Demo answers early questions about Am I Nima

• Announcements by Sam Amiotte-Beaulieu
• Published:

Keyword-based psychological thriller launching October 8th on Steam for Windows and Mac

It’s normal to feel a little off from time to time, but in indie Canadian developer HO! Games’s upcoming psychological thriller Am I Nima, that feeling gets pushed to a whole other level, to the point that you can’t be sure who you even are, or if your own mother would believe you if you were.

You are Nima Lee, the daughter of Annabelle Lee. At least, that’s what you’re led to believe. You’re told that you look like Nima, that you are Nima, but you recollect nothing at all, your memory nothing more than “a blank slate.” What’s worse is that you’ve been tied to a chair – supposedly for your own good – trapped by your mother “in a dimly lit basement.” Your only hope for escape is to pass mommy dearest's various tests to prove that you are Nima and not someone (or something) else. It’s up to you to “direct the conversation” using words you uncover, whether to tell your inquisitor what she wants to hear or “probe her for the truth.” But be warned: push too hard and there could be dire consequences, so remember – big smiles! You wouldn’t want to upset mother, would you?

Am I Nima is a first-person psychological thriller quite unlike most of its contemporaries. The game puts you directly into the troubled protagonist’s “fractured mind” and lets you see through Nima’s eyes. Much of the game plays out with your mother surrounded by darkness, facing you in conversation, but you will also point-and-click through eerily shaded, almost monochromatic slideshow-style environments where every object could hold a clue to who Nima is: perhaps a photo of you and your dad on a trip to the aquarium, or a mysterious fossil that seems somehow connected to your mom’s… eccentricities.

Your task is to slowly piece together the concepts and memories unlocked through dialogue and visual cues from “once-familiar rooms” during interrogations with your mother. The left side of the screen is reserved for a bank of keywords that will fill in as you learn more, which can be separated by tabs such as “Relationships,” “Nature” and even “Life and Death” for when the list starts to become unwieldy. It’s these words that “become the building blocks of your understanding and are used to direct the conversations with your mom." Words you collect in your library must then be combined in Nima’s mind on the right side in order to form new ideas, and progress occurs through “experimenting with different pairings to unlock deeper meanings and access buried memories.” And occasionally you’ll experience a brief flash of text of Nima’s independent thoughts that make you question what you can actually believe.

Any horror buffs or deduction fans looking to experience a unique brand of existential crisis won’t have to wait much longer, as Am I Nima is due to release October 8th for Windows and Mac. For a sneak peek into Nima’s mind ahead of time, there’s already a playable demo available to download on Steam.