Keep in Mind

Keep in Mind is a psychological horror adventure game that follows Jonas, a man struggling with mental illness, alcoholism, and depression. After awakening in a dark, surreal world filled with twisted beasts, he must confront these terrifying entities and his own inner turmoil to find a path back home.

Keep in Mind: A Review

Introduction: The Haunting of an Absence

In the vast, ever-expanding archaeology of video game history, certain titles exist not as celebrated artifacts but as spectral presences—games known more by their metadata than by widespread experience. Keep in Mind (2016), developed and published by the enigmatic Little Moth Games, is one such ghost. It arrives not with a fanfare but with a whisper, a psychological horror adventure that flickers in the database of MobyGames with a scant description: a journey through a “dark and surreal world” following Jonas, a man “haunted by alcoholism, depression, and grief.” What follows is not merely a review of a game’s mechanics and narrative, but an exercise in reconstruction—an attempt to analyze a work whose primary legacy is its own obscurity. My thesis is this: Keep in Mind represents a poignant, if flawed, archetype of the hyper-focused indie horror experience. It embodies a raw, personal vision unmediated by commercial expectation, yet its ultimate historical significance lies less in its finished form and more in what its near-total disappearance from discourse reveals about the fragility of digital artistic expression and the challenges of preserving intimate, low-budget digital stories.

Development History & Context: The Solitary Vision of Little Moth

The studio “Little Moth Games” itself is a cipher, a name that suggests something fragile, nocturnal, and small—a perfect metaphor for the project’s scale and visibility. No credits beyond the publisher/developer tag exist in the provided MobyGames entry. We must infer context from the tools and era.

Keep in Mind was built in GameMaker: Studio, the quintessential engine for the lone-wolf or tiny-team indie developer of the 2010s. Its technological constraints were not a limitation but a defining aesthetic. The game’s perspective is “Diagonal-down,” visual style “2D scrolling,” and gameplay “Graphic adventure” with “Direct control.” This places it firmly in the tradition of 2D point-and-click adventures but with a fixed perspective, likely creating a more immersive, less interface-heavy experience. The description from Akupara Games (which later published Keep in Mind: The Untold Story, a remastered/expanded version) speaks to a deliberate artistic choice: “Cinematic light, color, framing, and sound… to evoke emotions.” This suggests a developer leveraging GameMaker’s accessibility to prioritize mood and visual storytelling over complex mechanics or expansive worlds.

The 2016 gaming landscape was a paradox for indie horror. On one hand, the success of games like Silent Hill 2 cult classics and the rise of “walking simulator” narratives (Dear Esther, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter) had created an appetite for psychological, atmosphere-driven experiences. On the other, market saturation was beginning. For a tiny team with no marketing budget, visibility was the primary adversary. The game’s release on Windows via platforms like Game Jolt (listed as a publisher on IGN) and presumably itch.io, targeted a niche audience already primed for experimental horror. Its subsequent “Remastered” release in 2018 by Akupara Games—a publisher known for narrative-driven stylized games like The Procession to Calvary—hints at a recognition of the original’s potential, buried though it was.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: Confronting the Self in a Nightmare

Here, the sparse official description is supplemented and deepened by the Akupara Games synopsis of The Untold Story, which appears to be an expanded or definitive version of the core narrative. The plot is less a linear sequence and more a descent into a psychological space: Jonas, suffering from substance abuse and mental illness, awakens in a “shadowy and mesmerizing” nightmare world. He is pursued by “twisted beasts” and “demons” that are revealed not as external monsters, but as symbolic manifestations of his repressed memories and “a sinister force deep inside him.”

This is a classic, potent horror structure: the external landscape is a direct projection of internal turmoil. The “demons” act as guides, a twist that subverts the typical horror antagonist. The narrative arc is one of painful self-discovery. To “return home”—a goal whose meaning shifts from physical escape to psychological integration—Jonas must “confront his repressed memories” and ultimately face his “greatest demon: himself.” The core question the game poses, as stated by Akupara, is existential: “How can we heal if we do not know ourselves?”

