Deeply unsettling experience.

While the gameplay is not much to write about, it is a genuinely interesting story on kink and sexual desire told via game.

A Man, A Motel Room, and A Clicker

[Clickolding was played multiple times over an hour with default settings on PC. All achievements were unlocked. Spoiler warning because I will be talking about the plot and details of the game]


Clickolding, created by Strange Scaffold and directed by Xalavier Nelson Jr is a truly strange experience. I don't really know where to even begin so let's start with gameplay.

The gameplay and mechanics of Clickolding is extremely simple. You can look left and right using the A and D keys, move forwards and backwards using the W and S keys, interact with items using the E key, and most importantly. You can press/hold the space bar or left mouse button to click the clicker. Outside of the listed controls, the whole game revolves around clicking around a motel room and interacting with the world, changing things based on the directions of a masked man.

The plot of Clickolding however, is where I can safely say that Clickolding is strange. Upon starting the game, you see a masked man staring at you. In your hands is a clicker, and you are asked to click the clicker. Throughout the game, you are asked to click the clicker in various spots and in various conditions. Whether it be clicking the clicker in the bathroom, or turning on the thermostat to click in the cold or heat. But while playing through the game, I felt extremely uncomfortable.

Clickolding proposes the 'what if' idea of a person watching you click a clicker. On its face, there should be nothing wrong or uncomfortable with that situation. But Strange Scaffold flips the idea on its head by creating an environment where an unknown masked man watches you click a clicker and gives you instructions on how to click based on his own wants. It is a strange and intimate experience that becomes very uncomfortable fast. At first, I was completely curious as to why I had a clicker and why there was an odd masked man staring at me from a chair. I decided to entertain the idea by clicking the clicker a few hundred times, and that was when this game became something deeply uncomfortable. It was not a huge or shocking thing that was asked of me, but the masked man asked me to open a window, and wouldn't let me click until I opened said window. When this happened, I realized that something was wrong and we as the player were entertaining the whims of a random stranger with possibly nefarious intentions.

I do not consider Clickolding a horror game, but instead as a delve into the uncomfortable and the eeriness that comes with the uncomfort. The longer the player clicks, the more manic and uncomfortable the masked man becomes, until the ending of the game happens. Clickolding is impressive because it creates a tense and uncomfortable atmosphere with what little space and mechanics are used. That space is used to the game's advantage, while we do not always see the masked man watching us. Due to the small and cramped space we occupy, we as the player know that the masked man is always watching us. This uncomfortable atmosphere comes to a disturbing end when the masked man kills himself and the credits roll.

After the credits have finished rolling, we see we are now in the aftermath of the room we occupy, with the dead masked man in the corner and the clicker still in our hand now smeared with blood. Without spoiling anything that comes after this point, Clickolding delves into the existential by subverting the player expectations and leaves me with an unsettling and uncomfortable experience that I will not be able to explain no less forget.

Overall Clickolding is extremely simple, but creates a unique environment and atmosphere based on uncomfort. It may not be mechanically deep, but as an experience it is very deep and leaves me deeply unsettled by the 'what if' scenario that Strange Scaffold and Xalavier Nelson Jr dare to propose.