Nate Hermanson

Jul 186 min read

REVIEW: Clickolding is one of the most interesting 40-minute games I've ever played

I need a cigarette.

An animated GIF of the game Clickolding. A man, heaving with deep breaths, sits in a chair. He's got a strange wooden mask on over his head with glowing white eyes. The mask has strange proportions and his striped button up is stained. From the first person perspective, a hand clicks down on a tally counter and the counter's readout changes from 0 to 1. The man speaks and a dialogue box reads: "Click it again."

Just the Facts

Developer: Strange Scaffold

Publisher: Strange Scaffold, Outersloth

Platform(s): PC

Price: $2.99

Release Date: July 16, 2024

Review key provided by developer via FiftyCC.

Click it.

Clickolding is the latest game from Strange Scaffold, the team behind VGG GOTY nominee El Paso, Elsewhere and other beautifully strange games like Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and Witch Strandings. This game comes as the first collaboration between the studio and Outersloth, an indie funding and publishing label that was announced during Geoff Keighley's big ol' Summer Game Fest show. Outersloth is an offshoot of indie studio Innersloth, the folks behind the megahit Among Us, and this initiative promises to offer devs of all sizes the leg up Innersloth wished they'd had at the start.

Never could I have imagined the kinds of games that we'd get as a result of Outersloth. And never could I have imagined Clickolding being one of the first games to be released since the announcement of the label.

In Clickolding, you wake up in a dark hotel room. All you see ahead of you is the shadowy outline of a man swaying in the dark. His face isn't quite right. His eyes glow with an unnaturally white hue with simple dot pupils in the center. You see him raise a hand and a light turns on, revealing an almost equally unnerving scene in the light.

This man is wearing some sort of wooden mask. A mask with a long neck, a bulbous nose, no visible mouth, and those eyes. Those eerie, unblinking eyes that never break their connection with yours. Other than that, he's a relatively normal looking fellow. Brown jacket, blue jeans, a striped button-up with something soiling its front. We don't ask what could have soiled it. Who are we to judge? This situation might have already caused some personal soiling anyway.

You've got a tally counter in your hand that's zeroed out. You hold it firmly, oddly confidently.

The man speaks. His voice comes out in thumping electronic bursts, sounding somewhere between distorted microphone feedback and a bass-heavy car blasting from a nearby street.

"... You know why you're here.

"Click it."

And so you do. And the relationship between you and the Clickold is formed.

An in-game screenshot of Clickolding. From the first-person perspective, you see a TV from a low angle. A red indicator light is lit to show that it's off. And it sits on top of a wooden dresser. A painting of a tiger can be seen on the wall behind them. A dialogue box for someone in the room reads: "Don't turn around."

Click slower.

I dare not say too much about this game. A majority of its appeal is not knowing what's going to happen next except that you've got to click. Not knowing what the Clickold might say or when he might say it. What he might ask you to do, how he might ask you to click and where. When does the locked bathroom come into play and what does any of it represent?

I have tons of thoughts about what this is all about: religion, a commentary on streaming culture, a commentary on sex work, a commentary on guys who like tally clickers. And media that provokes that wide range of thoughts is worth experiencing in my eyes.

All you really know and can know going into it is how uncomfortable it's all going to make you feel. And you think you might have a sense of it from the trailer or screenshots, with his constant stare, intimidating look, and the generally charged implications behind the clicking. (Yes, Strange Scaffold named the game about the man who likes to watch you click from his chair in the corner this way on purpose, I promise.) But like the greatest horror games, it's completely different once you're the one in the seat clicking.

You click with (or hold down, for accessibility) your mouse or spacebar — studio head Xalavier Nelson Jr. has even shared some automated pressing solutions on Twitter — and, eventually, you gain the ability to walk around the room to see the sights of this otherwise sparing hotel room. There's a TV. A thermostat. A few paintings. A trash can. An alarm clock. And the Clickold and his chair. The gameplay really is just clicking — think Cookie Clicker but you're in a small room with a strange man and he tells you how to click and expects you to meet his requests. That's it.

