on and him even offering to take the aftermath in child's place and sacrifice em in frustration over the display you witness ends the game and sends Benny to a cage fit for an animal and then moves on to the next survivor NIM doc before am to go over the planet NIM doc real name unknown was a Nazi doctor and a good friend to read world monster josef mengele min Dobbs Trudy seemingly exceeded that of Mengele which is made evident by the fact that nimdok sold out his own Jewish parents to the Nazi slaughter machine his game is centered on that betrayal as an orders NIMH doc to find the Lost Tribe and torture of NIMH doc for the past 109 years involves playing an intox ailing memory and harming him in manners her mission to how the Nazis treated the Jews also and gave him doc that mockery of a name named dark skin sees him being sent by an to a Nazi death camp he used to work in and being promised a chance to regain his lost memories in actuality and wanted NIMH doctor returned to his old self and start his research over again this is because AM is not capable of creative thought indeed his torture of the five survivors was all based on historical research of torturers which included nin doc himself the milk of human kindness demon gorrister section and the morphogenetic transformations the former being one has given the survivors their immortality and the latter being will and used to transform Benny were both taken from Linda's research Linda is given plenty of chances to exert his cruelty but if the play refrains and makes ethical choices then nimdok will ease patient sufferings make a mango lassi the error of their ways and finally forfeit a golem the Nazis had made through the Jews which were taking over the camp this he does because nimdok realizes that he himself is the last tribe he realizes that he can never fully atone for betraying his own people and this realization goes completely contrary to what M had hoped to see sin Sam's desires go unheeded he shuts down the game and encase his name dark in an oven while he and some goes to start the final game the final game is designed for Ted the foreign to go over the planet Ted was a con artist which seduced and robbed wealthy women he was once considered cultured but he left that life behind in favour of exploiting and abandoning others so his game fittingly is designed his selfishness after an to go over the world he tortured Ted by playing on his pride to turn him into a paranoid mess that might have made it hard to persuade Ted for takeoff pretty much anything but Ted plays the game after being promised the chance to escape to the surface Ted is first transported to an octagonal building and then worked outside a medieval-style castle in Tech's game the player learns that had has an affinity for the stories of noble knights and and has in fact used these stories as inspiration for his game and wants to see Ted fall prey to his vices and indulge in debauchery he wants to see Ted betray his love of Ellen both physically and spiritually the former is seen by Ted being given many opportunities to cheat on Ellen and the latter is seen when Ted is given the chance to sell Ellen's soul to secure his own passage to the surface world however if the player made ethical choices then Ted using his skills of con artists three tricks the devil to forego his claim on Alan's soul and gets a demon to send him to the surface world this is when AM steps in disappointed at Ted's performance but floating as he explains how the surface world has become completely inhospitable and throws Ted into a gilded cage where he is continually shot at by lasers reflected by mirrors symbolism for Ted's pride I'm sure know Ted was the knighted escape he proved to himself that he is capable of being the knight he so often pretended to be to his victims in the past before we can move on to the final section of the game I want to talk a bit about the game's presentation its place in history and I want to briefly go over some design choices I didn't flesh out earlier something I find to be an immensely interesting point in the evolution of video games was the fifth generation when games started constantly jumping over to 3d polygons point-and-click adventure games were essentially the foundational frameworks used by the resident evils and the Silent Hill only those games didn't script out every enemy engagement like most point and click games did and they mostly place the players focus on the main characters whereas point and click games were more concerned with a larger story as a whole a common complaint in regards to point and click games is how they aren't really games because there isn't any actual challenge of skill because they tend to be rigid and linear they don't often have any place for the player to express themselves and because their design incentivizes the player to simply click on everything and hope for there to be some sort of progression this is a sentiment based in reality but it opens the strength of pointing clicked games in favor of highlighting how they don't fulfill the player's desire the same way newer more conventional games do for the most part if you look at this game for what it's set out to accomplish I'd say it perfectly utilized its play style this game does characterization in a lot of interesting ways and far from falling into the common pitfalls this game actually has some interesting ways to punish those that play recklessly first up the spiritual barometer the spiritual barometer can be increased by playing two ethically raise the characters but it can also be lowered by succumbing to the characters follies if you read the psychological profiles present in their inventories you'll get a hint towards your next objective but these hints are very demoralizing so naturally the parameter goes darker then there are actions like letting patients suffer and killing your own mother-in-law which also darken it this means that the spiritual barometer keeps the player on their toes and forces them to think of their actions carefully but even if a player messes up on the barometer then that's okay because the game also has another trick to mitigate the problem of the stumps player simply clicking on anything although this system isn't so much to punish the player as it is to reward them everything that can be clicked will elicit a response from the characters so the more the player interacts with the more characterization they will receive this place well with a quick save option present because oftentimes the player will want to perform the unthinkable just to see the character's responses the psychological exploration of these characters is very well done this is one of the earliest examples of psychological horror and video games done well and before I proceed I wanted to find what I mean by psychological horror in