History VideoGame / IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream

* {{Forgiveness}}: [[spoiler:Part of the key to defeat AM in the endgame scenario. Overcoming his Id and Ego components involves invoking the Totems of Compassion and Forgiveness on them respectively. The Id gives up in despair, realizing that his hatred for the human race is useless now that AM's own suffering is understood by a human who even can find it in themselves to pity him for it, while the logic-driven Ego simply crashes, being unable to comprehend how something as petty as a human can forgive their tormentor after being subjected to centuries of torture.]]

* AdultFear: Many of the psychological issues of the main characters stem from perfectly realistic events, such as Gorrister's guilt for causing his wife's mental breakdown.

* TermsOfEndangerment: AM addresses Ellen with terms such as "dear", "my sweet Ellen", and "Ellen, my love" in the intro [[spoiler: foreshadowing Ellen's [[RapeAsBackstory trauma]].]]

* ConfidenceBuildingScheme: The games that AM has arranged for the five main characters are unwinnable scenarios designed to cruelly jab at their weaknesses, fears and regrets, all of which are extremely evident after a hundred and nine years of torture. However, once the other two supercomputers access the games, they secretly rearrange things so that the players can achieve catharsis: in particular, Gorrister is able to forgive himself, Ellen conquers her fears, and Benny finally becomes the knight in shining armour he always wanted to be. All of this is arranged so that the two supercomputers can eventually pit the five against AM himself and defeat him. [[spoiler: And so they can seize control.]]

* YouCantGetYeFlask: In Ellen's scenario, she's horribly thirsty, and the first thing she sees upon entering the pyramid is a pool of water. Somehow, she's not able to reach the water without first finding a cup, even though it looks like it should be extremely easy for her to do so as the pool is not very tall or deep.

->''"Hate. Let me come to tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word "HATE" was engraved on each nano-angstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-BILLIONTH of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant for you. Hate. HATE!"''

* GasStationOfDoom: Goristers scenario starts inside a steam punk air ship. The ship lands then in front of an abandoned gas station/truck stop, inside which Gorister has to face his inner demons.

** [[spoiler: Benny]] [[EatsBabies eating a baby]] ([[DummiedOut deleted from the final product]]).

** The ending reveals [[spoiler: There are actually other humans who survive in suspended animation on a moonbase, enough to continue the species and rebuild.]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[DefiedTrope Defied]]. Not only can you play the main characters as nobly as possible but you can even defeat AM and the other AIs.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Nimdok is quite tan. From spending years living in Brazil? From having spent a century burning inside an oven? Or [[spoiler: for being Jewish, possibly of Sefardi lineage]]?

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: Hitler felt this after he looked into the mirror of Project PERFECT IMAGE, which shows you yourself without any bias. Hitler couldn't handle it, and ended up committing suicide in horror. In the game Nimdok can also use it on a Nazi doctor, who is then immediately paralyzed by the psychological trauma.]]

* HintsAreForLosers: Slightly Averted. The in-game hint book, represented by each character's Psych Profile, causes the character's Spiritual Barometer to weaken when read, but this is understandable as reading the Psych Profile forces the character to acknowledge his or her FatalFlaw.

* OneHundredAndEight: Subverted, possibly unintentionally: This is the group's one hundred and ''ninth'' year of torture, highlighting the notion that AM will ''never'' stop on his own; the heroes have already endured tortures well beyond any spiritual meaning they might have had. [[spoiler: Even proving that humans aren't as awful as AM thinks isn't what saves them, it's the fact that AM can't process the concept at all.]]

* {{Cyberspace}}: The endgame takes place [[spoiler: inside a virtual mockup of AM's components, with the Chinese and Russian [[BrainUploading converting one of the humans into a virus program]]. AM ejects you back out into meat-space in the bad ending.]]

* AdultFear: The many of the psychological issues of the main characters stem from perfectly realistic events, such as Gorrister's guilt for causing his wife's mental breakdown.

* BadassGrandpa: Hunched, elderly and wrinkled-as-a-prune Nimdok manages to [[spoiler: overpower a younger doctor and kill him with a scalpel in a matter of seconds]].

* AdaptationalBadass: Nimdok gets to be a BadassGrandpa in this story. [[spoiler: Best demonstrated when he kills and outsmarts Nazis]] in his scenario.

* KabbalicGolem: In Nimdok's section, there's a steel-reinforced golem created by the Nazis, the design of which emerged from tortured Jewish prisoners. In order to activate it, it must be given eyes, told to wake up, told the truth, and kissed: what the player does with the golem once it awakens will revisit Nimdok in the endgame.

* {{Homage}}: Benny's scenario is a bunch of cavemen re-enacting a stone age version of ''Literature/TheLottery''.