You can’t rush in Neverending Nightmares, even when backtracking over previously cleared ground - you’ll be forced to travel at a cautious pace. Thomas’s asthma doesn’t just make it more difficult to run from monsters, it’s a constant frustration, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. Jog too long and Thomas will double over in agonized, wheezing pain from an asthma attack. You can sprint, but only for short distances. His utter lack of combat prowess means running and hiding are your only options. Thomas will simply wake up in the nearest bedroom, always just a short distance away. Pajama clad and utterly defenseless, any encounter with one of the monsters (all various manifestations of his uncertain trauma) that wander the halls will result in his immediate disembowelment, or face devouring, or rib splitting, or whatever other horrific end is inflicted on him.īut even death isn’t a release from his suffering. He shuffles through the hallways of his psyche with a hesitant step.
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As the game is entirely centered around exploring the ever worsening locations Thomas finds himself in, that nagging, unsure feeling hangs over the entire experience. Even when moving in a consistently straight line it’s easy to let doubt creep in and start to feel lost. A seemingly endless supply of doors and nearly identical hallways dissolve any sense of place and direction.
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Thomas’s strange home loops and winds around itself in impossible ways. It’s a refreshing use of the medium’s ability to convey a message without literally spelling it out.
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It’s intentionally vague on story and context, and all the better for it, letting the play mechanics shoulder the narratives’ heavy lifting. You set about exploring his mysterious and spooky home to try and find her, only to constantly reawaken into a downward spiral of even more disturbing nightmares. The game puts you in the role of Thomas, a deeply troubled man who has just woken up from a horrific nightmare about killing his sister. Gilgenbach took all of the darkness swimming around in his head and poured it into a game he could use to express the confusing, disturbing, and emotionally draining experience of coping with it. While he has dealt with bouts of instability throughout his life, it was the failure of his last game, the critically well-received but commercially ignored Retro-Grade, that sent him into a tailspin of depression that eventually became the inspiration for Neverending. A direct result of lead creator Matt Gilgenbach’s personal struggles with depression, OCD, and intrusive thoughts. Neverending Nightmares is a psychological horror game all about mental illness. Which is exactly why Neverending Nightmares works. The insidious, pervasive terror of mental illness can be far more horrifying than any chainsaw-wielding maniac could ever hope to be. It makes you paranoid and agitated, a raw nerve constantly scraping against a coarse world. Obsessive compulsive disorder does not make you a supernaturally great detective like it does in the movies. Depression is a soul vampire that will suck the light right out of you. Do bring an appetite, a strong stomach, and a desperate need to survive, by any. Oh, and we've chosen others to join you in that fetid catacomb buried within our tower. filled with cadavers and meat from ancient raids and conquest.Ī singular Black Dragon Egg, relic of the last known nest of the Dark Lady, Umbryss, second concubine to Malganon. Don't look at me like that, you'll be given an opportunity few others are given: a rare gift. our duty to slake his thirst! Elderly, women, children, all are used to feed the ever guzzling gluttony of the Deathtouched.
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Hytwart, King of the Goblins, now known as The Enfeebler, the longest living Goblin in history, is a thirsty deviant and it is. I make no promises for the others destined to bleed for our Lord's amusement. Silly little things, but how can they not feel comfortable the world has Grey Paladins with holy powers governing every hamlet, a Priestess of Medina to relay all activities to others of their order, and above all, no fear of what lies outside their walls. It's this need to feed that starts our story and tale of Lucid Soul, the Town of Guillen is housing foolhardy humans that decide it's time to return to harvesting the woods around our castle. All are a threat to life, however, as all must feed off the living, through blood and flesh, to live. Some change appearance completely, some lose their sanity like the Ancient Black Dragon, Malganon, did. Some, not all, are horribly corrupted in the process. Whatever the method, the very design of the body is altered from the inside out, all organs cease to function normally, and certain powers begin to flood the embiber. Those cursed with Black Dragon blood in their veins, whether by bonding with one like the Dragon Knights of Lasserburg do by drinking the contents of the whelpling's egg at birth, or by forced feeding of a living dragon.