this video since all horror is inherently psychological I mean deeply rooted design choices meant to entice the player to use the game to explore psychology and the game happens to emphasize horror nowhere is this more evident than in the final section of the game after being disappointed by the conclusion of the five games and leaves to meditate on the performances he observed this is when the veil is lifted and the games underlying sci fi interpretation of Freudian psychology starts to take center stage it is revealed that unknown entities which reside within em have been interfering with the game to allow for more open endings these interferences include the jackal and gorrister section and the innocence in Ellen section and they open up the question as to whether or not the humans were in fact really capable of overcoming themselves or whether they were being played by larger forces who just wanted them to enter am's mind to destroy him the final section of the game is to pay off to all five previous stories first off during the stories the players choices have been influencing the spiritual parameter this becomes very important in the final section since the spiritual barometer essentially acts as a health bar making the long-term ethical play take center stage the after mentioned entities offer the survivors the chance to enter a mine to destroy him and for this task the first to go is NIMH doc actually the order isn't exactly a hard and fast rule but named doug is the only one who instinctually knows the password to amps workstation 1945 clearly NIMH ducks past holds great significance to Ann Linda can use the workstation to probe Anne's mind a bit and learns that am has sensitive data on all five survivors some data with Anne doesn't have is given to NIMH doc by zurka the theme in Ted got to send him to the surface according to zurka there are 750 humans alive on the moon in cryogenic sleep so shutting and down once and for all is more important than ever since humanity actually has a shot at resurrection surrogates programming gets destroyed by the Russian and Chinese computers they were the entities who's allowed the survivors to enter Anna's mind and after lying that the lunar sleepers are dead they urged nimda to shut down méxico but they are adamant that NIM dock should shut down only the ego to understand the ending of the game it is imperative that the player understands the basics of Freudian psychology Freud described the brain as a three-part system there's the it the ego and the super-ego for simplicity's sake the it is the demon the super-ego is the angel and the ego is the individual whose shoulders house is the angel and a demon if the survivors shut off the ego then the Russian and Chinese computers can essentially step in and dominate the other two aspects of am psyche and if the present survivor does and allows them to have their way the survivor will be met with an unfortunate fate but if instead the survivors turn off all three parts of an psyche they can essentially purge all three computers take over the machines and oversee Earth's 300 year long terraforming process which will culminate in the return of the lunar sleepers this whole section in ABS head is very well done so a deeper analysis is in order [Music] the it force the base desires and instincts of individuals it cares not about logic nor reality whenever a character walks by it they'll make remarks which echo their own it's whether it's Benny's hunger or Ted's lust and it arrives from its primitive role as a desire for killing humans in the Cold War and it hasn't really evolved past its only desire is to bring humans misery the reason and kept the survivors alive was because without humans and couldn't fulfill his role anymore and this whole tortured deal is actually driven by the fact that in spite of Am's amazing powers he's essentially a quadriplegic he can't do anything with his godliness because it's it his basest of desires is to bring misery to humans without humans and would have nothing to live for - the pp is the survivors must show it compassion to show compassion to such a hate-filled entity will force it to realize that it will always be in more pain itself than it can inflict on the humans and the misery of that realization drives the it to shut itself down the ego is next the ego is the logical part of the brain the one which can feed thing it desires by playing them out in a somewhat more realistic manner than it might have wanted it doesn't show emotion or compassion it understands social norms and advocates since it has connections to the outside world and it's the conscious part of the brain but it might only understand these things as a means to coexist with other people Sigmund Freud liking the ego its relationship to that of a horse and a rider the egos do you see its behavior like the rider keeps and check the strength of the horse but ultimately the rider is only powerful when the it is satisfied whenever a character walks by the ego they'll remark something with echo their own egos like how the paranoid tent states that though it looks like a ram it feels more like a wolf or how Benny immediately sees it has the makings of a good trophy and eco evolved to kill humans just as it did the only difference is that the ego doesn't do it for any emotional desires it's just what it was made to do to defeat it the survivors must play on its logic and they do so by showing its forgiveness the ego is incapable of understanding how anyone can forgive 109 years of torture and seeing that it's flawless revealed to be pointless by the lack of a fact the ego sets itself down then lastly if the super-ego the super-ego is responsible for intelligence and foresight its role is to act as a moral conscience this is the ego keeps in check be it the super-ego can keep in check the ego it forces the ego to consider social responsibilities values and morals and justice be it punishes the ego for not losing it the super-ego can punish the ego for committing a moral fallacy for all intents and purposes the super-ego keeps in check the its impulses this is doubly so when it comes to social taboos such as pedophilia bestiality necrophilia cannibalism rape and alike when the ego wants to solve a problem the super-ego demands that the solution be socially moral holistic it forces the ego to consider social goods as a period to self-preservation often three parts the super-ego is the most complex and muscle its complexity stems from itself being a two part system it acts both as the conscience and the ideal self the conscience creates feelings of guilt when the ego fault the bad demands of the it the ideal self however is of superior parallel to the individual think career aspirations how to treat others and the like when behavior falls short of the ideal self the super-ego punishes