Review for [I] doesn’t exist

Written by
Alyssa Hatmaker — September 21, 2023

Text-based games hold a special place in the hearts of many of us who are of a certain age (read: old) and grew up playing adventure games. Whether it was Zork or Colossal Cave Adventure or, in my case, the lesser-known but lovely Humbug, they were once the ultimate interactive narrative experience. In recent years, games like Stories Untold, Buddy Simulator, and Roadwarden have attempted to both revive and evolve the genre, proving that there is still a place for text-based games in our modern landscape. I doesn’t exist takes the idea of genre evolution and runs with it, until the end result feels like a love letter to the text adventure game as well as an engaging and emotional horror experience.

I doesn’t exist uses a technology called Natural Language Processing to make it easier for the game to recognize what you’re trying to tell it, but the devs LUAL and publisher DreadXP want to make it clear that the game’s use of NLP is not affiliated with ChatGPT or similar AI platforms, and its narrative is completely created by human writers. So if you’re worried about the game collecting copious amounts of user data to present an AI-driven experience, that’s not the case. What it presents instead is a mind-bender of a story that responds to player input and moves the narrative along accordingly. 

As a kid, I remember wishing I had more options in text-based games beyond the stilted “go, use, pick up, look around,” etc. I doesn’t exist feels much more intuitive than that, picking up on whether your responses are positive or negative and providing more conversational opportunities. It doesn’t always work; you’ll still get the typical “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say” response at times. But it is impressive how far interactivity in a simple text-based engine has come with the use of new technology, and it’s nice to see AI being used in a fairly irreproachable way.

View all screenshots »

I don’t want to spoil too much of the game, but it’s hard to dance around its narrative without mentioning that things aren’t exactly as they seem at the outset. It appears simple at first — type in commands to make your character move around a beautifully pixelated side-scrolling world, solve a few puzzles, and escape the area you’re in to move on to something else. A wider adventure awaits… doesn’t it? 

It turns out things aren’t quite that run-of-the-mill, and there’s a dark undercurrent to the world within the game. Taking cues from games like Undertale and OneShot, I doesn’t exist bends and twists your preconceived notions about what a text-based adventure game is. At times, I had no idea where it was leading me or what it was trying to get me to do, but that’s part of the fun. It’s all about experimentation with the text box. You’ll want to play it in one sitting if you can, and you’ll want to play it more than once, which seems counterintuitive, but I promise it will make sense in the end.

That is, if you can get past the requirement to complete the first section of the game over and over again. I doesn’t exist begins with some typical puzzle-solving — pick up a bucket, use a key, look at a statue, etc. It’s pretty fun and provides a great sense of satisfaction before the game is turned completely on its head. The only problem is, you have to complete those puzzles every time you start a new playthrough, and multiple playthroughs are pretty much required in order to enjoy the game to its fullest. I really wish there was some way to skip or move more quickly through the first part of the game once you’ve already played it. It’s a fairly long sequence, which makes it begin to feel like filler, and I was impatient to get through it so I could peel back more of the game’s interesting layers. 

View all screenshots »

Unfortunately, my experience was also somewhat marred by technical issues. I often had to reload my save because the command prompt simply stopped working. The game refused to accept my input, which is actually ironic considering some of the story’s themes about player agency. At one point, I thought this wasn’t going to allow me to progress, but I managed to keep trying until it let me push through. Additionally, I ran into some loading screens that lasted much longer than they should have, prompting me to alt-tab while I waited for the game to get on with itself.

Once I was able to get past the technical difficulties, I was met with a surprisingly deep conversation about stagnation and feeling stuck inside oneself. I don’t want to say much more than that because it’s really something that should be experienced first-hand. I doesn’t exist transforms from a typical puzzler into a ruminative heart-to-heart with, well — just go play it. You’ll see what I mean.  

View all screenshots »

The game comes with a suggestion to wear headphones, and for good reason — the sound design can’t go without mentioning. Along with the old-school computer loading sounds and keyboard clacking, the music is gorgeous in its execution. It’s subtle when it needs to be, until it builds and builds, beautifully accompanying what’s happening in-game. I got a little lost in the intricacies of the sound design.

DreadXP is one of the most exciting horror publishers around, and I hope they keep throwing their weight behind games like LUAL’s I doesn’t exist — indies that are trying new things, pushing both the horror and adventure genres forward in inventive ways. It’s not a perfect game — annoying bugs and some unneeded repetition make sure of that. It is, however, a testament to what games can do and how genres as a whole can keep evolving. Here’s hoping other developers take notes from it and the future of text-based games is a bright one.