Preview | Am I Nima: 'Do I Just Suck At This Game?'

While I’m not a horror fan, I was drawn to the Am I Nima demo when I saw it in Steam Next Fest. Maybe it was the wordplay mechanics. Maybe it was the promise of psychological horror over jump scares. Either way, I downloaded the demo — and was pleasantly surprised.

It’s weird, unsettling, and surprisingly not as scary as I feared. If you’re a soft horror fan like me, this might be your kind of creepy. I first tried it on the Steam Deck, but the UI isn’t quite right — things don’t line up properly — so I’d recommend sticking to a regular PC for now.

You play as Nima — or are you? — who wakes up tied to a chair in a basement. Your mum’s the one who tied you up, apparently out of love, after an accident involving water. Totally normal parenting, obviously. She thinks you might hurt yourself. Again, sure. Don’t remember my mum doing that.

Gameplay-wise, you have to “find” words by exploring your bedroom, and combine words to form new ones, which show up in your “brain” on the right. Your whole glossary is on the left, which you can use to trigger words to appear in your “brain” to make more combos. You can bin words if you have too many. Drag a word down to Nima to speak it aloud. Sounds simple. It’s not.

I played the demo a few times and died every time. The first conversation with your mum revolves around her congee and your little “incident.” Later, you wake up in your room, explore, and pick up more words that give you backstory — your dad, your past, your apparently questionable sanity. Eventually, you’re back in the basement for more “tests.” Answer wrong, and well… you’re done.

I won’t lie — it’s tough. I couldn’t survive no matter what I said. Maybe I’m terrible at word puzzles. Maybe the game’s just unforgiving. Or maybe this is one of those demos where dying is the whole point. Who knows?

There’s no release date yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it. You can play the Am I Nima demo now on Steam — just don’t expect your mother to be proud of you.