Neverending Nightmares

[SecretAsianMan]

This is a very odd topic for me to be starting because this is exactly the kind of game I don't play, but I saw it at PAX and feel I should bring it to people's attention.

 

Neverending Nightmares is being made by Matt Gilenbach, the same guy who made Retro/Grade, the rhythm based shmup where you pilot a spaceship that's moving backwards in time.  It was mentioned a couple times on the cast.  It got pretty good reviews but sold almost zero copies.  Matt suffers from OCD and depression, and after the financial failure of Retro/Grade, his memories of battling his mental illnesses from a decade ago came flooding back to him.  He wanted to remain an indie developer and basically decided to make a game out of his nightmares and suffering.  It's influenced by the artwork of Edward Gorey and Silent Hill 2.  

 

If you're interested, the game is being kickstarted right now.  I'll probably throw a couple dollars at it, even though I'll never play it because I'm a baby.

 

[Merus]

Like you, I wouldn't play this at all but I dearly wish it existed. I'm tempted to pledge and then take the lowest reward level.

[SecretAsianMan]

I had my doubts several times, but Neverending Nightmares got funded.  There's also an interesting story about how one backer accidentally raised his donation $9000 higher than he meant to and how the community came to his aid by raising their own pledges so he could reduce his.

[Bjorn]

So this actually comes out this month!  I'm excited.  I backed it on Kickstarter, both because it is the kind of game I want, and being really moved by the big Polygon piece on the developer that came out a few months after retro/grade was a dud at release. 
 
New trailer too:

[Problem Machine]

Sweet, I never read the updates so it's entirely possible I would never have noticed. Been having a hankering to play some horror games, this will be awesome.

[SecretAsianMan]

Even though I started this topic, I'm unfortunately probably not going to play it because it's not my kind of game.  Still, I'm glad that it got funded and is coming out.  I think it's a really interesting and great way to share a personal story about depression.  I met Matt Gilenbach once at PAX when he was showing off Retro/Grade.  He seemed very genuinely into making games and I could tell it mattered a lot to him, but even at that time you could see the pressure of doing so was weighing pretty heavily on him.  I felt terrible when things went so bad.  I hope this game gets some notice so that something good can come out of his experience.

[Bjorn]

I interacted with him in a comment thread once, and he really took criticism as well as any dev I've ever seen (this was during a little mini-controversy about getting matching funds from Ouya and there being a mandatory exclusivity period tied to those funds).  His replies to people's concerns really impressed me, and ultimately that's what really tipped the scales for me on backing him even though I was one of the people critical of Ouya for insisting on that exclusivity deal. 

[Bjorn]

It's out!  I fooled around with it this weekend.  It seems a bit like Gone Home in terms of actual mechanics, you're mostly just exploring a house, examining things with a bit of limited interaction.  The house resets every so often and the "nightmare" starts over with different things going on.  The house seems to develop a maze like quality in some versions of the nightmare.

 

I don't really have an opinion on it yet.  I wasn't really in the mood for that type of game the night I fired it up, I just wanted to see it in action.  It's a very atmospheric, moody game (as expected), and I was playing it with my wife and daughter watching, and we had just finished dinner and been laughing/joking about something.  So kind of the exact opposite of the frame of mind that the game is trying to explore. It will probably work better for me if I wait to play it some night when I have the house to myself.

[Dewar]

I was really into the art style and concept when I saw it at PAX, then the gore started and I'm a wimp.

[Problem Machine]

I like it.

There's a paucity of interactivity, but what's there works, and just the feeling of trudging through these endless and endlessly shifting corridors captures  the feel of a certain kind of dream quite well. The scenarios range from mildly creepy to genuinely unnerving depending on which path you take, and the forked paths are generally subtle enough that it doesn't feel like there's a big obvious decision sign, but noticeable enough that you can figure out how to take a different path if you want a different ending. There's a chapter select, so finding endings isn't a huge waste of time either.

 

I'm probably going to write a more thorough analysis later this week, and I'll link it here when it's done. There's a number of interesting thematic threads running through, some of which have a bit different meanings depending on which ending you end up at.

[Problem Machine]

And I have written a thing.

[TyroneTargel]

Haha that background in his pitch video doesn't really fit together with the term "financial failure".

[Problem Machine]

The developer is making a successor focused on childbirth anxiety and Filipino folklore with a bit more of a focus on linear storytelling and traditional gameplay challenges. I'll probably back it when I get the money to do so.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infinitap/devastated-dreams