GAME CELEBRATES EVERYDAY OBJECTS
I Am Dead Annapurna Interactive Available on PC and Switch
In the early 20th century, Russian writer Viktor Shklovsky pioneered a wonderful concept in literary theory. In English it is translated as defamiliarization. The idea is simple: Art works to re-enchant things that everyday life has made overly familiar. Thus, a painting of a worn pair of shoes, if executed well enough, might evoke a feeling our scruffy shoes left by the door never do. The video game I Am Dead tries to achieve something similar by tasking players with looking through everyday objects to find traces of emotional resonance.
At the start of the game, we are introduced to Morris Lupton, a mild-mannered fellow — bespectacled, bearded and mostly bald — who is adjusting to his new life as a ghost. When he was alive, Morris was the curator of the local museum on the small fictional island of Shelmerston situated in the North Atlantic. Soon after an early morning walk along the beach and a quick stop at his old workplace to savour its ambience, Morris is reunited with the ghost of his old dog Sparky who, to his great delight, can talk. She is pleased to see her old owner, but impresses upon him the need not to dither around catching up because the island's long-quiet volcano will erupt unless Morris can find a new custodial spirit to placate the area's tumultuous energy.
Morris immediately offers to take on the role of the island's custodian, but Sparky says a ghost can assume the role of the custodian only if it has been dead 1,000 days. So Morris must persuade one of five potential prospects to become custodian.
Players must travel to different locations to locate five different objects that were dear to each prospect in life. Morris must find the signature item in various characters' memories — a small Buddha statue, the nose from a sculpture, a foreign coin, and so on. Often, they will be nestled in something else, such as an animal burrow.
Its supernatural trappings notwithstanding, I Am Dead is a celebration of daily life. I've enjoyed each of the stories about the prospects I've encountered thus far. There is a quaintness to their stories that aligns well with the game's focus on the simple action of turning over mundane objects to reveal mild surprises.
I would not recommend rushing through I Am Dead since, if you get stuck, it can be frustrating to comb over areas at length searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The fact that there isn't much variety to the game's music certainly doesn't help. Dipping in and out of this humble puzzler is the way to go since it can otherwise be easy to lose sight of the charms of a fairly ordinary environment.