Harlan Ellison: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

aka: Bezmolvnyj Krik, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, No Tengo Boca y Debo Gritar
Moby ID: 617
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$5.99 new on Steam

Description official description

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is based on the short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison. After the Cold War, the computers of the USA, Russia and China take over the world and wipe out almost the entire human race. The Allied Mastercomputer (called AM) holds the last five humans as prisoners to torture them. Any of them has to face his or her past in a virtual adventure AM has designed for them. There they encounter their fears and weaknesses.

The player can choose which of the protagonists he wants to be but in fact he has to complete all of the six stories in order to solve the game. There are different ways of completing the game depending on the humanity the player shows.

The voice acting features Harlan Ellison as AM.

Spellings

  • Безмолвный Крик - Russian spelling
  • 无声狂啸 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

40 People · View all

Designed by
Starring
Producer
Art Director
Marketing & Sales
Quality Assurance Manager
Lead Test
Test
Technical Review Board
Music Composition
Music Arrangement & Production
Production & Documentation
Technical Director
Programmer
Additional Programming
Scripters
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 27 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 66 ratings with 4 reviews)

My favorite game

The Good
This game was, for me at least, a truely unique experience. Although I have played games before with interesting plots or compelling narratives, this piece was like reading an excellent novel or watching an immersive movie. The story is rich and deep and the mood is dark and haunting. This is not merely based on the story I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, this is an expansion on the horrifying world of the story that, rather than try to turn the short story itself into a game, covers the back story of each of the main characters, including the super computer.

Most refreshing is that the puzzles in the game are based on ethics and human interaction, rather than flipping switches and pushing buttons (although there's some of that as well.) Though some have said that the game's puzzles boil down to either doing something noble or doing something crummy, the game is actually far deeper than that. The scenarios are multi-layered and require the player to weigh the possible outcomes of trust and deceit, keeping in mind the back story of each character and how they are likely to behave based on the commands they are given.

Also, the contributions of writer Harlan Ellison cannot be overstated. Ellison, a veteran writer of science fiction as well as other genres, brings the kind of intelligent and well built storytelling to the game that helps it rise head and shoulders above the sci-fi cliches around which many video games are built. Bravo, encore!

The Bad
As others have stated it can be difficult to get the courser to acknowledge some of the smaller objects that must be picked up or manipulated. That's really all I can think of wrong with the game. Other than that I wish that there were more games of this caliber out there.

The Bottom Line
This is and excellent adaptation of Ellison's most well known story and a wonderful experience. Dark, violent, and disturbing, the game's story and world are truely in a league of their own.

DOS · by Jordan Owen (13) · 2005

This attempt at something completely different partially succeeds.

The Good
I Have No Mouth is an intelligent, deeply challenging game. By challenging I don't just mean difficult: I mean that it tries to make the player think about and face up to things we don't normally like to deal with: Traumatic experiences, the consequences of rampant technology, the Holocaust, etc. How daring! This alone makes the game one of my favorites.

The gameplay is similar to, for example, the classic Lucasarts games such as Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island: you use commands or inventory items from the bottom of the screen to interact with the world.

During the first section of the game, you take each of the 5 protagonists through his/her own dilemma. Gorrister, for example, only wants to commit suicide. Ellen tries to deal with her horrifying past. The end result of each of the sections is not necessarily completing your original mission, but helping to destabilize the allied mastercomputer (AM). After each of the character's quests are completed, you have to try to defeat AM in an endgame.

The graphics and artwork were tremendously atmospheric, even if they didn't utilize the "latest and greatest" of technology. I can't remember the music, but I remember that the voice acting was supurb (Harlan Ellison, the author of the original story, plays AM). I found alot of humor in this game, but it definitely requires a dark and demented mind to see.

The Bad
The very end bugged me. It seemed a little to wrapped up and neat compared to the rest of the game. Also, some of the puzzles in the game had absurd, frustrating, and very difficult solutions in an attempt to draw in the player to the absurd, uncontrollable, somewhat Kafkaesque world . But hey, there are always hint files if you are really stuck.

The Bottom Line
This is a rare game that really is different: not in terms of appearance, but in terms of philosophy. Here, the goal is to challenge, frustrate, and bleakify the player. It is a joy to play because of that, but on the other hand some of the puzzles suffer. If you love Kafka, you must play this game. A misguided ending doesn't detract very much at all from the story.

DOS · by Ben Sokal (15) · 2003

Bold move, long fall.

The Good
This is one of a rare species, an adaption from book into game form significantly involving the original author.

Now, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is your classic story of supercomputer starts global thermonuclear war, exterminates human race save five, keeps said people around for amusement through torture. Harlan Ellison himself appears as the voice of the sentient ultracomputer "AM", which is rather an interesting statement.

As the game begins, AM informs its captives that it has "prepared a little game" for them. Actually five games, each tailored to the flaws of the person. You can play these subgames in any order. While in a subgame, you can give up and try another character's subgame, though that discards all progress in the current one.

