In games, it is common for expired to remain unexplored. When it is not used as a narrative device to motivate living characters, it is set aside as a guarantee for the game mechanics, little questioning the implications of their actions. I’m dead is nothing like that. Not only do you play as a recently reached protagonist, but his warm and inviting story explores the themes of what it means to leave a legacy – be it big or small – to the people with whom you shared your little time during your lifetime.
As the former curator of the Morris Lupton Museum and led by his dog Sparky, who also died, you will explore the recent history of the fictional Shelmerston Island in search of a new caretaker for the quiet settlement. The island’s dormant volcano is kept at bay by the waning spirit of a former resident, forcing Lupton to look for a replacement from a handful of other Shelmerston residents who have recently found themselves in the afterlife. With the opportunity to explore some of the picturesque places of the island and interact in a unique way with objects unique for their spectral shape, you will slowly discover the history of the island and touching vignettes of some of its inhabitants.
Before you can ask a friendly and resident spirit if he is up to the task of watching over Shelmerston, you must first know about its lasting effect on those who are still alive. This manifests itself at different levels where you explore the stories of each character through the prism of those who remember them. The devout devotees of a Yoga teacher, residing in a repurposed lighthouse, remember the soothing nature of their reached leader and color his complex relationship with past traumas and how it shaped his quest for inner peace. Another story, which takes place in the bustling port city of the Island, tells the story of a blossoming romance between two young people, both of whom learned more about themselves during their separation, which further cemented their relationship during the reunion. These stories will help you to introduce the future guardians before you get to know them and will give you all the context you need to understand your decision to accept or refuse the position of Guardian of the Island.
The steps have five memories that you can recall, each of which you solve by focusing images as you would rotate a kaleidoscope. It is a simple but effective way to give form to the stories told about their actions, while giving life to characters with whom they cannot interact explicitly in their spectral form. Each of these memories brings back the memories that you need to find in order to find the reached resident to whom you belong, turning each step into a kind of treasure hunt.
I Am Dead is a short journey to a distinctive and beautiful island with personal stories that balance sad anecdotes with heartwarming love stories.
As a Mind, you can study the objects around you in a unique way: by cutting into their geometry to peel off each of their layers and by tunneling into their inner workings. For example, you can zoom in on a large moored ship to reveal a brewery inside, which can be drilled further to reveal the contents of the shelves on the walls or stills. The zoom on the objects is reminiscent of the cutting geometry, except that it is used as a game mechanism instead of being a visual defect. The possibility of inspecting objects and each of their transverse layers is an interesting way to search for the objects described in each memory, especially if they lead to surprising discoveries. For example, examining a seemingly uninteresting hole revealed a network of fox caves hidden under a grassy park, showing how life above and below its surface continued in ignorant Harmony.
Finding the memories you need to move forward is rarely a challenge , which follows the relaxed pace of the I am Dead story. They are usually exactly where they are described in their associated memories, or otherwise close to the character recalling the stories, making the treasure hunt a conclusion for each Vignette rather than an exhausting secret. Although simple and inviting, the lack of evolution from one stage to the next makes any new object hunt a little less exciting than the previous one. The new areas you can explore give your own sense of wonder when you cut your construction, but it can be easy to ignore any window decoration if the main goals do not push you to explore them, even briefly.
At each stage, there are optional objectives that require a little more detective work. Your canine companion signals when grenades – small scattered ghosts- are nearby, and in order to find them, you need to decipher a vague visual cue. These clues are a 2D representation of a cross section of an object nearby, where you not only have to determine which object you have, but also enlarge and hide the geometry accordingly. I am forgiven enough that the closer you are to solving the puzzle, the more it tries to automatically align with the final goal to avoid possible frustrations when you have to perfectly align a specific object with the clue. But the rewards for solving these puzzles are nothing more than checking a List for each stage, which is disappointing compared to the effort involved, even if it is the only form of challenge offered by I am Dead.
Although the way you move from scene to scene in I Am Dead ends up losing momentum, the sets themselves never disappoint. From the multi-level lighthouse to a dimly lit campground, each of the stages is eye-catching. The striking watercolors that stretch over the serene Shelmerston hills complement the inviting blue tones of the surrounding oceans, reflecting the warm orange Sunset that greets the evenings in the last parts of the story. These bright colors go well with the whimsical drawings of the residents of Shelmerston, who are convinced that camels are works of fiction, but do not seem to attract the attention of citizens with apples for their heads or bipedal sailors-fish. I am Dead never tries to explain how these characters came to be, but also presents them in a way that corresponds to the almost mythical nature of the Island, integrating everything seamlessly in an endearing way.