If you’re in need of a refresher, Neverending Nightmares is based on Infinitap Games’ founder Matt Gilgenbach’s own battles with depression and OCD. The story concerns a man named Thomas, who wakes from a nightmare, only to find that he’s still dreaming. As he descends through the layers of hellish dreamscapes, he must hide from horrifying apparitions and outrun his inner demons. He must discover which of the horrors he encounters are a manifestation of his own psychological state, and figure out what reality will be when he finally wakes up.

Designed with a stylized impressionistic black-and-white art style inspired by Edward Gorey, the art for Neverending Nightmares is intended to make the player feel as if their world is closing in on them. The music, by IGF-nominated composer Skyler McGlothlin, delivers an oppressively haunting score that amplifies tension and the feeling of darkness.

Neverending Nightmares is also available on PC via Steam.

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The prologue and first chapter of the ten chapter manga was released this morning on Pixiv, and will continue to release a new chapter every month for the next eight months. Inspired by the same plotline as the game, the manga “provides a fresh and distinctive experience, utilizing the strength of imagery and written words to its advantage”. The manga also serves as a loose adaptation of the game, changing or reinterpreting many of the individual plot lines. It will also lean heavily on the game’s original art style, and disturbing imagery.

In Neverending Nightmares, players take on the role of Thomas, who is suffering from a seemingly-endless string of nightmares, often involving the death of his sister, Gabby, or Thomas himself. Thomas must discover which of the horrors he encounters are a manifestation of his own psychological state, and figure out what will be his reality when he wakes up.

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Sylvio Remastered

With Sylvio Remastered, developer Stroboskop hopes to breathe new life into their open-world horror game about a woman named who uses the voices of the dead to uncover and vanquish an evil curse and a wicked family cult that have taken up residence in an abandoned park.

The remaster replaces the old game engine for Unity 5, and in addition to that, it brings a remade GUI, improved EVP mechanic, and full controller support. It’s available free-of-charge to owners of the original Sylvio, who can get it now in the form of an update.

Release Date: May 2 (PC)

The Park

Funcom’s The Park was met with a mostly warm reception when it released on Steam back in October, and now it’s headed to consoles. The game is a spin-off of the pseudo-horror MMO The Secret World — also definitely worth checking out — that follows a mother as she spends a night in an abandoned amusement park searching for her son. It’s relatively short (3-4 hours) length keeps the game from outstaying its welcome, and the atmosphere is top notch.

Release Date: May 3 (PS4, XBO)

Neverending Nightmares

Matt Galgenbach’s nightmarish psychological horror game Neverending Nightmares is finally bringing its unique brand of terror to the PS4 and PS Vita today (May 4 for Europe). If you haven’t played this one yet, you probably should. Just know that this game is not for the squeamish or weak of stomach.

Release Date: May 3 (PS4, Vita)

Doom

The series that defined a decade is getting a reboot, and it looks glorious. I’ve spent some time with the new Doom and from what I’ve seen, it looks as if id Software might’ve actually found a way to modernize everything we love about the series — the fast-paced combat, addictive arena-based multiplayer, badass weapons, intimidating enemies and the buckets of gore that coats just about everything — without losing what made these games so influential in the first place.

And sure, the lack of co-op in the story mode is disappointing until the community gets cozy with the SnapMap modding tools that are shipping with all versions of the game and starts churning out custom co-op campaigns. Based on my experience with games like LittleBigPlanet, that’ll take about a week.

Release Date: May 13 (PC, PS4, XBO)

Dead Island Definitive Edition

The issues with Dead Island 2 have caused some serious issues for the already troubled franchise, and despite having considerably more time than its main competitor, Deep Silver is losing the war for zombie fans’ cash monies to the wildly successful Dying Light, which was developed by Dead Island creator Techland. The Dead Island: Definitive Edition isn’t going to change that, but it should sate our appetites for undead tomfoolery as we continue to wait for Sumo Digital to finish Dead Island 2.

Release Date: May 31 (PC, PS4, XBO)

Oxenfree

For the unfamiliar, Oxenfree is an always charming, often thoughtful and occasionally even deeply unsettling video game debut from Night School Studio. “Oxenfree is all humor, horror and heart,” writes my younger self in a review of the PC version, “It doesn’t need to rely on gimmicks, and with the exception of some light backtracking that could’ve easily been solved by a jog button, no attempt is made to pad its 3-5 hour running time with irrelevant errands and tedium.”

Don’t overlook this one. I promise you’ll regret it.

Release Date: May 31 (PS4)

Asemblance

Asemblance is a PS4 exclusive psychological horror game — the first in a planned series — with a surreal narrative that blends “The Twilight Zone”, “The X-Files”, and “Black Mirror”.

Release Date: TBA May (PS4)

Crowdfunding Campaigns

Voracious readers of Bloody Disgusting’s video game section will recognize Ghost Theory as the game I desperately want to play because while I’m super into the paranormal, I’m not quite interested enough to go and record otherworldly voices or seek out floating orbs to take selfies with.

This game aims to solve that problem by adapting the daily life of a clairvoyance paranormal investigator into a video game. The team at Dreadlocks is even visiting real “haunted” locales all over the world so they can recreate each to be fully explorable in-game, with or without a virtual reality headset. It’s an incredibly promising, and original, approach that sets this supernatural horror game apart from the rest.