This alone should tell you that this game is a radical variation on the original story; in it, the characters struggled together. In the game, there is more introspection with the characters on their own.

The subgames explore the background and personality of the characters by casting them among people and scenes from their past and/or situations that hinge on their character. I could see an excellent opportunity for moral complexity here. The game, however, throws ambiguity to the wind and indicates how much Good and Bad you've done by displaying a green tint behind the character's portrait on the status bar. It's basically a karma meter; do something Bad, such as torturing animals, and you lose karma.

The really interesting thing here, then, is that you're playing characters that have pasts and personal problems, unlike the naïve, well-meaning vanilla heroes with no history to speak of you get in most adventure games. From the karma meter description above, you may have guessed that you're supposed to make each character a better person through doing The Right Thing(tm). You can tell when you've done good, because your character portrait will flash a moronic grin. No, I'm not kidding. The first time I saw it I nearly choked.

Still, you may think, figuring out which action agrees with the character's moral standards might be interesting. However...

The Bad
One subgame is plain ridiculous. Another has a gratuitous time progression that forces you to play each day twice just to get your bearings, while a third basically shouts the character's background at you. In fact, the subgame that works the best is the one where the story is revealed behind solutions to barely tangential puzzles, which is a sure sign that the designers weren't up to this difficult task.

There was one subgame which I thought realized the character competently, but it contained some of the worst puzzles I've ever seen. And the ending... well, I can't really talk about it without spoiling, so I won't.

The interface feels unfinished, unresponsive and clunky. The character animation often looks downright comical, like poorly directed marionettes. There are serious bugs. There are puzzles that give no feedback on your actions. There are several opportunities for stranding yourself, one of which may leave you to play most of the game over again. And finally, if you're going to have a story-driven adventure, you'd better not have any pixel-hunting puzzles. I Have No Mouth does have a pixel-hunting puzzle and I did scream. Loudly.

The Bottom Line
All this is irrelevant, however: It's still required playing, because it's one of the few game adaptations to significantly involve the original author, and the only graphic adventure I can think of that works towards really complex characters. And for anyone remotely interested in Harlan Ellison and adventure games, there's simply no question. Shame, really; a more polished I Have No Mouth might have hooked some people on adventure games, possibly even raised the standards of what an adventure game should be.

DOS · by Ola Sverre Bauge (237) · 2004

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Extras

The original retail box included a 3D mousepad with the box cover image.

German and French version

The German and French versions have been heavily censored, with the Nimdok chapter entirely removed. While it was speculated that Nimdok was absent from the German version because of local anti-nazi laws, it is still not clear why the French version was affected as well. This renders the best ending impossible to achieve.

Lawsuit

Harlan Ellison, the author of the story the game was based on, sued the developer when he believed that he wasn't getting his share of the profits. It turned out there weren't any.

Original story

As of 2001, the short story I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (which the game was based on) is one of the ten most reprinted stories in the English language.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • June 1996 (Issue #143) – Adventure Game of the Year
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #134 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #3 Top Sleeper Of All Time
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #14 Most Rewarding Ending of All Time

Information also contributed by casimps1, Kaminari and KnockStump

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

I Must Run!
Released 2010 on PSP, PlayStation 3, Symbian...
Paper Planets Have No Gravity
Released 2012 on Browser, Android
I Have No Nose & I Must Climb
Released 2023 on Windows
Silent Scream II: The Bride
Released 2015 on Windows
Orcs Must Die!
Released 2011 on Xbox 360, Windows
All Walls Must Fall
Released 2017 on Windows, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch
I Have No Tomatoes
Released 2004 on Windows, Linux, Macintosh
Super Boy I
Released 1989 on SEGA Master System, MSX
I ♥ Geeks
Released 2011 on Nintendo DS

Related Sites +

  • Crapshoot
    A humorous review on PC Gamer
  • FAQs & Guides
    posted on GameFaqs.com
  • Game Nostalgia
    Provides extensive background info for I have No Mouth, pictures of the cast and examples of voice-overs, full credits with shots and info about the design team, a demo of the game, specific details about the game, various goodies, all musical themes, shots of every location in the game, saved games, a list of reviews, including a "nostalgic "review and tech specs.
  • Playing this game using DOSBox
    This page explains the full details
  • ScummVM
    supports I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream under Windows, Macintosh and other platforms.
  • UHS Hile File
    The Universal Hint System offers a download of their question & answer format solution guide here.
  • Walkthrough on Gamezilla
    Good game guide for solving this game.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 617
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Mr Creosote.

Macintosh added by Slik. iPhone, Android, Linux, iPad added by Sciere. Windows added by lights out party.

Additional contributors: MAT, Kasey Chang, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, martin jurgens, Macs Black, Kontxouso, Patrick Bregger, li zhen, Piotr Józefowicz.

Game added December 26, 1999. Last modified January 5, 2024.