I Am Dead is a relaxing and emotional puzzle adventure that allows you to take a back seat experience and learn about the characters of the game through strong storytelling and learn through attention to detail. Although the game can feel a little underwhelming when it comes to rewarding you for collecting all of the Grenkins and got a bit glitchy towards the end, the real reward from playing I Am Dead rewards you with good storytelling and a life lesson about life, death, and knowing where you come from.
I Am Dead are probably words that you’d never hear yourself say or want to hear. But after experiencing I Am Dead by Hollow Ponds and Richard Hogg, it’s words that I would love to hear others talking about!
I Am Dead is a puzzle adventure game on the Nintendo Switch that has you playing as a man…well a ghost…named Morris Lupton who is of course dead and once owned a museum on his home Island, Shelmerston, to show his love for his home. One day after he has passed on he finds his dog, Sparky, who tells him that Shelmerston is in great danger. The Volcano on the Island is about to explode because the Custodian who keeps it from erupting is tired and needs to pass on and go West. The overall goal of the game is to journey through Shelmerston with Sparky as your guide and find someone who has passed on and who will become the new Custodian to save Shelmerston.
Story As Magical As a Camel?
As you play as Morris, you learn about the dead residents of Shelmerston in a very unique way. Morris can break down objects that he finds and look through them. The only way I can properly describe it, is as if you were taking an X-ray machine and using it to look through things to find clues that you need. He also can look into the memories of residents and find the locations of mementos so that Sparky can sniff and find the ghost they are looking for.
A few of my favorite characters that are introduced to you are Valerie, Ogden, and Sam. Although we don’t get to see first hand how these characters behaved or what they were like while they were alive, we do get to learn about them and their stories through others that remembered them. That’s what makes I Am Dead so special. The characters also felt real even though one of them is a Fish Person and their stories even had me tearing up at times, especially Ogden and Sam’s stories. They were each unique in their way, much like the game.
I Am Dead’s attention to detail was also something that pulled me in. The objects that you could find would also be tied into the stories of the residents too. For example, if you were looking in a cooler to find an object, there would be items in the cooler like drinks and food. It was pretty funny finding a toaster with toast under a chair and even a nose to a statue hidden in layers of bushes. Early in the game, you can also look through holes to find foxes sleeping and hiding away with stolen objects. It amazed me how I could search for things and learn more about the Island and find items within items. It added charm to the game. Objects in the game also connected characters to other characters, making the Island feel connected and not sectioned off into parts. The whole game felt like one giant Easter egg.
The dialogue and voice acting really helped the games pacing and kept me interested. I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted if I had not been able to hear what Morris and the others sounded like. It really helped add to the story and give each character personality, especially the main characters Morris and Sparky. The music also helped set the mood and gave the game a really calm and nostalgic feeling.
Toast A Little Too Burnt!
Sometimes my journey with Morris was a little shaky much like a volcano about to erupt. To begin, I felt like the only challenge that I faced was with finding all the Grenkins. Even though I was able to find all of them my first time through, I felt like it wasn’t challenging enough. There is a way to challenge yourself, and that’s with finding objects as fast as you can with special challenges on each part of the Island. I felt that being challenged and being rewarded for your hard work was lacking in the game. This could’ve easily been solved by adding an extra cutscene or a special ending adding to the regular ending. Instead, I was rewarded with staring at part of my Grenkin collection.
I Am Dead also never really breaks from its formula. With each part of the Island, I found myself looking for Grenkins, looking through memories, finding the mementos, and then finally wrapping it up with playing as Sparky and finding who I was looking for. It didn’t take me very long to complete the game at all and left me wanting more.
Lastly, at times the controls were hard to get used to. But, once I learned how to use them the game went by pretty quickly…probably even more than I would have liked it too. Towards the end of the game, my game crashed and I panicked because I hadn’t saved in a while. But, luckily the autosave feature in the game started back up to where I had left off. Also when switching from location to location I found that some areas wouldn’t load fully. Like in the museum I was greeted with an empty building and had to reset my game and once again feared that I had lost my progress. With a quick patch, I’m sure this problem could easily be fixed.
Honestly, even when going through and collecting everything and trying to finish the challenges, I found I Am Dead to be short. A little too short. Even if you aren’t rushing and collecting everything like I did. You’d probably find yourself at the end of the game within a few hours. I think this can be fixed by adding difficulty to the game or adding extra content like if you collect all the Grenkins. But, for now, I Am Dead was one of the easiest and shortest puzzle games I’ve ever played.
Conclusion!
I Am Dead is a relaxing and emotional puzzle adventure that allows you to take a back seat experience and learn about the characters of the game through strong storytelling and learn through attention to detail. The voice acting was superb and the unique mechanics of the game is something that I’ll never forget. Just like how the residents keep the memories of Morris, Aggi, and others who have passed on alive, I’ll never forget the warm and fuzzy feeling that I Am Dead made me feel. I’ll never forget the memory of me snuggled under my warm blankets and enjoying I Am Dead on my Nintendo Switch in portable mode.
Although the game can feel a little underwhelming when it comes to rewarding you for collecting all of the Grenkins and got a bit glitchy towards the end, the real reward from playing I Am Dead rewards you with good storytelling and a life lesson about life, death, and knowing where you come from.
