I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

A wonderfully made game made from one of the most horrific stories ever to embrace the world of literature. Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” puts players in the shoes of five different people stuck within the depths of the Earth, tortured by the AI, AM (Allied Mastercomputer.) Each character’s scenario explores their past along with their flaws. The puzzles are difficult (as per any other standard 90s point and click game) and the game explores many themes including grief, psychology, anxiety, eternal damnation, and many others. The game includes new graphics options that removes the jagged edges from the pixelated sprites, includes a tap control mode along with a classic cursor mode, and two soundtracks that feature the original midi-based ost, along with the remastered ost (missing a couple of tracks.) The game runs wonderfully on my phone, though the controls are a bit tedious as first. The “positive” theme is also missing from the remastered ost for some odd reason. Otherwise, it’s a great game and I definitely suggest buying it, whether it be on iOS or on your PC.

I originally posted about this game being riddled with bugs and dead-ends, but after taking to the Sierra Online mantra of saving often, it remedied many of the original issues I had uncovered. The game itself has been remastered in a way that looks good and plays decently for a touch device. However, I did have an issue where switching to only subtitles stuck and would not allow me turn back on voices (it required a complete uninstall to remedy, which was greatly frustrating). Other than this, I change my original suggestion of using the GOG version to instead play this game like the old adventure games where you have >at least< 2 different save slots in use (I ran into an issue where I had a saved stuck character, which was quite useless). Regardless of bugs, I am glad this game was ported and available for iOS as it brings an intriguing adventure game to the platform.

I read the original book this game is based off of called alone against tomorrow. That’s what sparked my initial interest. I’m using a iPhone 5S and have had no complaints. I like the darkness about the game. Look forward to finishing.

response required

As an older gamer, I was beyond excited to find this release on iPad. Unfortunately, after my initial excitement, I found it to be a buggy mess. The touch controls do not work well and led to multiple game breaking glitches that lost me about an hours worth of progress. The Give function also does not work with the touch controls and the classic controls cursor sensitivity is busted. How controls for a Point and Click adventure game can be this broken is beyond belief. The graphic and sound conversion seems faithful and well done, but until the controls are fixed this game is a waste of your time and money. I like DotEmu and own a few of their retro conversions, but they won't get another dime from me until this game is fixed.

We need more retro games like this!