Getting Started With Dying To Be Me
Dying To Be Me is a point-and-click adventure game made by Daniel Mullins, the same guy who later made Pony Island and The Hex. You play as a ghost named Dan who has been dead for a while and desperately wants to get a body so he can be alive again. The game mixes puzzle-solving with comedy horror and breaks the fourth wall a lot. It came out in 2014 after being funded on Kickstarter, and it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The core loop is simple. You explore environments, click on objects, collect items, and solve puzzles to progress through the story. The twist is that you are a ghost, so your abilities are limited compared to a normal protagonist. You can possess certain objects and interact with the living world in ways that aren't immediately obvious. The game is short, maybe two to three hours if you aren't stuck on anything. It is also genuinely funny, which is unusual for the indie horror space at the time. I picked this up during a Steam sale probably four or five years ago. The first thing that hit me was how self-aware it is. Daniel Mullins games tend to mess with you in ways that feel intentional rather than cheap, even when the game is clearly joking about its own limitations.
How the Gameplay Actually Works
The puzzles in Dying To Be Me revolve around using your ghost abilities in combination with the environment. You have access to possession mechanics that let you take control of certain objects or characters in the game world. Some puzzles require you to think outside the normal point-and-click framework because the game itself is commenting on what you are doing while you are doing it. You will encounter NPCs who react to the fact that you are a ghost trying to interact with their world. Sometimes they are helpful. Sometimes they are not. The inventory system is basic. You collect items and combine them when it makes sense. The game does not hold your hand through this, but it also does not make you sweat over obscure combinations. If a puzzle feels impossible, you are usually missing a key item or have not explored a side area thoroughly enough.
A Problem I Hit and How I Fixed It
There is a section mid-game where you need to navigate a puzzle involving a television set and a specific object. I spent about twenty minutes trying every combination of items in my inventory against the TV without any success. What I failed to notice was that I needed to revisit an earlier room to grab something I had completely overlooked. The game does not flag this as a required item, so it just sat in the background of a previous scene until I consciously went back and checked it. The workaround was straightforward. I saved the game, backtracked to the earlier location, and systematically examined every object in the room again. The missing item was behind something that looked decorative but was actually interactive. Once I picked it up and returned to the TV puzzle, everything clicked. This happens a few times in the game, so if you feel completely stuck, going back and re-examining areas is worth more than you would expect.
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Where to Get It
The game is available on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store. Right now it typically sells for around ten dollars, though it goes on sale fairly regularly. There is no freeware version or demo worth looking for since the full game is short enough that buying it directly is the only sensible option. I would avoid any third-party download sites. There is no reason to risk malware for a game this price. The first thing beginners miss is that the game tracks certain choices and actions in ways that affect later puzzles. You do not get a mission log or quest tracker, so if you ignore something early on, you may find yourself unable to progress later. I learned this the hard way when I skipped interacting with a character who later became essential to a puzzle sequence. I had to restart from an earlier save. The second counter-intuitive detail is that some puzzles are designed to feel frustrating on purpose, and the solution is often to change your approach rather than try harder. The game is aware of player frustration and sometimes responds to it. This is not a bug, it is a feature of the design. If a puzzle seems broken or unfair, step away from it for a few minutes and come back with fresh eyes. More often than not, the answer becomes obvious once you stop overthinking it.
There is also a second playthrough bonus. Completing the game once unlocks additional content that changes the perspective on certain events. I would recommend playing through again rather than rushing past it, since the additional material adds context that the first playthrough deliberately withholds.
The Downsides
The game is short. Two to three hours is the realistic timeframe, and if you are someone who expects a longer experience, you will be disappointed. The puzzle difficulty is uneven. Some sections are trivial while others stall you out for no good reason. The humor works if you are already familiar with indie game culture and meta-commentary, but it will fall flat if that is not your thing. The graphics are serviceable but not impressive, and the voice acting is minimal. If you want something similar but with more depth, Pony Island or The Hex by the same developer go further in different directions. If you prefer traditional adventure games without the meta twist, something like Broken Age or The Longest Journey would serve you better. Dying To Be Me is a niche experience, and it knows it.
