Resurrection: In Memoriam

The island called Lesbos. Typed into Google Images. Apparently without Safe Search set to “on”.

Ah.

We didn’t play the game much after that.

Which is a huge shame. Despite the embarrassment, it’s moments like this that absolutely define In Memoriam. It’s all about being surprised by what’s happened in your game – be that a pleasant surprise, or – um – otherwise. Those Google Image search results pages weren’t even the most astonishing things to turn up. There’s very little to compare to the first time you get an email from an in-game character. Few occasions match the sheer horror of realising this virtual killer is trying to communicate with you directly, by methods outside of the game. And nothing in the medium has ever felt so joyous, so magical, as rigorously researching clues for a particular puzzle, only for a completely unexpected piece of information to lead you off on a successful trail for another. With In Memoriam, these small moments, these mini-victories, leave a lasting impression.

In Memoriam arrived with absolutely zero fanfare. Not a single advert appeared on the telly, in a magazine, or even online. My search for a copy on release week took me around three separate branches of Game, and when I finally did find it, the store’s one and only copy was tucked away in the budget section. No one to whom I mentioned it had ever heard its name. It was a product of silent brilliance.

And when you think about it, that’s just bizarre. In Memoriam is exceptionally clever and invigorating, while possessing the sort of mass-market appeal that most games outside the Sims franchise could only dream of. If UbiSoft had believed in it a little more and blessed it with a more intimidating marketing budget, it could have been huge. Today, with the rise of casual gaming, it could be completely enormous.

I hope someone’s bold enough to trust that in the future. I still have my copy of In Memoriam slotted neatly away in my drawer, but I might as well have got rid of it long ago, as there’s totally no way you could play it today. The SKL Network, which acts as a general hub for in-game information, is still online. But many more relevant websites created for the game have disappeared into the cyber-void. A great deal of the real-world sites that could be used to hunt for clues will have followed the same path, or will at least be buried tens of pages down the Google search results by now. In Memoriam had to be played then, when it first emerged, when all of this was so fresh and exciting and when the required information was there in abundance. Now, it would be a frustrating and fruitless slog.

But I’d love to go back to it. I’d love to see those lines between the real and the imagined blurred once more, without the terrifying imposition of playing an actual alternate reality game. I’d love to get my mum playing computer games again, although no longer living in the same house might make the necessary co-operative effort a little tricky. I’d love to receive more genuine emails from people who don’t even exist outside of a furiously creative developer’s imagination. And I’d love to find myself sitting with my mother, in front of a screen filled with naked ladies in the most improbable of positions, and laugh hysterically about it, instead of recoiling in the sort of awkward teenage horror I did six years ago.

More than anything, I’d love to see the efforts poured into such a game rewarded with enormous financial success. There’s a whole scene of casual gamers waiting to be absorbed by this, players who missed out on its original low-key release and the even lower-key sequel (which Wikipedia tells me was only released in France and North America). Developers and publishers, take note. There’s a bomb to be made here. By Lewis Denby

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