The Grim and I by Thom Baylay

[ThomB]

“You are dead.” The word sends a chill down your spine.

“I don’t remember dying,” you protest.

“That doesn’t matter. You are still dead.”

A chill again. “But…”

“But nothing,” he silences you, his skeletal fingers reaching out once more. “You know you are dead. Don’t deny it and don’t fight it. All you need to do is take my hand.”

---

This is a story about dying and what it means to let go. Faced with the ultimate choice, torn between your lost life and an unknown future, will you be able to take the Grim Reaper’s hand and pass over to the Other Side? Or will you be doomed to wander the world forever, weighed down by the chains of your past?

The Grim and I is a unique 150,000 word interactive experience by Thom Baylay, where your choices affect the story. It’s entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fuelled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

How will you react to the discovery that you are dead? When the Grim Reaper offers you a way forward, will you take it? Or are you still clinging to the world that you left behind? Begin the most important conversation of your afterlife as you take on Death in a story that will redefine the meaning of Choice; where the game reads you as much as you read it and where your greatest enemy is yourself. Challenge your instincts; fight your temptations; and embrace that most primal of fears. Choose your life, your love, your job and then make the hardest choice of all - to let it all go.

• Leave your body and bear witness or try to interfere as life continues without you.
• Meet, befriend and customise your own personal Grim Reaper!
• Choose your perfect life, and then see if you can choose to let it all go.
• Identify and overcome the unfinished business that binds you to this world. Love, fear, rage or ambition; your choices will reveal the truth!
• As the chains begin to cover your body, will you be able to fight free, or will you succumb to your vices and stay haunting the world for eternity?
• Forget everything you know about interactive fiction as the Grim Reaper questions your choices and challenges your motives, blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
• Explore the concept of death and the ideas of loss and letting go in the company of your Grim guide.
• Play as male, female or non-binary.
• Play as gay, straight, bi- or asexual.

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Release Date -> 2018 Sep 27th
The Grim and I is now available for download on GooglePlay (tinyurl.com/ybqx3duo) and through the Hosted Games Omnibus App on the AppStore (tinyurl.com/y6u7canj). The game is also now available on Steam!

Play the Demo here -> https://bit.ly/2KL2SMP

Content warning - This story is about death. For those who find this a sensitive subject, please exercise caution and be aware that the game may contain triggers.

[Isabella_Taylor]

This game was very interesting! I can honestly say I’ve never played anything like this before. The only thing I’d suggest right now is telling us every time we gain a chain (sometimes it wasn’t clear). I’m planning on looking for coding or grammar errors later, but I wanted to fully immerse myself in the game first.

[Hamps]

I teared up on every ending that I got :’>

[shiaya]

Can someone help me to get the path of true love and i dreamed a dream? I’m already lost haha…

[xdcakexd]

When I chose the non-profit organization.

[Carlos.R]

Alright, fine. If you think it will help, have some stats.

This made me laugh.

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

I hope I can romance Grim before I move on, maybe even join them.

[Fennik]

wow, outstanding! It gives me the same kind of emotion as the one I had in “Choice of Robots” Can’t wait for its release

[Carlos.R]

There is an awkward spacing here:

You take a seat behind your desk as St. Michael

takes up most of the room. He hovers a foot off the floor, his wings beating in slow unison, though you suspect that this is not necessary to keep him aloft. One of his feet is risen partially up the shin of his other leg and his sword arm hangs loosely by his side. You get the impression that he is enjoying the opportunity to portray so fantastic an icon.

And here:

With uncontrollable excitement you open the door and find yourself staring at

the rolled up final blueprints of Thingamabob. It’s impossible to tell from these how it will one day look but several concept images are pinned to the back like in a high-school locker. You feel a swell of pride at the sight.

Possible continuity issue?: (I already opened the safe myself by entering the four digit code, or so I thought?)

A sudden voice from your right distracts you as St. Michael interrupts the unfolding scene.

“Well this brings us an interesting dilemma, doesn’t it?”

“How so?” you ask, although you can hazard a guess. The same realisation has started to dawn on you.

“Well it looks like this Robin character is someone who could help get Theinvention out of that safe and into the world, thus fulfilling your lifelong ambition…albeit posthumously.”

“But…,” you offer, knowing now exactly what your dilemma is.

St. Michael turns to you with a simultaneously sympathetic and stern nod. “But you might have to give him something in return. It’s pretty clear he’s got an interest in your dearly beloved.”

More spacing:

"My money’s on the

wife

breaking first," St. Michael mutters from behind you, causing you to jump. It’s not like you’d forgotten he was there. You’re just more invested in this conversation than you realised.

Capitalization:

“I care. I care every time. I care so deeply about each and every soul I meet that to lose even one…”

he pauses, not because he is faltering but because there are no words. And when he speaks again his eyes are transfixed on you.

[Orchid]

Damn I’ve never read something like this. I’m very intrigued by the thoughts about death and the afterlife, so your work is right up my alley. It was a very uniqe and awesome experience reading your game(while listening to Funeral Doom Metal ) Well done!
Couple of things:

1. I’d like to have a choice to stay calm at the beginning when first meeting death, since I think it’s a reaction that some would have.
2. Reagarding the vice of ambition in chapter 5: I really tried to not care about what i did in life, but it felt like the game forced me to in a way… “You can’t take any of that success with you to the Other Side so why are you really fighting for it?” After I tried to say that I don’t care, which I really don’t. I know in the end I can decide, in my case betwenn my love and my ambition but at the time it was a bit confusing…
3. I got the ending in which I remain in the house since I stayed true to the love vice. But didn’t your reaper said that staying true would enable you to move on in the end? Or was I to obsessed with my love by trining to save her from the shot?

Also, this IF really motivates me to replay it, which I tend to do rarely.

[Logan3000x]

I tried but couldn’t. I will play 2 more times and see if we can.

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

I got her to confess that she loves me don’t know what to do from there.

[James-Lewis]

I got her to confess to me too. And I was also hoping my lady Grim Reaper can be romanced.

[Logan3000x]

That she loves you? Or that she loves every soul that comes through and if she could bring us back she would? 2 different things.

[Mari_Gold]

Found a continuity error. While I was talking to Grim, this option appeared:

#“I want to make sure my husband is okay.”

but when I first chose my love interest, it wasn’t the husband option. The option I chose was “the man next to my sister”.

[No_This_Is_Patrick]

Well not sure but this is what she says

[Morphine]

I got that too and I wasn’t trying to romance him so if you can actually romance them, that’s not it

[Logan3000x]

Nah, thats has to be about the whole “loving all souls” I wrote about.

[jagatk]

Great game, I have never played something like this before. So who actually killed us or was it just bad luck, got the rage ending and got told my suspect wasn’t the killer.

[Carlos.R]

Suggestion:

There was this one scene towards the end, where you know who is about to die and a second grim reaper appears. Your own grim reaper is trying to distract you from it. We find out later that this was for one of the people in the house. However… I had a thought… What would happen if the second grim reaper that appeared was actually your reaper’s reaper? As in, if your reaper couldn’t persuade you to go to the Other Side, the “ultra-reaper” (for lack of a better term) would kill your reaper? I think it could be another layer to add to the exploration of death. Great job on that, by the way.