Some thoughts, stream-of-consciousness-like.<p>>My first encounter with this game was a text Let's Play and the Wikipedia article, as posted on reddit in October 2008. Reading through both caused my first existential crisis in adulthood and a minor nervous breakdown. The game gets a lot of praise, but it's heavy. Very heavy. Use caution.<p>>Though released quite some time after, I find the parallels with Final Fantasy VI fascinating. Yes, that Final Fantasy VI. Both games feature a ragtag troupe of characters - some of whom deal with issues of trauma and identity over the course of the narrative - who traverse a post-apocalyptic world, resisting the machinations of an omnipotent, insane being that itself draws its abilities from a triad of powerful entities. It's hard to tell if FFVI was influenced by IHNM, but if not, then it's interesting to note the parallel evolution of themes, and the modes of conveying them, in wildly different properties. And if by some chance it is so, then it's not a stretch to say that the renaissance of narrative-based games heralded by the following entry in the FF series has its roots in Harlan Ellison's writings and IHNM. In that case, it didn't just slip into obscurity; its DNA is in every modern game (that isn't descended from Metal Gear Solid) that's trying to tell a complex story in a direct and linear manner.