Game: Neverending Nightmares
Genre: Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS4, Steam and mobile)
Developer/Publisher: Infinitap Games
Age Rating: EU 16+| US M
Price: USD $14.99 |UK £13.49 |EU €14,99
Release Date: July 22nd 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Spoke & Wheel Strategy
Not for the Faint of Heart… Seriously
Neverending Nightmares is quite the spooky, and oftentimes disturbing, journey into the soul of the game’s creator: Infinitap Games. It specifically states in the game’s synopsis that it was “inspired by the creator’s struggles with depression and OCD”.
A psychological horror if I’ve ever played one, Neverending Nightmares will give you the chills, and make you not want to put your feet on the floor (does anyone else have this happen to them when they get scared?).
You play as a character who is continuously wandering around a few different areas (from an impossibly huge mansion to an asylum); however, it’s impossible to tell where reality even begins, as you are constantly being startled awake in different beds and rooms. Then you have to start your slow-paced search all over again.
Descending into the darkness, sometimes with a helpful candle but oftentimes without, you will (if you can) avoid enemies and perhaps wake from this nightmare.
But it DOES say right in the title that it’s never ending…
How Do I Control Myself
Gameplay mainly consists of using the joystick to walk your character to the left or right of the 2D landscape. Your character also walks VERY slowly, and it honestly immensely adds to the tension just how slow you will walk.
You can hit ZL to run, but you can only do that for so long (and when I say so long, I mean an amount of time that feels very very short) before you get tuckered out, run out of breath, and have to pause and stand still to catch your breath.
This can be very dangerous, as there are a few choice enemies in the game that will chase you (some faster than others, but all of them HORRIFYING). The moral of the story is: use the run sparingly.
The other important button, as you may have guessed, is A. This button lets you interact with things and move conversations forward.
That’s all there is to it really. Then you must take those controls, and use them to navigate through the spooks and baddies, and try to figure out what’s going on.
A Unique Art Style
The game boasts a very unique, and haunting, art style. The majority of the game is done in black and white, and making liberal use of the crosshatch drawing technique.
For those that do not know, crosshatch is to “shade (an area) with intersecting sets of parallel lines.”
The darkness that is constantly surrounding and closing in on the main character is done using the crosshatch technique. Sometimes the darkness is thinner, and you can somewhat see around you, and other times you can only see in a tiny circle around your face.
Every time I came to a dark door leading down some stairs, I got the shivers.
Every time I was able to pick up a candle, and yet still see only about twenty percent of the things around me, I was on tenterhooks.
And honestly, the developer made excellent use of the contrast between light and dark. Sometimes it will be so dark, that examining an object that is fully lit can put some startle in your heart.
Now, I said “the majority of the game” is done in black and white, but of course there is a tiny splash of colour; this comes in the form of the bright red blood you will find splashed around all over the place.
Sometimes it’s just tiny amounts of blood; the first time I checked the bathroom sink and found some bloody teeth just sitting in there… well let’s just say I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of Freudian theory based around dreams of losing one’s teeth.
SIDE NOTE
Heck, I just looked it up, and I was right:
“Teeth falling out – Sigmund Freud believed that if a woman had a recurring dream of her teeth falling out that she unconsciously longed to have children. He believed that if a man had this dream he was afraid of castration.”
END SIDE NOTE
Anyway, thinking about it, I bet a multitude of things in this game can be referenced back to a psychology thread or theory.
Long story short: the artwork and design is amazingly done, and sets up the creepy atmosphere so well that you could play it muted, and visuals alone will cause you to get spooked. However… I wouldn’t recommend it, because…
Scary Soundtrack
Sound, sound… dear GODS the sound! This is some of the creepiest background music and sounds I have ever heard in a game.
It’s ambient and haunting, and made me feel like I was actually in a nightmare that I could not wake up from. According to the game’s text on the Nintendo website, the soundtrack was created by “IGF nominated composer Skyler McGothlin.”
When I looked him up, found myself at his page with the Neverending Nightmares soundtrack. This game boasts songs with names like: “Theme of Despair”, “Eternal Dread”, and “Screaming Darkness”.
Honestly, what more can I say? The song titles pretty much write the review of this game for me. If you want a taste of the music in this game, then take a quick jaunt over to this website and see for yourself. It may even convince you to purchase the game.
Final Verdict
Neverending Nightmares is freaky, creepy, sad, distressing, disturbing, and is likely to cause you some nightmares if you play it before bed.
The story feels like a dream, in that it is disjointed, always changing, and you might think you know what’s going on but you probably don’t.
The game also has three different endings, depending on which paths you take. Once you beat the game, it will even show you a little line-graph photo that leads to the ending you got (and kind of shows you where the paths diverged).
The first ending I got was so utterly sad, and it made me feel all the pathos.
What I also liked about this game is that, since it is inspired by the creator’s struggle with depression and OCD, it allows me – the player – a glimpse into what it feels like to live with those conditions on a daily basis.
I am in awe of the creator of this game. And while this game is terrifying and disturbing, it also gave me a strong feeling of sonder.
You should get this game if you like spooky games, for sure. If you want a glimpse into the world of someone’s mind, and you’re ready to flex your empathy muscles, you should get this game.
From a purely capitalist point of view, there is plenty of value for the price of the game. The soundtrack alone is worth the price, but also the artwork, the multiple endings, and the disturbing feelings it will create in you.
Final Verdict: I like it
Noun. sonder (uncountable) (neologism) The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.
