Since Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, the first principle of video games has been don’t die. So when you find yourself dead before a game even starts, you know you’re in for a different, gentler experience. I Am Dead opens with a walk along the beach so languid I wondered if my controller was broken. But within minutes, its invitation to slow down and smell the roses had drawn me in. It took meSince Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, the first principle of video games has been don’t die. So when you find yourself dead before a game even starts, you know you’re in for a different, gentler experience. I Am Dead opens with a walk along the beach so languid I wondered if my controller was broken. But within minutes, its invitation to slow down and smell the roses had drawn me in. It took me five evenings to complete the game, and I didn’t need my Headspace app that whole week.
More than a game, I Am Dead is a meditation on life and love. In a medium not famed for nuanced depictions of relationships, it feels genuinely novel to see such a broad exploration of what love means. Yes, there are examples of romantic love, but also of love between friends, and of parents for children. There is love for fish and foul, love of land and of sea, love of art, and love of tribe. We witness love that is difficult and reserved, and love big enough to endure pain and sacrifice, along with happy and straightforward love. And then there is a sort of fourth wall love: the love that the makers of this game clearly poured into it, which you can’t help but be conscious of every time you notice another thoughtful detail. It’s these details that make I Am Dead brim with life. One room, filled with plants, each one individually realized and fondly labelled, made me gasp with the exuberance, with the aliveness of it all. Similarly, the lovely specifics of the seaside town filled me with a childish joy. Through the lead character, Morris, we are shown the truth of his namesake William Morris’ assertion that “the true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
With the game’s core ‘slicing’ mechanic, its creators have come up with something that is both pleasing and profound. By holding down a shoulder button, you can zoom not just into but progressively through almost any object of the game, to reveal its inner structure or hidden contents. Not only is this endlessly fun to do (a good thing too, since you’ll be doing it hundreds of times), it brings the game’s big themes alive at a tangible level. When you zoom in to reveal a radio’s transistors, or the bubbles inside a can of drink, or the toppings on a pizza inside a box, you swoon at how rich our world is, how much unnoticed daily wonder permeates our lives. It is great to see the third dimension put to more interesting gaming use than normal: not for outer realism but inner truth.
This richness is heightened by the other elements of the game. The script-writing is honest and cliché-free. The voice acting is touching and evocative. The music is simply beautiful, and perfectly fits the mood: slow, thoughtful, melancholy, yet warm. I particularly liked the way the game takes a quaint seaside town packed with enough English nostalgia to be a Brexiter’s dream, but populates it like a Remainer’s utopia: a happy and diverse collection of pan-sexual and even trans-species locals, immigrants and visitors. It is almost as if the slicing device, with its stark reminder that we are all just collections of atoms, renders our factional differences ridiculous and untenable. At the same time, its insistence that all objects have an inner life gives the game an Animist vibe in which everything has a spirit and everything is worthy of respect. As a result, it feels effortlessly inclusive and equalizing of men and women, straight and gay, human and animal, modern and ancient, animate and inanimate, vegetable and mineral, living and dead. All are part of the energy of the cosmos, and all have their role to play.
If you’ve ever yearned for a video game that will move you to ponder the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, I Am Dead awaits you.… Expand
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