This game was on my radar for awhile but I actually didn’t get around to playing it until recently, as I have been distracted with getting really baked and playing Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as you do. But I decided to put smashing lego blocks with my blaster aside for a few days and give this game a whirl.

Neverending Nightmares is a game that’s definitely not for everyone, as the gameplay action is pretty non existent aside from a few Clocktower-esque sections where you hide from enemies, you essentially just explore your surroundings.

The creative style is heavily influenced by the art of Edward Gorey, and it works really well for the tone of the game. It’s very flat, bleak and essentially colourless. There’s not much in way of a HUD or even really much as far as prompts on the screen, you’re just left to your own devices to wander around.

You play as Thomas, a spooky Victorian era kid (is there any other kind?) that has neverending nightmares. You spend every night having dreams about your house and your sister Gabby, As you wander around these dreams in your seemingly empty mansion anytime you die or injure yourself it causes you to wake up and start another loop of nightmares. As you progress through these loops the house changes and unlocks other environments to explore, like a spooky forest, insane asylum, hospital, and obviously no horror game would be complete without a visit to a decrepit cemetery. You discover the bulk of the story this way and occasionally run into enemies In classic horror game fashion there’s more than one ending but I’m pretty unclear on how to unlock any one specific ending, and I’m not sure if there’s an ending where you meet James Sunderland and a dog, but a girl can dream.

My one big complaint with Neverending Nightmares is that it’s a bit a tedious at times, and Thomas walks about as slow as everyone in Walmart when I’m in a hurry. The game does have replay appeal since theres multiple endings and a lot of environments to explore. It is really creepy though, I will admit I jumped a few times and theres one specific enemy design that’s equal parts terrifying and adorable. If you played it in the dark with headphones and not in the middle of the day with a six pack like I did, it would be even more effective. But I’m a coward, so here we are.

Neverending Nightmares is available on Steam, PS4, Vita, Windows, Mac and Ouya (haha) and retails for 15.00. If you’re a fan of slowburn, atmospheric horror games I would definitely recommend it, but If you’re looking for something with a bit more action and less story, give it a miss.

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