I Think

[h2] I Think || A lyrical Exploration[/h2] Did you ever wonder how it would be if someone else lived your life? They experience the same things as you, meet the same people, go through every painful and joyful memory as you — but would they view it the same way you do? Would they come to the same conclusion? In “I Think” you are that person. You play the role of an Artificial Intelligence while going through a digitized version of the programmer’s diary. From their school life to their adulthood, you get to hear the deepest thoughts of the programmer. How they deal with loss, social hierarchy, spirituality, technological development — these and many more topics are touched in great retrospective, always with a unique point of view but never biased or judgmental. You go on a journey through various phases and at the end of these stages get to make your own decision. Do you want to believe in reincarnation? Do you think it would be beneficial for humanity to have a tool that lets us experience their life through their eyes? Should we be always our awkward self or is it necessary to keep up a certain level of masking? Where do we start with conformity and how do we not loose ourselves along the path? These decisions lead to one of four endings with a run taking roughly 2 hours. The game keeps track of your previous decisions, which makes it easy to go for the other endings afterwards. These endings aren’t clearly black or white, but they either made me smile sentimentally or feel painful emptiness in my stomach. The game is very personal, both in how the programmer's feelings are portrayed and how it relates to your own experiences. You end up building a connection to the programmer. From the games perspective they are your creator, a father figure of sorts but from your own personal perspective they turn into a friend, one whose feelings might be painfully relatable, one who you want to pat on the back and tell them you’re here and everything will be fine. Your journey is displayed in a charming and nostalgic low poly look with minimal sound design and music. Sometimes you get a funky tune, sometimes the ambient sound of wind and chirping crickets, sometimes all you here are your footsteps leaving you alone with your thoughts. It fits the scenery very well, and the backgrounds create an immersive feeling. Some of these simply served their purpose of being nothing more than a background, and some of these gave off an otherworldly and mysterious vibe. It runs well on the Steam Deck, both in handheld mode and docked with a controller. You’ll just have to remap the z,x and c buttons which are used for the decisions. I simply remapped them to the D-pad and was good to go. “I Think” is a very unique experience that will stick with me even after finishing the game. The title almost sounds too basic for what it offers and I can’t help but wish it had a name that was easier to market. I can’t recommend this game enough.