Neversong video game review – The Washington Post

In the world of Peet’s unconscious, children have taken over his hometown, Redwind Village. The town’s adults are caged, transformed into monsters or running around with sharp objects and homicidal intentions. At the start of the game we see Peet wandering through a series of dimly lit halls. He walks past walls with “Believe” and “The” ominously painted on them and past doors with letters above them that together spell the word “SMILE” and “LIE.” Adding to the mystery, he comes across a ringing, old-fashioned rotary phone on which he answers. He hears a voice mail from Wren. It is clear that Peet is suppressing something.

Evidently, something anachronistic is going on because soon after Peet wakes up in Wren’s house (he’s still in a coma) he passes a portrait of her and a young boy with enormous smiles on their faces. It is dated 1952, long before the advent of voice mail. To uncover what’s going on with Peet, players will have to explore the village and chat with other kids who generally don’t seem perturbed that most of the adults have gone missing since they went searching for Wren. The children Peet encounters gently tease him for being generally clueless.

“Neversong” fuses elements of platforming and adventure games. As Peet roams around the town and its neighboring areas he has the opportunity to solve puzzles and do favors for the children he comes across. Occasionally, he comes into conflict with adults who take the appearance of large monsters. By defeating them or poking around the town Peet learns notes for different songs that can be played on Wren’s piano. Doing so unlocks different upgrades that are hidden about the house such as a baseball bat that can be used to clobber Peet’s foes.

Neither the puzzles nor the combat in “Neversong” are particularly difficult, making it very approachable. Health is generously distributed throughout so one can blunder through the boss fights without much fuss, and over its relatively short playtime new mechanics, such as a skateboard, are timely introduced.

Although I was impressed that the game is largely the product of one person — Thomas Brush, who handled its story, art, and music — I found its ending to be both predictable and a letdown. The strongest aspect of “Neversong” is its atmosphere, which benefits from the actor Dick Terhune’s warm voice-over narration and the cheeky dialogue of the characters. Still, neither of those elements, nor the game’s relatively simple gameplay, help to sustain a sense of dramatic tension over the long haul. No doubt Brush is a talented developer, but “Neversong” strikes me as a minor work. It lacks the punch to make it more than the sum of its parts.

Christopher Byrd is a Brooklyn-based writer. His work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @Chris_Byrd.