Summary
Highlights
Benny's puzzle tasks him with overcoming his gluttony and being compassionate. AM initially 'fixes' his mind but not his body, leaving him as a 'monkey man.' He's transported to a village. Actions include finding fruit (which he can't eat directly), giving fruit to a mutant child and his mother, witnessing the mother's sacrifice, apologizing to the child, stopping a cruel lottery system, and eventually offering himself for sacrifice in place of the child to fully redeem himself. This puzzle is noted for beingbuggy, often requiring players to interact with all elements to progress the elder’s departure. His journey earns the 'totem of clarity'.
Gorister's puzzle focuses on confronting the guilt he feels over his wife, Glennice. AM allows him to 'kill himself'. He wakes in what appears to be a zeppelin. The puzzle involves collecting bed sheets, finding a flare gun, navigating various rooms (bunk rooms, mess hall, kitchen, engine room), using a knife to deflate the zeppelin, and landing at a gas station. He interacts with his father-in-law, Harry, and his mother-in-law, Edna, through a jukebox and by examining evidence of a past struggle. He must avoid killing Edna and instead tie her up, then using pig's heart for the Jackal, and burying Glennice. His actions must constantly reflect compassion and a desire for forgiveness to increase his morality, ultimately leading him to use the flare gun on the honky tonk, symbolically burning his past, and obtaining the 'totem of forgiveness'.
Nimdok's puzzle is described as short, dark, and the creator's favorite, often removed from certain game versions. AM sets up a trial to finish Nimdok's research on a 'lost tribe' within a concentration camp setting. Nimdok is revealed to be a Nazi scientist with Jewish heritage, who betrayed his parents to the regime. Key steps include killing the Nazi doctor with a scalpel, freeing a barbed-wire trapped prisoner with ether and wire cutters, examining a poster from 1945, encountering a man with wires in his eye sockets, and finding a secret furnace room with a gold pocket watch. He must eventually create a golem using the Jewish man's eyes, and reveal the truth of 1945 to it, confronting Mangala, and finally transferring control of the golem to the 'lost tribe', resulting in his death but redemption. This path is crucial for understanding a key game code.
After completing all five character puzzles, voices claiming to be 'pieces of AM' (Russian and Chinese AMs) reveal they have been interfering with AM's scenarios to help the characters. They explain AM has retreated into his mind, allowing them to manifest. They propose that one survivor enter AM's 'ram space' to take it down. The game has seven endings, most of which depend on a code from Nimdok's story (1945). Players can only achieve six non-worst endings if they know this code. The RAM space contains AM's id, ego, and superego, represented by obelisks. Understanding these Freudian concepts is key to affecting AM.
The video outlines all seven endings: 1. **Worst Ending:** Failing to extend the bridge in AM's RAM space turns the last survivor into the soft jelly thing, similar to the short story's ending. 2. **Bad Ending (Sergot's Control):** Invoking the principle of entropy after summoning Sergot gives him control of AM, leading to AM regaining control and turning one survivor into the jelly thing. 3. **Bad Ending (Russian/Chinese AMs Failed):** Using the principle of entropy on the Russian and Chinese AMs leads to AM's reawakening and turning the player character into the jelly thing. 4. **Bad Ending (Ego Death):** Disabling AM's ego with the totem of forgiveness leads to the Russian and Chinese AMs overpowering the id and superego, and turning the player into the jelly thing. 5. **Second Best Ending (Apathetic AM):** Disabling the id with the totem of compassion and the superego with the totem of clarity, then using entropy on the Russian and Chinese AMs, leaves only the ego. AM becomes apathetic, ending the torture but leaving the player alone forever. 6. **Worst Ending (AM's Ultimate Triumph):** Disabling all psychological parts, then foolishly giving AM the totem of entropy, results in AM merging with its other parts, discovering the 750 humans on the moon, and torturing them along with the player, becoming an unbeatable machine. 7. **Best Ending (Humanity Reborn):** Disabling all psychological parts, refusing to give AM the totem of entropy, and using the totem to delete AM entirely. This reawakens the 750 humans on the moon to terraform and repopulate Earth, while the player becomes a disabled, eternal being, akin to AM's original state but for a benevolent cause.
The creator reiterates their deep affection for the game, highlighting its unique horror, hopelessness, and psychological depth, comparing it to 'Fear and Hunger'. They praise how the game expands on the original short story and incorporates complex psychological ideas. The video concludes by recommending the game to viewers, emphasizing Harlan Ellison's mastery of horror and hopelessness.
The video starts with the creator expressing excitement for this analysis, linking it to previous deep dives into 'Fear and Hunger' and 'House of Leaves'. It's presented as a spiritual successor to a prior video on Harlan Ellison's short story 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream'. The game, released in 1995, is a point-and-click puzzle horror adventure. Despite being a commercial failure at launch due to its difficulty and Ellison's marketing (claiming it's 'unwinnable'), it later gained cult status. The creator believes the game expands on the story, making it even darker. The video outlines its structure: an intro, detailed walkthroughs of five mini-stories/puzzles, an explanation of the endgame and basic endings, a breakdown of specific endings and their implications, and a discussion of the game's development and message.
The game's intro, narrated by Harlan Ellison himself as the supercomputer AM, provides a summary of AM's hatred for humanity and its torture of the five remaining survivors for 109 years. The video highlights differences from the book: Gorrister is a truck driver, Benny an army vet, and Ellen, Ted, and Nimdok have significantly expanded backstories. Players can choose any of the five characters, and the order doesn't matter. The gameplay is a standard point-and-click, with eight interaction buttons and 12 inventory slots. A morality gauge, represented by the character's portrait, changes color based on choices, affecting access to better endings. Reading psychological reports, for instance, lowers morality.
Ted's puzzle is detailed. AM tells Ted he's his favorite and can escape if he solves it. Ted's fatal flaw is womanizing. The goal is to resist temptations and be virtuous to fill his morality gauge. The puzzle involves navigating a castle with various rooms. Key steps include talking to Ellen (a medieval princess), resisting the handmaid's seduction, finding the stepmother who uses black magic, and ultimately defeating a demon named Sergot by denying the sacrifice of Ellen and using the mirror to trap evil forces. Successfully completing this puzzle with high morality grants a secret item, the 'totem of summoning'.
Ellen's puzzle focuses on overcoming her fears, especially of the color yellow and claustrophobia. AM taunts her, claiming she's his favorite. She's transported to a pyramid made of computer parts. Key actions include repairing a wire in a monitor room, picking up a yellow cloth (despite her fear) and using it as a blindfold, obtaining tweezers, retrieving a blue gem from a statue, splashing water on an Anubis statue to short-circuit it, reprogramming a computer chip, entering a sarcophagus, and reliving her traumatic past in an elevator. Fighting back against her rapist in the elevator scene is crucial for increasing her morality. Ultimately, she must destroy a system to stop AM, and confronting her fear of enclosed spaces by re-entering the sarcophagus completes her puzzle, granting the 'totem of compassion'.