Once upon a time, in a world beyond Vizzed, there was a young girl, her name in the worlds barely known. The tiny girl was simply flipping from one world to another one day, when she came across the name Neverending Nightmares. Curious, she went to the information world and looked it up.

 It was on that day the girl discovered how cool and mysterious the game was, but she was unable to play it, as it cost real money. The game stuck with her, though, forever tucked into a little corner of her huge brain, so that the dormant memories would be pulled out when something reminded her of it.

 Two years later, the girl was in the world of Vizzed, where she had some Viz in her hand. There, in the bustling Vizzed Market, something vaguely familiar caught her eye. It was a game. She recognized the art style, as it was very unique. The girl racked her brain, sifting through her active, short-term memories, looking for any trace of why it was so familiar. Finally, she looked at the title.

There, scrawled across the game, to make it look creepy, were the words Neverending Nightmares. The memories flooded her brain, and she smiled down at her Viz. She had just enough to buy the game. “Sara, you’re going to have a wonderful time.” She told herself. She bought the horror game, rushing to the gaming world, ready to play.

This is my review of this game.

Graphics – 7

The graphics are very unique. Everything looks like it’s hand-drawn, including the shadows, which adds to the tense atmosphere of this game. This is good, especially in a horror game like this one. It’s supposed to put the player on edge as they explore the halls of the game.

The colors are mostly black-and-white, with the exception of a few colors, such as red (for blood or for a candle you can pick up in the game) or gold. This is also good. The different colors alerts to the player “hey, this thing over here is different, why don’t you go check it out? It could be useful or could advance the story.”

The close-ups are also really well drawn. Sometimes, you can get close-up looks at certain things in the game, such as a bloody meat grinder or teeth in the sink, with blood caking the round hollow. All of these three things added together give this section a nine.

However, I’ll have to knock some points off because it’s unsettling. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Sara, what are you saying? Isn’t unsettling supposed to be a good thing when you’re talking about a horror game like Neverending Nightmares?” Well, yes, it is, but only for certain things.

The humans in this game just look…off, for some reason. Maybe it’s because of how their eyes are drawn or from the way the two humans you actually see in this game walk, but I can’t put my finger on it. I suppose it’s probably meant to look weird, like everyone’s dead inside, but I’m still taking away some points.

Sound – 8

Sound is a very important aspect of a game, especially in horror games. This game actually has two sound options. One is your regular sound, which you can hear from the speakers, and what I had stuck to for the first “nightmare” that you experience.

However, the game strongly recommends playing it with headphones. This is because it actually has a “Headphones Mode” where you can get the most optimal experience sound-wise if you’re wearing headphones. If you enable Headphones Mode, you can hear things that you couldn’t normally hear with the speakers.

 I later decided “screw it, there’s probably no jumpscares in this game, might as well use Headphones Mode” I’m glad I did, because now I can review what Headphones Mode is like. First off, I just want to start with the fact that Headphones Mode causes the game to feel like it’s even scarier.

The reason why I say this is because, as I’ve said, Headphones Mode enables you to hear things that you wouldn’t normally be able to hear if you used speakers. This means that I can hear all the ghastly moans and groans that this game has to offer, whereas I could only hear a few of them with my speakers.

The music is great. I could only hear it with my headphones on, as I had turned my speaker volume down to nearly 10%, during my initial fear, as I have a little phobia of jumpscares that stems from a certain YouTube video called “test your vision 100% true” but I’m not going to talk about that any further and relive childhood trauma.

In Neverending Nightmares, even the title screen song is eerie, which already tells the player “This is a psychological horror game. It’s not for the faint of heart. If you are either pregnant, a child, elderly, have a heart condition, have a nosebleed, have a broken nose, have no nose at all, are a dragon, are a hater of video games, or simply don’t like horror games, exit out of this game now.” Truth be told, even though I’ve wanted this game way before dinosaurs existed, I was thinking that maybe it was a bad idea to play the game.

The sound effects and voice acting is very well done. Everything sounds realistic, like the events in the game are really happening in real life to someone. My only complaint is that the voice acting is a little difficult to hear, even with headphones on. The volume is really low, even with my speakers and the game at maximum volume.

Thankfully, there’s a subtitle option in the game, but I feel like they put it into the game because they knew that the voice acting was hard to understand. I will have to knock off some points for what could have been a 10 for sound.

