You Know My Name is a very short visual novel. There is no gameplay; it feels more like an art project than a video game. The story, visuals, and music are all nice.
I think the developer is trying to get the player to think about what happened to the Narrator, a girl of undetermined age. She forgot her name and is the only person who says anything during the game. It isn’t hard, and you can “beat” the game in about 10-15 minutes.
I don’t think I could recommend this to anyone. If it weren’t a dollar, I wouldn’t have touched it. I’ll talk more about it at the end, but it feels like a strange experiment to get people to think about something.
Narrative
The story is simple. You meet a girl who has forgotten her name. At first, she tells you that her mother is dead; later in the game, she changes to saying that she didn’t know. During the game, you’re following an unknown girl through four stages.
These stages are four colors. They are Blue, Red, White, and Black. There are also kids in three of the four stages, but none of them talk to you or the narrator. At points in the game, you talk to the narrator but don’t know what is said.
There is something called the Dark Door. This is only mentioned in the Blue stage, but you also go through other doors in the other stages. You also chase a girl through the doors.
During the game, we learn bits and pieces of the backstory. We learn what happened before the narrator forgot her name. There was a noise, and she ran to her mom, who was afraid. Then everything went white, and something was pulling on our narrator.
I think everyone in the game is dead. When you catch up to the girl you’re chasing, it is revealed that the girl is the Narrator’s mom. Through some trippy imagery, you see the pictures from the game flash before you, and it settles on a skull. We don’t know what happened, but I think that everyone is dead.
The last bit of dialogue is when the Narrator wonders why you stopped talking to her. She tells you that she is scared and alone. Once she stops talking, you get dumped back on the menu screen, and you can play again.
Gameplay
There is no gameplay. You click your mouse to advance the dialogue, and once you’re done, you can start over and see if there is anything that you missed. The last achievement in the game tells you to “Look Closer,” but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.
Visuals
I like the graphics in this game a lot. They add to the game’s mystery, making it hard to tell what things are. It looks like a game from the 1980s or early 1990s.
Score N/A. I don’t know how to give this a score. It has good graphics and a strange story but no gameplay. You just click, and there is no dialogue. You can’t even quit the game from a menu.
Conclusion
I don’t know what to do with this. It feels more like an art project designed to make you think. There is no way to win, and the meaning is left up to the player.
I think the characters are all dead. I don’t know what happened, but I’m thinking that there was an explosion which caused everyone to die. The Narrator isn’t all that reliable, and the dialogue can cause some contradictions.
If you want to play this, it is very cheap. I don’t think this is a game; I think it is an art project, someone using their imagination to make something.