i have no mouth and i must scream am monologue

Though all the Nazi regalia has been removed in favor of the maniacal supercomputer’s own symbol and everyone’s speech is couched in euphemism - the regime, the leader, the lost tribe - we know what they mean and the attempt to hide it, like Nimdok hides the truth in his own senility, revolts us even further. That fact alone is enough to unnerve a player. Nimdok has betrayed and sold out his people and ended up as Josef Mengele’s right hand man, meaning that in game you are trudging around Auschwitz. Here you are playing as a Nazi scientist experimenting on the Jews. Though banned in Germany, this section really highlights the concept of horror as the pain of repulsion. This sense of horror is no better on display than in its use of real world horrors, Nimdok’s concentration camp section in particular. You can achieve clarity and transcend your baser functions, but ultimately you will still lose. You can do everything right, redeem everyone, and forgive and show compassion to your tormentor. The best that you can hope to do is to win nobly. There are no single instances of fear, but the work as a whole is suppose to frighten its players as it unravels any facade of goodness, righteousness, or fairness in its world. Instead it is a philosophical game holding a mirror up to our humanity. The game isn’t meant to terrify you through bodily threat or atmospheric oppression. We are playing an adventure game and as such are playing puppet master, viewing the character’s fate from a distant outside perspective. There is no real, immediate danger to the characters that would transfer to the player. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream isn’t a scary game in the traditional, emotional sense. We mean the term as a description of how the work makes us feel, yet we use a word that describes the work itself. Whereas ‘horror’ is an intense dislike, an abhorrence or painful feeling of repugnance. Often what we mean in context is “terror” - a strong feeling of fear, a cause of anxiety. We toss around the term “horror game” rather liberally as a genre, but we don’t often stop and consider what we mean by the “horror” in “horror game.” As a genre we attribute the title to anything we might find that attempts to be scary, but that isn’t what horror means. The game also brings another issue to the forefront of my mind. That alone sets I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream apart from everything else. They may be included in them as a historical detail or plot point, but with most games, the focus is never directly on these concerns. Few games since have really dealt with these as themes as themes.

In doing so he wanted to explore mature, controversial themes like guilt, rape, and the Holocaust. The writer of the game and the original short story, Harlan Ellison, didn’t think much of video games, but regardless wanted to make a work in the only medium that he hadn’t yet tried his hand at. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream has been re-released on Good Old Games and Steam, so go check it out if you haven’t already. This post contains spoilers for I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

I have no mouth and i must scream am monologue