There’s some great news today for video game historians and people who want something more complex than infinite runners on their phone to play. The classic PC game I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream has finally come to mobile today. It’s dirt cheap and worth playing, because even now, more than twenty years later, it’s proof video games can be art.
The game is based on Harlan Ellison’s classic story, and in fact was adapted by Ellison himself. In the future, a supercomputer that calls itself AM becomes sentient and develops a brutal hatred of humanity. All but five humans are dead, and those five are effectively immortal to be tortured in various ways by AM. The game delves into the history of each of the five, and their worst moral failures. The title of the story is the last words of the narrator, turned into a gelid lump with, of course, no mouth.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream remains unique not least because there’s no way to “win,” per se. There are four endings and even a “golden” ending, but you’re not going to solve any of the problems the game puts in front of you and come out smelling like a daisy. Ellison designed the game to linger on the necessity of ethics: If you’re faced with a situation where you can’t win, how do you decide to lose? Do you go out helping other people and try to limit the damage? Or do you decide to save your own neck?
It’s not exactly a light-hearted time, but it’s an important demonstration of the power of video games. By being able to create a virtual world, we’re able to confront situations head-on that we’d never experience in real life, and take abstract ideas out of our heads and try them out in simulation. When I first played this game using a crappy emulator ten years ago, now, it kept me up for weeks, asking if I would have done something differently in each of the five situations. That’s rare in any format, and rarer in video games.
The mobile adaptation, released today, wisely doesn’t change much beyond the cosmetic in the game. You can change graphics, sound, and control options, but the game itself remains the same, right down the fiendish puzzles. So, if you’ve got the $4 handy, pick it up. It’s a classic game, and crucially, one that will make you think.