I Am Dead

released on Oct 08, 2020

I Am Dead is a charming puzzle adventure game from the creators of Hohokum and Wilmot’s Warehouse about exploring the afterlife.


Reviews View More

A fun game to spend a few evenings with. I thought the story was interesting, and while the game would probably go faster if I didn't stop to find all the hidden grenkin, I liked those puzzles too. If You're looking for a narrative based, hidden object type game you may like this one. My small pet peeve was how the audio didn't match the text speed very well. But I just clicked through and read instead of waiting if I was getting impatient.

It's an eye-catching title, I'll certainly give it that. I might not have looked twice at I Am Dead had it been called something like "Shelmerston" (after the game's setting), but as a title it is certainly fitting.

You are, indeed, dead. The story concerns the recently deceased Morris, who is idly getting used to the afterlife when Sparky, the spirit of his similarly departed dog, visits him. She brings worrying news that the island's volcano is about to erupt unless a ghost can soothe it. Morris is apparently not right for the job, so the two set out to find the island's next protector.

This takes the shape of a hidden object game where you search through a series of delightfully low-poly dioramas to learn more about the various candidates. You see the memories of those who knew them and try to find items that were important to them while alive.

While this sounds morbid, the game leans more towards the quirky than macabre. In fact, I Am Dead is often too quaint for its own good. The writing isn't bad necessarily, but the tone is almost flippant to a point where it's easy to forget that death looms over every moment. The game rarely actually commits to exploring tragedy or grief, instead celebrating each character's life. While this leads to some genuinely sweet moments, it undercuts the larger themes that the story is reaching for.

Zooming through the levels to find each object can be quite engaging, especially since Morris is able to phase through almost every single item in each level to visual dissect them. It's a particularly satisfying visual effect, and I can't help but be impressed at the sheer volume of detail that has gone into somewhat realistically model thousands of items - both inside and out - most of which are just there to obfuscate your goal.

It's hard to knock the effort and care that's been put into creating this charming world and its characters. As a game and story, it sadly doesn't quite coalesce. The very abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion left me feeling deflated rather than moved. For a game partly about the value of closure and important of legacy, it's a disappointingly unfulfilling note on which to end.

If I'm honest, I expected more of an annapurna game.

The art is clearly not the problem, they focus a lot on the unique style of every game of theirs, BUT the story is just okay and the gameplay is just "zoom in and zoom out".

It's just an average game. Not a horrible one, but it was not good enough to click with me, at least.

When you really get down to it, this is a pixel hunting game with bad writing. I feel the art department was done a disservice by how laborious the mechanics are, and how generic the plot is. Because it does looks pretty and it's clear a lot of talent was used here. There's a somewhat decent challenge here and there, usually testing your attention on previous pixel hunting ventures, but it is just not great. The biggest sin, however, is that despite being at heart a poorly constructed story in a tedious game format, that would be salvageable if it wasn't also written in the much dreaded hollywoodesque marvel style, that I abhor.

I Am Dead is a really pleasant experience. The gameplay loop is essentially Ispy with X-ray vision which doesn't exactly jump off the page. However, it is actually really fun to do in the context of the world of Shelmerston and the individual areas allow you to take your time interacting with its beautiful, episodic stories. I was having such a blast I even collected all the Grenkins and Whitstable riddles (little guidance from google on a few because they can get really tough). The characters of this game are such a joy to learn about, Peter Noach, Ogden Beckett, and Aggi especially. Discovering the impact they had on the people around them through memories is a theme that I will simply never tire of. The areas of Shelmerston were so cool to explore and kept me fully interested throughout the playthrough. I really appreciate the voice acting as well. the performances made the world feel more lived-in, and the dialogue was calm and befitting of the cozy and slow-paced nature of the game. As far as the overall story goes, I really liked it. It was pretty clear from the jump that Morris was headed for the job of custodian, but I really enjoyed how the game doesn't make it all about him and his responsibility. It tells the story of the island as he knows and loves it, the people, places, and shared experiences of Shelmerston, leaving the story of Aggi and his fate as simply a part of what makes him perfect for the job. The one thing I was not a huge fan of was the wrinkle they threw in about Sparky being part-spirit of Shelmerston. I don't think it was all that necessary. Sparky is Sparky. She is a part of Morris, and that's all she really needed to be in my opinion. I also thought that the voice acting performance was a bit off when she was talking about how the island was a part of her, but outside of that I still really liked the story.

In conclusion, I Am Dead is a surprising hidden gem that hit me with the charm from the jump and never let me go, highlighting the beauty of life and death and what we leave behind.