But it's the way the Clickold reacts to your clicks that really gets under your skin.

As you click, he heaves with deep breathes and leans toward you. His legs fidget. His hands tense up and stretch out in the most exciting moments. Even when you turn away from him, in a space this small, his shadow loiters and reminds you of his presence. And whenever you shrink away, you feel his gaze burrowing into you and wonder what might be waiting for you when you finally turn back around. This discomfort makes that simple action weightier than the usual button clicking gamers get up to.

In Clickolding, you get on a rollercoaster of emotions. Discomfort and disquiet eventually turns into a strange desire to cry eventually turns into fear for your life and back again. You find yourself settling into the routine, getting used to the silence, and weirdly yearning for the next bit of conversation from the Clickold.

It should be noted that the game tackles some expectedly dark ground, so if dark and upsetting isn't for you, Clickolding may not be either. But if you're willing to spend less than an hour going some incredibly unexpected places, sign up.

These 40 minutes were more immediately interesting and engaging than entire 20-hour chunks of some major AAA releases. Strange Scaffold does it different, y'all.

An in-game screenshot of Clickolding. All you can see is a dimly lit bed in a hotel room. A green pillowcase on a pillow. A red sheet on the bed. A green patterned wallpaper.

A piece of me.

Clickolding is Strange Scaffold's highest fidelity game yet, which only adds to the upsetting nature of its... whole thing. Where each game before it has gone for an incredibly stylized look — PS1 blocky, Animal Crossing-like chibis, pixel art — this goes for a more realistic mundanity. The hotel room you and the Clickold inhabit is exactly the seedy motel hole you'd expect it to be. It's clean, there are no obvious signs of bugs or strange stains in the room itself, but the film grain filter that covers everything simulates the grime you inevitably feel as you look around it.

And like any great piece of media meant to disturb you, the sound design goes off here. You've already heard about the strange amalgamation of noises that make up the Clickold's voice, but add in a strange jazzy noir soundtrack that lilts in from somewhere down the hall, an oppressively loud ambient room tone that pairs nicely with a quietly thumping percussive beat. And the clicking. As you click up, you swear at times the noise breaks its pattern, which troubles you, but it's otherwise a satisfying mechanical click. Not quite as satisfying for you as it is for the Clickold, but satisfying nonetheless.

An in-game screenshot of Clickolding. From the first-eperson perspective, a hand holds a tally counter that reads a count of 1559 clicks. They're in a hotel room with a bed with green linens and a painting resting above the bed. On the left, you can see a small glimpse of another person in the room via their hands and the pistol they're holding against the arm of the chair.

Clickolding isn't a horror game in the same way it isn't a sex game. It really isn't, but Strange Scaffold uses a lot of the same tension-building tactics found in both genres to make its unique experience work. It captures every "un-" and "dis-" adjective in the book. Unsettling. Uncomfortable. Unusual. Unabashed. Disconcerting. Disarming. Dissonant. Discombobulating. And it does so with the power of Strange Scaffold's best elements: writing, atmosphere, and gameplay that aligns beautifully. For lack of a better phrase, it just... clicks.

I'm fascinated to see what other people take away from a game like this. Clickolding's mere existence is a testament to, first, the constantly innovative and label-pushing work being done at Strange Scaffold, and second, the kinds of work that might only get the chance to exist and succeed with the support of initiatives like Outersloth. The video games industry needs more from both of these companies, and I'm just grateful to be around to see the weirdest stuff around get the chance to be made.

Okay, click out of this review already and click over to the Steam page. The Clickold will see you now.

Video Games Are Good and Clickolding is . . . GREAT. (8/10)

+ a deeply unsettling experience, a locked bathroom door, holds the ability to give you legitimate chills

- you're just clicking, the dark unsettling tone may not be for everyone, a locked bathroom door

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