The Brazilian writer and narrative designer Tiago Rech's previous games were each striking and haunting in their own way. Teleforum, with Monumental Collab, used an analog VHS visual style-for its found footage premise. The short I Did Not Buy This Ticket took a more stylised approach with mixed-media collages and vibrant pops of colour on a stark black-and-white palette.
Both games were nominated for Best Narrative at SBGames 2023, with Teleforum eventually taking the award. Tiago's next work looks even more distinctive while continuing his focus on creating horror games inspired by stories, folklore, and settings unique to Brazil.
Published by Dangen entertainment, I Shall Name the Dead is billed as a surreal, magical-realism horror narrative. Players will take on the role of imaculada, a woman afflicted by a mysterious “Worm” that's slowly consuming her from within. She's already lost one of her eyes, which grants her the ability to speak with the dead.
Players will explore a sprawling cemetery, converse with the skulls of the dead, investigate their stories and discover their names to help them finally find peace.
It's immediately clear that Tiago is working again with Lirio Ninotchka, who was art director on I Did Not Buy This Ticket. Lirio's bold visual style looks perfectly suited to the story.
With talking to the skulls of the deceased a central part of the game, the hand-drawn environmental and character designs lean heavily into the macabre. But this isn't a horror game about jump scares and blood and guts. It feels like a more Lynchian melancholic exploration of grief.
Experimental, uneasy, and deeply poetic, Lirio's game art looks like walking into the pages of a dark graphic novel or a sepulchral folk horror screen print.
The stark, low-light palette with sharp pops of highly saturated orange looks perfectly eerie for the cemetery environments. Blocky silhouettes, cell shading and textures create a pulpy feel, while some elements look pieced together from mismatched sources, creating a feeling of disconnection and fragmented memory, tying into the theme of recovering lost identities.
I Shall Name the Dead is slated for release on PC in Early 2027. You can wishlist it on Steam.
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