Addictiveness – 7

Each “level” is a different nightmare. From the two, maybe three screenshots I’ve seen of this game (I only looked at a few to avoid potential spoilers to the ending)¸ there’s a level in a broken down mental hospital, and a level where you’re playing as the protagonist, only he’s a child.

However, from the hour I’ve already invested into this game and the first two nightmares you play in, the nightmares take place in a mansion. Whether it’s the protagonist’s mansion or his parents’, I don’t know yet. This is a good setting for a horror game, even if it’s a temporary setting.

Mansions, as you may know, are huge. There are about a million different rooms in a mansion, which makes it easier to get lost and easier for the predators to hide and wait for some delicious human flesh.

Story – 7

The story of this game already gets interesting, right from the very beginning. After you hit the “Play” button to start the game up, you’re greeted with the first cut scene in Neverending Nightmares.

You watch, in a first-person perspective, the horrified face of a young girl, who you will later learn is the protagonist’s sister, Gabrielle, as she stares into your eyes, her own eyes full of betrayal. Her eyebrows suddenly scrunch up and blood pours out of her mouth. Every time she coughs, more blood sprays out. Suddenly, the camera pans down to her stomach. You had stabbed her in the stomach, the knife handle still gripped in your hand!

As she loses her grip on her teddy bear and begins to fall, you wake up. However, you’re still in a terrible dream. You must wander around in your mansion and in more scenarios, begging yourself to wake up and save yourself from the fear and the agony that courses through your veins as you play.

The story follows the same formula for each nightmare, which is:

a.     a. You wake up, panting
b. You wander around
c. You run from (a) monster(s)
d. Something happens
e. Next nightmare

Sometimes, there are a few different variables in some nightmares or part of the formula is taken out of a nightmare. For example, in the first nightmare of the game, the one after you watch Gabrielle get stabbed, you do follow this formula. However, c. is not in this nightmare. I suppose this is to keep the player from being too scared of the game just yet, and the creator of the game wants the fear of what will happen to slowly build up at every twist and turn.

Despite things sometimes being shaken up a bit, I will have to give the story of this game a 7. It would have been even lower if everything was the exact same, just in different places.

Depth – 5

The depth of this game is in between “You go one path and can only do one thing” (Which is 1) and “Holy guacamole you can unlock ten things to do with every level that you gain I better order some takeout food as I’m going to be playing this game for TEN SLEEPLESS DAYS STRAIGHT –” (Which is 10)

You’re actually allowed to take at least more than one path to get from Point A to Point B, but what happens at the end will always be the same for each nightmare you play in. In other words, you don’t have to take Path 1 to get to the end. You could take Path 2, which is for the more adventurous souls, and more.

You can walk out into the depths of the darkness with nothing but your own two legs to propel you away from the beast of the night, or you can stay in your house and wait for it to leave you alone before you go to your destination.

Difficulty – 8

This is both a good and a bad thing. Let’s start with the good part of why the difficulty is so high.

The game itself actually isn’t that difficult. You wander around in each nightmare, with no idea of what you should do or if you can even get out. However, the fear factor is through the roof every second of the way.

You’re constantly looking over your shoulder, trying to find something in the darkness that wants to hunt you down and kill you slowly and painfully. You can’t fight, you can’t run for long (as the character that you’re controlling seems to have asthma), and you have no defenses. One hit and you have to start over at the beginning of the nightmare. In other words, you’re helpless and at the mercy of anything that’s lurking out there.

The thought of something waiting for you makes it difficult for me to go on. It instills fear into my heart, hoping that the thing that ran past the window and causing that mysterious shadow was just a bird and not a monster. This is exactly what a horror game should try to accomplish.

However, the reason why this is bad for a game is because it makes me reluctant to play it. If you’re like me and psyche yourself into thinking that the game is going to be horrifying with blood and gore every time you blink, eventually, you’re going to reach your limits and say “NOPE. NEVERMIND. I’M NOT PLAYING THIS GAME. GOODBYE.” as you hop onto your motorcycle and speed away into the sunset, to get as far away from the game as possible.

Overall – 7

This game is worth the 45,000 Viz that Davideo7 is offering, as of 1/31/17. I’ll give the game this: It’s a pretty well done horror game, and if I had the option to erase all my memories of playing the game after I complete it just to play it again and experience all my emotions again, I’d do so. I’m Sara, and I leave you here as I play another game for another review.