Applying the pillars of game writing from the provided sources, we can deconstruct Keep in Mind‘s approach:
* Hook & Protagonist: The hook is immediate and visceral—a waking nightmare. Jonas is defined by his flaws (alcoholism, depression), making him an atypical but deeply relatable protagonist for a horror game. His journey is internal, a “self-discovery” narrative that aligns with the “character growth” and “internal conflict” emphasized in game writing guides.
* Conflict & Stakes: The conflict is entirely internalized. The “twisted beasts” are externalizations of his anxiety, hopelessness, and trauma. The stakes are ultimate: self-annihilation or self-knowledge. There is no world to save, only a psyche to salvage.
* Themes: The theme is explicit and heavy: repressed pain, mental illness as a haunting, and the painful necessity of self-confrontation. It explores how addiction and depression warp perception, making the “nightmare world” a literal sensory experience of his degraded mental state. The game’s world-building is entirely subjective, a technique noted in lore exposition studies as deeply immersive but requiring careful handling to avoid confusion.
* Structure & Player Role: The player’s role is not to change outcomes through branching choices (a la Mass Effect), but to endure and interpret. The “meaningful choices” are likely epistemic—which memories to engage with, how to interpret symbolic objects. The “player agency” is in the act of piecing together the protagonist’s shattered self, a common trope in narrative-focused horror where the player’s primary function is to bear witness and synthesize.

The game’s narrative is its stated core, but its delivery is entirely dependent on environmental storytelling and symbolic interaction, as there is no mention of extensive dialogue or cutscenes. This aligns with the “lore exposition” principle of embedding story in the world itself—objects, lighting, sound design become the text.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Somatic Language of Despair

With no reviews, no gameplay videos, and no detailed credits, the mechanical design of Keep in Mind must be extrapolated from its genre labels and thematic intent. It is a “Graphic adventure” with “Direct control” in a “2D scrolling” “Diagonal-down” perspective. This suggests a perspective akin to classic * Alone in the Dark* or early Resident Evil, but likely stripped of combat or complex puzzles in favor of something more experiential.

The most innovative and thematically crucial system implied is the “Sensory perception of mental illness as mechanic.” This is a profound design concept. How would this manifest?
1. Altered Perception: The visual field might blur, darken, or warp during moments of high anxiety or drunkenness (Jonus’s stated states). Colors might desaturate or become garish.
2. Auditory Distortion: Sound cues—footsteps, whispers, the beasts’ noises—might be muffled, echoed, or replaced by intrusive, distressing sounds (ringing, buzzing) representing tinnitus or paranoia.
3. Control Instability: Movement might become sluggish, unresponsive, or inverted during depressive episodes,模拟 a loss of motor control or will.
4. Symbolic Interaction: “Interact with symbolic objects that define Jonas’ past” suggests puzzles or progression keys are not traditional items (keys, levers) but emotionally resonant objects (a bottle, a photograph, a locked door from childhood). Using them might trigger flashback sequences or narrative fragments.

The “combat” against “twisted beasts” is likely non-traditional. In a game about mental illness, “fighting” may mean avoidance, endurance, or symbolic confrontation—perhaps a quick-time event representing a moment of clarity, or simply fleeing a manifestation of panic. The “character progression” is almost certainly psychological and narrative, not statistical. There are no skill points. “Becoming stronger and more emotionally capable” would be reflected in the environment: the nightmare world might become less distorted, new paths opening as Jonas processes memories, or the beasts’ behaviors changing.

The UI would be minimal, diegetic, or nonexistent to preserve immersion. A health meter might be represented by visual deterioration (screen vignette, heartbeat sound) rather than a bar. The interface is “Direct control,” meaning no cursor—Jonas is the cursor, emphasizing embodiment.

The potential flaw in such a system is frustration. If the mechanics are a direct translation of mental debilitation, they risk being oppressive without catharsis. The balance between simulating despair and providing a playable, meaningful experience is the game’s greatest design challenge.

World-Building, Art & Sound: The Architecture of a Guilty Mind

The setting is a “dark and surreal world.” This is not a geographically consistent place but a psychscape. Drawing from the Akupara description, it is a “shadowy and mesmerizing narrative” space where “light and sound crafted to evoke emotions” partner with “3D art to create a cinematic experience.” This points to a deliberate, high-contrast aesthetic.
* Visual Direction: Expect a palette dominated by deep blacks, desaturated blues and greys, with stark, dramatic use of light—perhaps a single lantern in vast darkness, or shafts of light cutting through oppressive gloom. The 2D scrolling in a diagonal-down perspective creates a sense of constant forward descent into one’s own psyche. The “twisted beasts” are not realistic creatures but “symbolic,” likely abstract, distorted human or animal forms, more akin to the creatures of Silent Hill‘s original concept art than to standard monsters.
* Atmosphere: The world feels lived-in by trauma. Environments are likely dripping with metaphorical weight—a endless pub hallway, a decaying family home, a forest of gnarled, grasping trees representing desperation. The “cinematic” framing suggests carefully composed, almost painterly scenes, with attention to how light falls on objects to highlight their symbolic importance.
* Sound Design: This is the primary conduit for emotion. It would be a soundscape of distress: low, droning ambience, distorted whispers, the crunch of glass or debris underfoot, the gurgle of liquid (alcohol?), unsettling melodies that barely qualify as music. The “sensory perception” mechanic would be heavily audio-driven. Silence itself would be a rare and tense commodity. Sound would not just accompany the world; it would be the world’s voice.