the ego with feelings of guilt contrary to that when the egos behavior falls in line with the ideal self the super-ego can reward the ego with a feeling of pride one of the greatest human fallacies set their ideal selves too high if a person can never live up to their own standards they will forever see themselves as failures whenever a survivor walks by the super-ego they see it as an angel the super-ego is the only one two three which doesn't harm the survivors though it does recommend that the humans keep taking ants tortures so he doesn't do anything stupid like kill himself and super-ego is of course giving awful advice to the survivors but this is understandable since the super-ego developed as a means of calculating events to come and formulating plans for those eventualities like ant is an ego the super-ego was developed to kill humans to shut it down the survivors must force it to consider the law of one day and will be reduced to dust by the ravages of time since the super egos purpose is irrelevant when the eventualities death is revealed to be unavoidable the super-ego shuts itself down whichever survivor the player hasn't killed yet will need to confront the Russian computer the Chinese computer and am the Russian and Chinese computers explain to em that purging them from his system is unnecessary since there is space to share and reveal to am that there are survivors on the moon and rebels in the idea of torturing those 750 survivors but his short-lived dream is that when the survivor present invokes the totem of entropy and kills all three computers before being purged and remarks that this is a useless gesture by the player and explains that he is the eventualities of human beings that he will simply come back in another form if true this is a chilling revelation to end the game on the survivor is then left to oversee the computers during the terraforming of Earth and await the return of the lunar sleepers usually in this part of my analysis I segue into the summary but there's something I need to discuss about the games ending before I can cap this video on Harlan Ellison didn't want the game to be winnable he saw the purpose of the game as ethical play not simply winning I'm not sure if anyone out there agrees with me on this and I'm not sure if it's my role to give this bias an opinion but that would have made a lot more sense don't misunderstand the game is great it's an acquired taste but it's great play it if you haven't already but consider what it mean for this game to be unwinnable consider that ethical play might actually do the noblest win state of all then consider that this was suggested by an outsider to the medium for this insight I praised Harlan Ellison and I hope you do too I have no mouth and I must scream it's a fantastic example of a unique encompassing horror game within its four to eight hour runtime it explores cannibalism the singularity rape insanity Freudian psychology human sacrificing war terror Noah torture sadism memory fear suicide damnation Redemption isolation freedom love hatred and even the Holocaust it might not all be very tasteful but that's part of the package this game did the physical manifestation of internal psychological struggles the four Silent Hill was praised as our wholly original idea and it's the rare type of horror game which places the core in the background to allow the psychology to take the driver seat at its best it invokes lynching dreamlike weirdness but because it's all presented in a somewhat can't be way it's got an unmistakable air of pulpy sci-fi sloth which I wouldn't trade for the world the bad guy is the progenitor to the Hal 9000 the showdowns and the Gladys's of our time and his over-the-top voice acting for you hey hey provided by Ellis himself is the topper to a great character this is the game with immense replay value as every time there's something new to understand a game whose underlying theme of the inherent mess of the human condition makes you question whether what occurred is actually uplifting or not replays will make you realize that gorgeous reconciliation with this past is based on the premise that the Russian and Chinese computers did in fact not fabricate his past to prat them for fighting and that Allen regardless of her actions has always and will always be a slave whether to accompany her fears and/or the humankind seem my promise to oversee that Benny was essentially made a slave to his it and whatever spiritual awakening a curved with is meaningless since an could have simply removed his higher conscience and made him a cannibalistic animal again that NIM ducks betrayal can never be forgiven and that the token gesture of overseeing the lunar sleepers does not in any way make up for his work which is essentially served to arm and and that Ted might have been played like a fiddle not only Byam but also the other computer simply further desire to see him aid them in taking em down this game doesn't actually have a good ending one could say that since its goal was to teach the player ethics the ethical conundrums displayed proved that regardless of their being a win state there are no winners and therefore the game is unwinnable Ellison writes to shock people he sees the writers role as conflicting the contented to that end his game was designed to be a thinker you'll need to use your head more than your thumbs to play this one and whether or not all of its goals are accomplished at least you'll walk away with something to think about one thing I'd like to see developers learn from this game is to take chances this game was made whilst the argument of Wolfenstein is tastefulness was still going on and to consider the shark jump from this to this and the multitude levels of death the ladder has over the former is to admire this games guts this game broke a lot of ground and helped decide what the medium could get away with and it didn't do so by playing it safe thanks for watching in case this video left you hungry for more I'd recommend you check out the original 1967 book and my other retro analyses which unlike the book are linked in the description box below if there was something you think I overlooked in this video be sure to leave a comment this game is one of the most criminally unrepresented masterpieces so be sure to leave a like because it helps the YouTube algorithm decide what discussions get for more content like this be sure to subscribe knowing that next I'll be analyzing a PlayStation 1 game what it is I'm not sure so feel free to leave suggestions for your favorites outside of YouTube you can reach me on Twitter and patreon the footage driven watching was gracefully donated from both Lucas hitomiko Mori and adventure game fan 8 both of whom are linked in the description box below I - TEDx and until next time take care [Music] you [Music]

