No, I'm not a Human Preview: Creepy, Cursed Creatures Testing Your Conscience

Papers, Please is a game that might be referred to as an old classic by now. As a border guard, you decide who is allowed to enter the fictional country of Arstotzka. People in distress fleeing the war and you are the executioner who stamps their passports with the outcome of their fate. Papers, Please is not only damn dark and tragic, but also a fantastic and stylish game. So it's no wonder that there will be more games in the same vein. Games that borrow and twist and turn and do their own thing with the basic mechanics of Papers, Please. Not Tonight and Strange Horticulture did similar things but the question is whether the upcoming No, I'm not a Human is not the game that embraces and develops what Papers, Please did so well.

The neighbour knocks on the door and tells you not to let anyone in who you don't trust. You must also never say that you are alone. An unusually large solar flare has meant that you can't go out during the day because it's too hot and at night the Visitors wander around. The visitors look like the rest of us, but they are dangerous and whatever you do, you don't want to let them into your house. If you have company, they'll stay outside, but if you're alone, they'll break in at any cost. In other words, you can't be alone - but you don't really want to let anyone in at all. A tricky situation to say the least.

But what do you do when there is a knock on the door every night? What do you do when a lonely child stands on the patio begging for your help? Once again, you are holding the lives of strangers in your hands - just like in Papers, Please - but here death is more tangible and closer to life. You know that those who knock on your door need protection from the sun during the day, so if you don't let them in, you know what will happen to them.

Every morning the news reports on the Visitors. The first day they declare that the Visitors have very white, flawless and straight teeth. The next day they say they have dirt under their fingernails, a sign that they have dug themselves out of the ground. Each day, the news delivers another characteristic and with them in your back pocket, you must interrogate those you let in to completely eliminate the possibility that any of them is a Visitor.

Some of the people who knock on your door you don't want to let in. You have to go with your gut feeling there. But when there's a mum with her toddler standing outside the door, crying and explaining that the little boy is the only child she has left, you can't refuse them entry, you just can't. But then you have to start asking questions. You have six questions to ask every day. Ask them to show you their teeth or their hands. The problem is that even ordinary people can have bleached, perfect teeth and dirty nails. When do you decide to pull the trigger? When does the person you've chosen to make safe inside you lose their humanity? Which of them is the Visitor? Are none of them?

All these questions lead to anxiety. What is right and what is wrong? Who are you to decide over other people's lives? Once you decide to pull the trigger and let a shot to the forehead euthanise a person you suspect to be a Visitor, you won't know if you did the right thing or if you simply deprived the life of an innocent human being. That's where No, I'm not a Human shines. So many moral dilemmas and no answers. You just have to swallow the knowledge that what you just did might have been wrong, but at the same time hope that your vibes and the signs you saw guided you in the right direction.

No, I'm not a Human will be released sometime this autumn and I'm really looking forward to getting to know the whole story. It's not a game that makes you feel good - everything from the design to the music to the story is agonising and pitch black. But those experiences are needed too. The medium of gaming is at its best when it plays with your conscience and your emotions. No, I'm not human has certainly decided not to spread any positive vibes, but death, misery, fear and anxiety are the watchwords. If you feel that you need to feel a little worse, I really recommend that you download the demo on Steam while waiting for the full version to be released.