Horror and Tension in a Tidy Little Package
Full disclosure to start with: I was a Kickstarter backer for this game.
Let me also get this out of the way: I'm not really a horror game fan. I'm fascinated by the idea of horror games (as the fact that I have a number of horror games on my playlist will attest), but often lack the guts to actually install and play the silly things (as the fact that most of those same games have 0 playtime on them will attest).
Given that, it was with a bit of apprehension that I loaded up the game this evening. But I went all in for the experience. The lights were out, the headphones were on, and I dived in.
And I got to say that I enjoyed it.
Neverending Nightmares tells the story of young Thomas, an asthmatic young man whom awakes from a nightmare in which his murders his younger sister, Gabriella. As the name implies, that is not going to the last time that Thomas wakes up in this game. Most of the game is spent wandering through a handful of environments, while the tension slowly builds around you. I’m sure there will be people who decry this as “yet another walking simulator,” as Thomas cannot run for long before having to stop to catch his breath. This exploration is punctuated by a handful of enemies, and a number of jump scares (I think all but one actually made me jump). The enemies themselves act more as barriers than as active hunters (with a pretty notable exception), but nothing too aggravating to overcome. The real draw here is the tense atmosphere.
The tension is brought in large part by some amazing sound design. The ambient soundtrack kept me on edge pretty much the entire time. The enemy tells were also nerve-racking…and while not sound design, I wanted to give a shout out to some great use of controller vibration, using it to as another cue for the enemy’s footsteps. Even the sound of poor Thomas gasping and wheezing to catch his breath after a full sprint was well done. It made me feel bad for the poor kid, and I actually stopped sprinting as much because I didn’t want to hear it anymore!
In the end, Neverending Nightmares is a short game. I finished my first play through in an hour and a half, and I got all the alternative endings and paths in a bit under 3 hours. In the past, that has been a major hang up for me. In this case of Nightmares, however, I don’t mind at all. I feel that I got my full-pledge value out of what I played. It's a tight experience that delivers it's narrative and atmosphere, and then ends before it overstays it welcome. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Neverending Nightmares becomes a Halloween tradition for me.
I also feel that the story behind the game is an important one. The game is the director’s way of trying to express what it was like for him to suffer from depression and OCD. But don’t worry, this isn’t a “game with a message” where you are beaten over the head with it. It did cause me to consider what it must be like to suffer from mental illness when, after I played the game, I discovered that some of the more gory/horrific sequences in the game were inspired by intrusive thoughts the director had suffered from (I didn't even know about intrusive thoughts before then, if I am being painfully honest). If you google 'Neverending Nightmares,' you will get linked to some articles where the director tells his story and his reasons behind the game in more detail than my lame attempt here. It is well worth looking up.
All told, I don't regret throwing my money behind Neverending Nightmares at all. If you like horror games, pick it up.
