I’ll be honest: I don’t want to tell you a single thing about Clickolding. The cryptic new PC game is so indescribably weird that I’d rather you just go into it entirely blind. It’s $3, it’s 40 minutes long, and it’s the most unsettling thing you’ll play all year. If you’re comfortable leaving it at that, feel free to pop over to Steam and give it a purchase, no further questions asked.
If you’re still here, strap in. Clickolding is the latest project from Strange Scaffold, the indie team that’s made a name for itself in a few short years with games like El Paso, Elsewhere and Sunshine Shuffle. The studio has leaned more and more into unnerving psychological horror as it finds its voice (as evidenced by this year’s Life Eater), but it takes that to a new level with its downright antagonistic new game that’s designed to drive you to the brink of madness.
The setup is simple. You’re in a hotel room with a creepy figure in an armchair. He has a briefcase full of money for you. To get it, all you have to do is click the tally counter in your hand 10,000 times while he watches. That’s not a bluff. You will click one button until it feels like your finger is about to fall off.
There is, in fact, a point to all that. A story unfolds between clicks, as players slowly learn more about the masked man. I’ll let you discover his motives for yourself, but what’s striking is the mental journey I go through off-screen during the disturbing experience. At first, 10,000 clicks sounds easy. I figure I’ll burn through that in no time. After 2,000, I begin to realize just how demanding that number is. “Surely I won’t actually have to click that many times,” I reassure myself. When it becomes clear that I may have to, I start desperately trying to find a way to click faster. I start rolling my fingers across my Steam Deck screen to up my clicks per second. Later, I augment that by mashing the A button with my other hand.
I feel like a prisoner. Why am I doing this tedious task? Is the money really worth it? It all feels uncomfortably exploitative, especially as the man in the chair makes demands of me while I click, like asking me to move to other parts of the room or turn on the TV. It’s a weirdly effective statement about labor that might leave you questioning your own day job.
Like some of Strange Scaffold’s games, Clickolding can feel like an inside joke that players aren’t in on at times. It’s a project born of a pun (one that it’s logo makes exceedingly clear) and its short story may leave you feeling like its not much more than that. It’s a game built to antagonize you and make you feel like you’ve wasted 40 minutes. That discomfort is very much the point. You aren’t the player; you’re the game.
Clickolding is available now on Steam.
