Matt Gilgenbach's semi-autobiographic mental madhouse Neverending Nightmares was borne of tragedy. After Gilgenbach and his development partner Justin Wilder spent $140K and four years of 40-hour work weeks on the rhythm-action shmup hybrid Retro/Grade, the game sold so poorly that it failed to break even. This led Gilgenbach into a deep depression, so he decided to make a game about his horrifying intrusive thoughts called Neverending Nightmares. It's a risky proposition to make a game about your darkest, most disturbing thoughts, but by creating it Gilgenbach managed to save himself from the funk that he was in, both mentally and financially.

In an interview with GameChurch, Neverending Nightmares creator Matt Gilgenbach spoke about how creating the game helped him work through some of his own thoughts on depression: It has definitely been therapeutic for me, because I feel like I am able to sort of open up my head and let some of the negative, horrible thoughts out. Neverending Nightmares serial key download.

'It definitely felt good to express myself and my struggles to the world,' Gilgenbach tells me in a Skype interview. 'There was a positive reception. I think a lot of people understood where I was coming from, and had similar experiences. So that was really positive for me.'

'Also, I've been able to sort of exorcise some demons that have haunted me,' he adds. 'Due to my mental illness I have these intrusive thoughts of really horrible images of self-harm, so I've been able to put them into the game and I think once they were in the game they sort of lost some of their power, some of the hold they had on me.'

That being said, he's not completely better. These sorts of things remain a struggle indefinitely. 'I don't think there's a cure for mental illness and I think that's something worth mentioning. It's all about gaining coping skills to deal with it. And my mind will always sort of work in a different way than most people's. It will always be drawn to the negative things and dwell on them. But a lot of recovery and getting better is about gaining skills to deal with them and keep them in check. So I think having made the game I'm better, but I'm not cured.'

The society tv show review. Besides being able to express himself through Neverending Nightmares, Gilgenbach was able to assure himself that he has the chops to make a living as an independent game developer after the financial fiasco that was Retro/Grade. While far from a breakout hit, Neverending Nightmares made enough to keep Gilgenbach's studio, Infinitap Games, afloat. 'It's not like it was a topseller on Steam, but we did well enough that the company is still in business and we're working on a new game,' he says.

Gilgenbach clarified that Neverending Nightmares sold roughly 22K copies across all platforms and grossed somewhere in the neighborhood of $250K. That's before Steam, GOG, Humble and Ouya took their cut of about a third. Divide that by a four-person studio with a little bit of contributor help working over the course of roughly 21 months and the result isn't especially profitable on its own. However, Neverending Nightmares raised over $200K on Kickstarter once you factor in Ouya's old Free the Games Fund promotion that matched the minimum goals of successfully funded Kickstarter campaigns. That largely supported the studio through Neverending Nightmare's development, while its sales are paying for pre-production on the team's next game.

And what is Infinitap's next game, you ask? Gilgenbach is cagey on the details, but he teases a rough outline of it. 'We're definitely interested in sticking in the genre of horror,' he says. 'We're looking at developing on more of the interesting aspects of Neverending Nightmares, but we want to present a brand new story and a brand new art style.

'The art style is very distinctive for Neverending Nightmares and we'd like to continue to make games that really stand out with distinctive art. This time it's going to be this greyscale watercolour thing we've been working on instead of the pen lines.'

Gilgenbach doesn't think the studio made enough from Neverending Nightmares to fully fund this next project - which is his ultimate goal as an independent developer - but he's hopeful about starting up another crowdfunding campaign.

'We're definitely looking at Kickstarter,' he says. 'At least for me, Kickstarter has definitely been a really valuable development tool. Because I have people to answer to and I can bounce ideas off of, and I can keep them in the loop on what I'm working on. I think that's really helpful. I worry sometimes that it's easier to let things slip and miss deadlines if you're not answering to people. If you don't have people breathing over your neck and making sure things are going the right way.'

'That sounds really negative,' he laughs. 'I don't mean to have a negative connotation to Kickstarter backers. It's really great having that community supporting you and wanting to know what you're doing and what not. And I think they're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. With publishers there's so many other things. Maybe they'll just change the focus of their business and drop your project because it's not in line with their current business expectations. So it's a much better experience than with publishers.'

And what about Kickstarter fatigue? The crowdfunding site has been inundated with independent games over the last few years, making it hard to stand out.

'I think Kickstarter is all about the project,' Gilgenbach states. 'I don't think it's fatigue so much as less reasons to be excited about Kickstarter. I don't feel I got burnt out by Kickstarter, but some things are less exciting because they've been done before. So it's scary trying to Kickstart something and do it in an effective manner so that it can get people excited.'

He notes that Five Nights at Freddy's was originally a Kickstarter project that didn't get a single backer. Granted its developer, Scott Cawthon, pulled the plug on the campaign after only three days, but that's still a dismal look at those three days for a game that would later become so massively popular that it's being optioned as a feature film.

'I think that's really the challenge: creating something people will get really excited about,' he says. 'A lot of it is just can you present it in such a way that people say 'I have to have this!' I think that's often a tough proposition to make.'

It is hard to write or talk about Neverending Nightmares without elaborating on the development, including its creator’s personal history and struggles. Normally, I would eschew unfurling this kind of backstory as irrelevant to the gaming experience, but Neverending Nightmares — along with maybe Depression Quest and Actual Sunlight — have convinced me otherwise.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 forsomething.

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.

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.