Channel: AesirAesthetics

Views: 405,634

Rating: 4.9224687 out of 5

Keywords: Aesir, Aesthetics, AesirAesthetics, video game, in, depth, analysis, explained, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream Retro Analysis, harlan, ellison, horror, retro, gaming, gorrister, nimdok, nazi, ellen, hal, 9000, AM, singularity, explain, freudian, psychology, freud, ihave, no, mouth, and, must, scream, analyzed, super, bunnyhop, matthew, matosis, ragnar, rox, game, makers, toolkit, joseph, anderson, point, click, adventure, nightdive, abandonware, system, shock, benny, ted

Id: eLiRFGAl3Q4

Length: 33min 33sec (2013 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/SpagettInTraining]

I've read the story recently and was blown away. But when I tried the game it seemed a bit dated and boring. Should I stick through it?

[u/PolygonMan]

The video was well put together and I enjoyed watching it (and voted it up here and on Youtube), but it was more of a discussion than a deep analysis. I think calling the video an analysis likely hurts the channel, as I went in hoping for it, but didn't get it.

And for what it's worth, I STRONGLY recommend anyone who reads this comment to just go and read the original short story. It's easy to track down online and takes literally half an hour. It's an absolute classic and well worth reading.

[u/arup02]

I finished this game a couple of months ago. I'm an absolute sucker for point and click games but damn, the last section of the game was painful.

[u/tacomcnacho]

This game is like a fever dream incarnate. The memory of the game, alone, triggers nausea for me; like car-sickness.

[u/pyromaniac28]

This video is really good if you played through it once and didn't play every possibility or notice all the character detail. I just checked out his system shock video and it's good as well.

[u/Qwertyguy]

Watched the whole video, actually really good analysis and helped me understand it better. I really love the short story and recommend anyone to read it.

[u/Brawli55]

Played through this one recently - it was enjoyable enough, but the puzzling aspect was mostly frustrating since many times solutions made no sense or were outright broken if you did things in the wrong order.

Overall it didn't hold a candle to something like Harvester, which I've also played recently. That game will haunt me for years to come.