Oh dear, here’s an existentially uncomfortable (and genuinely potentially triggering around themes of abuse) one for you. Am I Nima, shown off this weekend during the Story Rich Showcase, is a visual novel in which you take on the role of the titular Nima, who is trying to convince her mother that she really is her daughter by combining words in her brain.

Shall we unpack that a touch? Nima has been trapped in the basement by her mother, with said parental figure testing her in order to discover the legitimacy of whether Nima is who she says she is. Throughout the game, Nima’s brain can be seen to one side, devoid of any kind of thought. Over time, various words may appear that you can then use to respond to questions asked by Nima’s mother, these questions and conversations in turn summoning new words. You can also search Nima’s house to find new words too, something that’s quite key outside of conversations.

The key thing here is in the fusion of words to create new ones. For example, Nima’s mother might show her a plushie of a shark. You might already have the word bed from seeing your own bed, the word dad from a drawing on your wardrobe, and the word shark from a conversation. Combining the three will then give you the words aquarium and happy, allowing you to respond in kind to Nima’s mother’s questions.

It’s a really unique looking approach to visual novel dialogue trees, blending well with the sensitive nature of the story. Your main goal is to figure out why Nima has been locked in the basement, and what else she might be hiding, so again, this one does seem like it might be quite a difficult experience. If it is something you’d be interested in, it just received a release date of October 8th too, and you can wishlist it on Steam (and try out a demo) right now.