When I initially saw the artwork for Neverending Nightmares I knew I had to try it. Black, white, and red all over, Neverending Nightmares delivers a simplistic colour palette that brings immediate attention to anything out of the ordinary in this psychological horror title spawned by creator Matt Gilgenbach’s own struggles with mental illness. I was given access to the beta build available to those that helped Kickstart the project and it was more than enough to frighten, disturb, and unsettle me.
One of the best things about Neverending Nightmares is a promise made by Matt, that the game will be very simplistic in terms of UI and HUD elements. What you see is what you get; no button prompts, no questioning whether or not you can interact with different parts of the environment. This really makes it easy to focus on the game itself. I became lost in the world of the protagonist, Thomas, and his seemingly endless torment very quickly, with little hope of escaping. The stark contrast of interactable objects gave me such a surge of hope when I found a hint of colour in the otherwise dreary world, and kept pushing me deeper down the rabbit hole.
The project was crowd sourced successfully in September of 2013, and Infinitap has made great progress since then. What I was able to play felt good, and while Thomas is a little slow as he creeps around the house, you can sprint for short distances. Beware: running out of stamina at the wrong time is deadly, and with no indicator you run the risk of losing your breath at the wrong time pretty frequently.
Speaking of dying, it’s pretty gruesome. I have to give a true word of caution to the squeamish here because it really can be graphic. The entire game is filled with creepy and chilling brutal violence that even I was cringing at, despite feeling fairly desensitized beforehand. Thomas suffers from terrifying hallucinations, and you can never truly tell when you’re finally free or what’s real. “Didn’t I go this way already?”, “That wasn’t there before…” and “What the hell is that?!” filled my otherwise silent apartment as I witnessed the insanity that is this game. Apparently a lot of it stems from Matt’s own experiences with OCD and depression, which must have made this all a very personal process if not a liberating one.
If you’ve been looking to scare yourself or play something that makes you question reality a little more than usual, I’d highly recommend you check this out when it gets released. The efforts put into it really pay off from what I’ve seen so far, and I can’t wait to pick up the final version of this macabre story. Can I save Thomas? Can anyone? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.