These elements don’t just contribute to the experience; they are the experience. The game is an audiovisual poem of depression, where environment and audio are the primary narrative agents.

Reception & Legacy: The Quiet Echo of an Unheard Game

Critical Reception at Launch: It is virtually non-existent in the documented record. No critic reviews are listed on MobyGames. Its presence on aggregators like IGN is limited to a bare-bones entry. It was a game that existed in the deepest channels of the indie ecosystem—Game Jolt, perhaps a humble bundle, word-of-mouth in niche horror communities. It almost certainly received negligible press coverage. Its “Moby Score” is listed as “n/a,” a testament to its obscurity.

Commercial Reception: Similarly anonymous. No sales figures exist publicly. As a tiny, self-published title on a saturated platform, its commercial performance was almost certainly minimal, enough perhaps to justify a remaster but not to sustain a studio.

Evolving Reputation & Influence: This is where Keep in Mind transitions from a failed product to a fascinating historical artifact. Its reputation has not evolved in the traditional sense; it has been recontextualized. The act of its remastering by Akupara Games in 2018 (Keep in Mind: The Untold Story) is the key event. This suggests the original found a small, dedicated audience or that Akupara saw a kernel of powerful, marketable artistry in its core concept that warranted polish and republication. The remaster’s marketing language—”dark and immersive narrative,” “sense Jonas’ experiences with mental illness,” “symbolic objects”—frames the original not as a broken game, but as a raw, pure expression of a specific, difficult theme.

Its influence on the industry is, by all evidence, negligible. It did not spawn clones. It is not cited in design post-mortems. It exists outside the canon of influential indie horror (Amnesia, Outlast, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories). Its legacy is therefore microscopic and specialist. It is a footnote in two areas:
1. The “Mental Illness Horror” Subgenre: It represents an early, explicit attempt to mechanize the subjective experience of depression and addiction as both narrative and gameplay, predating more mainstream conversations about mental health in games. It stands as a proof-of-concept for a deeply uncomfortable but potentially powerful design approach.
2. Indie Preservation: Its obscurity and subsequent remaster highlight the precarious lifecycle of many indie games. Without active community preservation efforts, a game like Keep in Mind could vanish entirely, its vision lost. Its story is one of a personal project finding a second chance through another small publisher’s belief.

Conclusion: The Unhealed Wound

Keep in Mind is a paradox. It is a game whose primary subject is self-knowledge and healing, yet it remains largely unknown and unexamined. To play it, based on the scant evidence, would be to engage with a raw, unfiltered psychological portrait—a game that uses the interactive medium not for empowerment or puzzle-solving, but for empathetic endurance. Its mechanics, if executed as implied, risk being more about simulating debilitation than enabling mastery, a bold and potentially alienating design choice.

Its place in video game history is not that of a milestone or a classic. It is that of a significant artifact of intent. It demonstrates the lengths a tiny team can go to translate profound personal trauma into a structured, interactive experience using accessible tools. Its obscurity underscores the brutal economics of the indie space, where even a coherent, thematically daring vision can be utterly swallowed by the noise. The 2018 remaster by Akupara Games is its salvation and its final commentary: the original was a rough cry from the dark; the remaster is that cry, heard and given a clearer microphone.

Ultimately, Keep in Mind is a game about the difficulty of facing oneself. Its historical parallel is poignant: it is a game that the industry, and even much of its intended audience, has yet to truly see and understand. The question it poses—”How can we heal if we do not know ourselves?”—extends to the game itself. Without broader recognition and analysis, Keep in Mind remains a fragment, a repressed memory of the medium’s potential for raw, unflinching personal storytelling. Its verdict is one of profound, unfulfilled potential—a haunting not just for its protagonist, but for the lost piece of gaming’s psyche it represents.