Ghost Theory needs to raise another ~$30k to reach its $71k funding goal and there’s only nine days left to get there. If you’d like to give them a hand, you can support it over here.

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“Neverending Nightmares is a very personal game for me because it’s meant to metaphorically express the experience I’ve had dealing with mental illness,” explains Gilgenbach on the PlayStation Blog. “It was a real challenge to develop a game to express those dark feelings, but my team and I have created a unique interactive experience.”

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Neverending Nightmares is the very definition of a personal game, the product of a single man’s struggles with failure, mental illness, depression, and OCD. It is so much a result of Matt Gilgenbach’s psyche that it is nearly impossible to talk about the game without making some pretty substantial statements about its creator.

After a highly disappointing release for rhythm-shooter Retro/Grade, Gilgenbach’s obsessive-compulsive disorder — which he thought he had mostly conquered — began to reappear, prompting the sorts of invasive thoughts of self-mutilation that more-or-less ended up in the final version of the game. It is through that lens Gilgenbach’s vision for Neverending Nightmares was conceived and produced.

Anyone who has seen a screenshot or trailer can see the game’s most immediate appeal: it looks amazing. There is a hellish storybook quality to it that never quite subsides, and the fact that the black-and-white landscape is spattered with touches of color — mostly red — makes it even more starkly appealing.

It is subtle in a way many games are not with regard to color scheme, and it makes me wonder why more games have not availed themselves of something so simple and yet beautiful.

The final product turned out to be a beautiful, weird, and unsettling game, nontraditional but playable and engaging nonetheless. Like other narrative-based experiences of the last few years — think Gone Home — the point is the game itself, as metaphor, as explanation, as whatever the creator wants it to be. Or, consequently, what the player wants it to be.

In Neverending Nightmares, players snap awake in a pen-and-paper world akin to the art of Edward Gorey, taking up the role of asthmatic protagonist Thomas. Without much (read: no) exposition, players wander the halls of a house worthy of Poe and search for…something. Escape. Your lost sister. It quickly becomes clear, but that’s not the point.

The point is, Thomas is a fearful guy living in a world of nightmares he cannot escape, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

Without a major objective-based plot to drive players forward, Neverending Nightmares comes to feel very much like an adventure game at heart. And this is how it makes manifest the personal connection to Gilgenbach’s OCD.

In each level, players are presented with a series of hallways, many of them virtually identical, with doors that lead to other, branching hallways, which also look exactly the same, which then makes fastidious gamers like me begin to tense up and wonder how to get back to that original hallway and explore the remaining rooms. The intentional sameness makes it nearly impossible to know just what areas have and have not been explored.

Perhaps you see what I’m getting at with this.

It is frustrating and tedious, but in an interesting way. It gives the players a glimpse into what it must be like to have OCD, but also from a purely horror perspective, it builds tension. Even players who systematically wander the halls will get a stomach-churning sense of deja vu when doubling back to find an item or potential exit. If being chased by a monster of some kind, it is impossible not to feel as though the number of exits have been depleted.

The overly attentive explorer will also feel the tension builds as the possibility for death becomes a reality within the confines of this bizarre other-world.

Speaking of death, it’s not quite like Super Meat Boy, but death is immediate and without many of the normal trappings of dying in-game. The player snaps awake in a bed nearby the last place he left off. However, even with that in mind, stepping out into a world of what I’ll call “identical variety” can be daunting, especially if you’re not entirely sure where you left off.

Also true is the fact that the line between death and progression is often blurred, and death is sometimes necessary to move forward. Players will spend some time problem-solving minor puzzles, but for the most part their trips are unimpeded.

The creatures that wander (and often chase you through) the hallways are extreme metaphors for what the player is experiencing, and they reinforce the tone, which never slides out from under its own dark, unrelenting shadow. There is something to be said for a work that remains intentionally bleak, and Neverending Nightmares manages to do so with only the slightest slivers of actual, outright narrative.

Most of what would be considered story has to be inferred by the player, and that is a risk that ultimately paid off. The game uses its own slight acquaintance with plot in order to augment its surrealistic nature. The music, too, should absolutely be mentioned for adding to the unnerving, bizarre quality of the game without ever attempting to take it over.

If any caveats for Neverending Nightmares exist, they have to revolve around time. Thomas, in his frightened, asthmatic state, moves slowly. Very slowly. He can sprint, but it’s a pretty slow gait, even then, and he wheezes such that it’s almost not worth using. It is an interesting gameplay mechanic, especially where it reveals the main character’s weakness, but sometimes just moving ahead is a slog.

The only other potential drawback is that the game is quite short. I clocked in at just over two hours and was just beginning to feel a groove when the credits started rolling. And though there is an option to replay scenarios, with such experiential games the need for replay is often very low. Outside of streaming it, I don’t see myself replaying Neverending Nightmares.

This is a great fixture in the wave of great new horror games of the last few years. It manages to be scary and meaningful, an interesting statement not just about the creator’s experiences but about the act of experiencing a game, period.

The Final Word: Neverending Nightmares is a game that bridges the gap between interactive story and video game, and it brings not just some provocative art but an attention to subject matter that is often marginalized in the genre.

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