About I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
This page is about the 1995 video game, not the Harlan Ellison short story it is based on. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a point-and-click adventure horror game developed by Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild and published by Cyberdreams. MGM Interactive distributed the MS-DOS version and Acclaim Entertainment the Mac OS version. Both came out in North America in November 1995, and the game reached Europe the same year. Ellison co-designed it with David Mullich and David Sears, Mullich and Robert Wiggins produced it, and John Ottman wrote the music.
The setting is a dystopian world where an artificial intelligence named AM has destroyed all of humanity except five people. It has kept them alive and tortured them for 109 years, building metaphorical adventures around each person’s fatal flaw. You play through those adventures, making decisions through ethical dilemmas that deal with insanity, rape, paranoia and genocide, so expect very dark material. It is a single-player game.
Nightdive Studios later published versions for Windows, OS X and Linux in 2013, and for the PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series consoles and the Nintendo Switch on March 27, 2025. DotEmu published the iOS and Android versions in January 2016.
How it runs in your browser
Pressing Play opens the game’s page on dos.zone in a new tab. There, js-dos, DOS.Zone’s open-source build of DOSBox for browsers, emulates a PC of the period and starts the original MS-DOS release. The game files come from the site, so you install nothing, bring no copy of your own and skip registration. DOS.Zone runs without ads.
DOS.Zone files the game under quest and adventure, with a rating of 5 from 29 player reviews. Its one-line description sums up the premise: a god-like artificial intelligence that has already destroyed humanity and now tortures the last five survivors. The listing doesn’t say how saving works, so check the host’s page before you commit to a long session.
Controls and devices
This is a point-and-click adventure made for a keyboard and mouse. DOS.Zone doesn’t publish a control list for it, so look through the game’s own menus once it loads. Click inside the emulator window first so it receives your input.
On a phone, DOS.Zone offers virtual on-screen controls. The game was designed around a keyboard and mouse, though, and a computer is the better fit. Chromebooks haven’t been confirmed.
Who it’s for
It suits readers of Ellison’s story who want to see how he and the team turned it into a game, and adventure players who are comfortable with disturbing themes. Choices and puzzles matter more than reflexes here. For another dystopian adventure from the mid-1990s, Beneath a Steel Sky is on DOS.Zone too, and Revolution Software made it freeware in 2003.
Is I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Free, Safe and Official?
Is this the I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream game or the short story?
This page is about the 1995 point-and-click adventure game. It is based on Harlan Ellison’s short story of the same name, and Ellison co-designed it. DOS.Zone runs the game’s MS-DOS version in a browser tab.
Can I play I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream online for free?
Yes. DOS.Zone runs the MS-DOS version free, loading the game files from its own site. There’s nothing to install, no copy of your own to supply and no account to create.
Does I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream work on a phone?
DOS.Zone offers virtual on-screen controls on phones, but the game was built for a keyboard and mouse, so a desktop or laptop is the better fit.
