The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast · Cane and Rinse

Turrican II: The Final Fight - Cane and Rinse No.709

April 14, 2026·1 hr 59 min·5 clips

The episode flags sexual assault, Holocaust material, and child experimentation within 90 seconds.

1. Cane & Rinse No.709 is about I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, the 1995 sci-fi horror point-and-click game based on Harlan Ellison’s short story. 2. Leon Cox hosts, with Jesse Fuchs, John Salmon, and Ryan Heyman joining because each brings a different history with the game and with Ellison’s 1967 story. 3. The episode asks what a 1995 adaptation of Ellison’s AM story actually does, and whether the game’s cruelty, puzzles, and audio design make that adaptation work. 4. Leon gives the release history, noting the MS-DOS and Mac OS launch on October 31, 1995, plus later Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android versions. 5. The panel also references the MobyGames premise, where the allied master computer AM keeps the last five humans alive and forces them through designed ordeals. 6. Leon and the others name the spoiler warning for both the short story and the game, including the original ending, the game’s multiple endings, and the recommendation to play it through GOG and ScummVM. 7. The show also covers the age of the game by pointing to its 25th-anniversary timing and its critical reception around 77 percent on average. 8. Jesse Fuchs says he first encountered the game while moving from Mac Plus and console play into PC gaming, and that he later bought it again on Steam in a sale. 9. Ryan Heyman says his first contact came from a Retsupre playthrough by Slow Beef and Diabetes, before he finished the game himself with walkthroughs. 10. The discussion of visuals turns on the game’s grim, low-resolution backdrops, blocky sprites, and animated portraits that change with the characters’ mental state. 11. John Salmon says the objects that matter do not always stand out, and Leon describes sweeping the cursor over the entire screen just to find interactable items. 12. The group returns several times to the game’s tone, with Ryan saying the abstraction lets imagination fill in details and Leon saying some scenes feel woefully inadequate for the horror they are trying to show. 13. Jesse recounts interviewing Harlan Ellison for a magazine feature in San Francisco, working from a broken pre-release disc and a reading of the short story rather than the game itself. 14. Jesse also remembers Ellison as a “pleasant” interview subject with a “slightly loony, but very smart uncle” energy. 15. The audio discussion is blunt, with Leon calling the sound design a disaster while Ryan prefers John Ottman’s synth-heavy music in the radio drama version. 16. The voice acting gets mixed treatment, with Harlan Ellison’s own performance singled out for effort and the child actor’s line delivery compared to a Peanuts special. 17. The episode’s style is conversational and heavily comparative, moving between personal memories, technical criticism, and readings of the source material. 18. The panel also uses correspondence from the forum to sharpen the discussion of Ellen, Nimdok, and the game’s moral framing. 19. People who like mid-1990s adventure games, Ellison adaptations, and design debate will get the most from it. 20. People wanting light retro nostalgia or minimal discussion of abuse themes should probably skip it.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed look at a punishing adventure game, with the rough edges left in place.

Cane and Rinse issue 442 opens with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, a 1995 sci-fi horror point-and-click adventure based on the 1967 short story.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you like puzzle scars and sci-fi horror, this one goes straight at both.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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