What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good trailer. Adam – Lost Memories got me good there.
Few are the moments in life that give me greater joy than having an obscure indie game I’ve never heard of before grab my attention just by stumbling across it on the internet rather than through word of mouth.
Adam – Lost Memories, a psychological horror game on Early Access on itch.io and Steam, is one of those games.
I found Adam – Lost Memories while browsing the r/IndieGaming subreddit. The post was a link to the trailer which got me hooked pretty much as soon as I saw it. I was really impressed with the atmosphere and the creepy vibe it gave me, and I happen to quite enjoy horror games.
So I shelled out $9.50 and decided to give it a try.
What I Liked About Adam – Lost Memories
Adam – Lost Memories is a game made by a solo developer Adam Dubi, narrated by Isaak Wells. The game is about the developer’s experience with child abuse, and the story is told from his perspective.
I was pretty much sold on the pitch. I myself grew up in an abusive household and I’m a card-carrying member of the Shitty Dad’s Club.
The game’s store page tagline is:
“Fear in real life is not from zombies that want to eat your brain, or the ghost that came back from the after-life to open your fridge while you slept.
…True fear is when you are constantly shamed, terrorized, and humiliated for years. True fear is when you can’t see the end of it.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I know what it’s like to grow up in an environment where explosive, hours-long screaming matches can blow up at any moment. What it’s like to witness the women in your life being constantly verbally and emotionally battered.
How it feels to have the person who created you actively delight in crippling your sense of self-worth with constant criticism, bouts of apoplectic rage and emotional assaults. To not see an end to the trauma because you’re dependent on them to survive. To feebly try and stand up for yourself only to make it worse. To never, ever see a way out.
This is an issue that’s very close to my heart. So as soon as I learned that’s what this game is about, I was pretty much immediately on board.
Story, Mechanics, and Music
Adam – Lost Memories plays exactly like Amnesia: the Dark Descent and looks and feels like Silent Hill 2. It’s basically Amnesia with a Silent Hill skin and an industrial setting. If anything, it bears the most resemblance to Penumbra, the spiritual predecessor to the Amnesia games.
Gameplay is linear and consists mostly of physics-based inventory puzzles, like Amnesia. The world takes place in an industrial environment where you’re surrounded by corridors covered with metal and rust, which makes it feel like Silent Hill 2.
Adam – Lost Memories also has a mental health mechanic, again, much like Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You restore your sanity by solving puzzles and progressing through the story. You lose it by stalling or looking at monsters.
The environmental puzzles were simplistic yet somehow a lot of the game ended up being very frustrating for me. Maybe it’s because I give myself hemorrhoids whenever I have to think too hard without being paid for it, but I found myself frequently getting stuck and having to look up YouTube walkthroughs for Adam – Lost Memories every 10 minutes or so, in spite of the fact that the puzzles are all fairly straightforward when you actually do them.
I chalk it up to the maps and levels being labyrinthine, it’s very easy to get lost through the metal corridors if you’re not paying attention.
Then gameplay isn’t much to write home about to be perfectly honest. But do you know where Adam – Lost Memories really shines? In the music and lighting department.
The music and the environmental sounds are legitimately really creepy. It’s all atmospheric groaning, creaking and industrial noises. It really puts me on edge. Whenever I heard something scuttling in the distance or hear a woman’s screams echo through the metal walls I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Adam – Lost Memories also makes a great use of lighting to convey dread. Red doorway lights. Lights that blink in and out. Pitch-black rooms that only become visible when you enter them.
When you play it, it really is some spooky shit. Whenever I saw a monster slink into a hallway I was planning on heading into, poke its head around a corner, lumber through a passageway or crawl across a ceiling, I could feel my heart leap into my throat.
My Standout Moment
But halfway through my play session came the highlight of the game’s current build.
You pick up a broken, old camera you can toggle with the right mouse button, and use the flash with the left.
Shortly after this, you’re led into a pitch-black room that you can only move through – you guessed it – using the camera flash.
As you move halfway across the room. FLASH. Empty space in front of you.
You move another couple of steps. FLASH.
And then you’re surrounded by writhing, shapeless, faceless corpses.
You can smell the jumpscares coming a mile away, but it is a legitimately creepy moment that made me audibly scream like a little girl.
It reminds me of Outlast where you use a camera to see your way through the dark.
That was my standout moment in the game, and it stuck with me.
What I Didn’t Like About Adam – Lost Memories
I can’t help but notice a certain disconnect between the story and the mechanics. What do inventory puzzles and industrial settings have to do with child abuse? There’s also a meta story about a disaster which happened inside the mining facility you’re in.
What about this game is supposed to make me think of child abuse other than the flashbacks? Maybe there’s some sort of hidden allegory about what child abuse is like that I’m not seeing. I was expecting something like Silent Hill where the monsters are physical representations of the creator’s inner demons.
Also, apart from my one stand-out moment, I didn’t really experience a lot of tension. I mostly felt mildly creeped out rather than legitimately scared. I played for two to three hours and didn’t really see any monsters apart from a handful of glimpses.
Also (and again I realize that this is a horror game), but the lighting makes things a little hard to see. The maze-like levels can be a little hard to navigate too.
I get that this is a horror game, but I found the pacing to be a little bit slow for my taste.
Periodically throughout the 2-3 hour single-player campaign, you’re brought into flashbacks of Adam’s memories of being neglected and traumatized by his parents.
Those moments are pretty emotional. Walking down the hallway of a house with words like “sadness,” “desperation,” and “despondency” reminds me of being an abused child much more than walking through an industrial center with giant fans and elevators.
Also, the monsters themselves are pretty creepy. Even when glimpsed at a distance. I never lost my sanity enough to trigger a chase, but the way they lumber and crawl rather than move or walk again calls home to games like Amnesia.
My Recommendation
I didn’t enjoy everything about Adam – Lost Memories and I wanted to like it more than I actually did, but that notwithstanding it’s a game that looks and sounds impressive. I admire what it’s trying to accomplish and it was worth playing just for that.
For what it’s worth, Adam is an impressive looking game. It also runs well on my laptop for a game that seems to be pretty polished.
Also, it’s only $14.99 on both Steam and Itch.Io. So yeah, give it a shot.
If you’re in a giving mood, I’d also like to ask you to donate to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Their volunteers work tirelessly around the clock to help victims of abuse and domestic violence.
And for more horror game goodness, check out my review of Frost Bite
Studio: Adam Dubi Games
Platform: PC
Marketplace: Itch.Io and Steam
Price: $14.99
