Nevermind

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Explore a trauma patient's mind while the game watches your fear.

Platforms: PC, Mac, VR
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (78% of 440 reviews)
Players: 1
Controls: Keyboard and mouse or controller; VR headsets supported; optional webcam, heart-rate sensor or eye tracker for biofeedback
Made by: Flying Mollusk
Released: 2015

What frightens As a doctor who can enter patients' minds, you explore the dark, surreal worlds of their subconscious, upside-down towns, walls of screaming faces, trees hung with dolls, to uncover the trauma each one has buried. With a webcam or heart-rate sensor the game watches your fear: if you let anxiety win, the room floods or the puzzle gets harder, and staying calm is the way through.
Content: disturbing imagery, violence, depictions of trauma and assault (the store warns).

Nevermind is a biofeedback psychological horror game by Flying Mollusk, released in 2015. You enter the subconscious of trauma patients to solve their puzzles and uncover what they have buried, while a webcam or heart-rate sensor reads your fear and makes the game harder when it rises.

About Nevermind

Nevermind is made by Flying Mollusk and was released on Steam in 2015 for Windows and Mac, with VR support. It began as a university project and is best known for its biofeedback: with almost any webcam, or a heart-rate sensor such as an Apple Watch or chest strap, the game reads signs of fear, tension and anxiety as you play.

You are a Neuroprober, a doctor who can enter the minds of patients with psychological trauma. Each case is a surreal, darkly beautiful place built from memory: a town folded over on itself, a desert of giant metronomes, a forest of trees hung with dolls, walls made of screaming faces. You explore, solve puzzles and gather clues to piece together what really happened to each patient.

The twist is that the game reacts to you. If your fear gets the best of you, it becomes harder, with the room flooding or the screen breaking up; if you can calm yourself in the face of the horror, it becomes more forgiving. Its makers present it as a way to practise managing stress, and the store warns that it depicts violence, assault and other traumatic situations. Without a sensor it still plays as an atmospheric mystery.

It suits players who want psychological horror that is more about unsettling places than jumpscares, and anyone curious to see their own fear measured.

How to play Nevermind

Buy Nevermind on Steam for Windows or Mac.
Optionally connect a webcam or heart-rate sensor for biofeedback, or a VR headset.
Enter each patient's mind and explore it in first person.
Solve the puzzles and find the memories that reveal their trauma.
Keep calm: the more anxious you get, the harder the game becomes.

Screenshots

Nevermind: a twisted tree under the moon in a town whose houses fold up and over the sky

Nevermind biofeedback: the same red kitchen shown calm, and stressed with the floor flooding

Nevermind: giant wooden metronomes standing in a sandy desert

Nevermind: a dark tree hung with pale baby dolls under a night sky

Tips

You do not need a heart-rate sensor; almost any webcam enables the emotion-based biofeedback.
Take slow breaths when the screen starts to react; calming down eases the challenge.
Look for the photographs in each mind; they are the key memories.