Am I Nima’s premise is quite brilliant when you think about it. You’re Nima, an amnesiac young girl who wakes up realizing that #1, she remembers nothing about who she is and what happened to her, and #2, she’s been locked up inside a basement. By her own mother. Who, I might add, views her like she’s some kind of shapeshifting alien from The Thing, a creature that’s only imitating humans. Or… something like that. The whole thing is admittedly left fairly vague and (I’m assuming, intentionally) mysterious, but that’s kind of the point – to make you question everything and everyone, including yourself. A solid concept, all in all, and what I’ve seen from the demo has me convinced that it’s got some serious potential.
Because what if Nima IS an alien? Or some kind of Lovecraftian eldritch being? I mean, your mother views you with extreme suspicion, asking you questions – giving you tests. To prove that you really are her daughter. This would understandably make you draw certain conclusions, but when I read about the game’s initial premise, I had two different ideas in mind: either the protagonist is dealing with a mental condition that affects her memories and personality, or she’s really an alien in disguise. The way Am I Nima’s core gameplay is structured ties into this duality as well: you “manage” Nima’s brain, filling it up with words and phrases as you explore her surroundings, then combine said words in order to form new ideas to be used in dialogue scenes – like someone learning how to be human. Or someone just trying to piece together the fragments of her shattered mind. There’s a voice in your head that acts almost like a mysterious entity, but it could just as well be your own mental voice telling you to do terrible things – or perhaps another personality born from your illness. Who knows?
Now, while the whole “alien takes over person” thing is quite a fascinating premise on its own, I really do hope the game continues keeping things ambiguous for as long as it can. Even more so because the story you seem to uncover has a very human edge to it as well: as you combine more words, suspicious – and frankly, somewhat worrying – connections begin to bubble to the surface, further adding fuel to the fire of Nima and her mother’s strained relationship. Among other things. You only get morsels, really. Small hints. And the more words you add to your brain-repertoire through various combinations, the more obvious it becomes that something is very, very wrong here; there is the vague outline of a tragedy, of something gone horribly off the rails, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. Combining seemingly unrelated phrases results in words that tell a story on their own, with implications that hint at a deeper mystery. That’s the part I really liked about Am I Nima, and there are probably a million different theories you could come up with based on the demo alone. Looking at other people’s ideas and interpretations was one of my favorite things to do while working on this article – in fact, I even discovered things that I myself have missed during my roughly 90 minutes with the demo.
So yes, Am I Nima succeeded in making my brain juices flow, and while its core gameplay is relatively simple, it makes that simple system work in surprising ways to achieve powerful narrative goals. This is how good horror operates – not with cheap jump scares and zombies screaming in your face, but by turning your own mind against you, with subtle implications and an ever-growing feeling of existential dread.
The demo for Am I Nima is available to download from Steam.
