Clickolding
Released: July 16th, 2024
Developer: Strange Scaffold
Publisher: Strange Scaffold
Systems: PC
Click.
Click click click.
Clickolding is a game about clicking, though to call it a clicker game is to miss the clicking point. While your primary interaction is clicking the mouse button to click the clicker being clicked in-game, such clicking is the only similarity to those clicker games in which clicking is done for clicking’s sake.
So, what exactly is Clickolding? You might call it an adventure game of a sort, perhaps a simulation, maybe a horror. I think the best way to categorize it is to simply call it a game. I’m not very good at categorizing things.
That said, the setup is not entirely subtle. You’re in a motel room, holding a clicker, being stared at by a man wearing a mask resembling the blasphemous child of a horse and Mr. Noseybonk. You need $14,000 for an undisclosed operation, and it’s yours if you complete the mystery man’s request - click the clicker 10,000 times.
Clicky clicky.
Clickolding’s name is an immediate tip as to what’s portrayed under the surface. As you click, the one paying you talks about his family, his conflicted feelings, and his personal inability to click like he used to. Despite holding the cards, there’s a vulnerability to the creepy fella as he struggles to hide his guilt and shame behind the anonymity.
A power dynamic is undeniably at play - with an implication that you’re desperate for the cash, you are completely at his mercy, especially when he reveals he has a gun for self defense. This powerlessness is demonstrated by additional demands, such as opening the curtains or standing in a particular area of the room. You’ll use grid-based movement and simple interactions to comply, unable to continue clicking until you’ve done so.
There’s an innate sense of embarrassment that creeps into the experience. While the tasks given are relatively unassuming, they’re as arbitrary as they are obligatory. Anyone who has had such power wielded over them ought to recognize the humiliation in having to meet explicitly petty demands. It’s not often that a game can make you feel… debased.
Look, just in case I’m holding the cards too close to my exquisite chest here, let me say this - early into the encounter, the masked man behaves as if he’s having a right old spunk in his pants. The moment barely qualifies as symbolism.
While its themes are compelling and I played with much anticipation for the conclusion, it still must be said that for the most part you’re just clicking a button over and over again. Games in which very little happens can be hard to discuss, since whatever events they do have tend to be big spoilers, but in Clickolding’s case there really is a lot of unhappening going on.
The man frequently speaks so there is a good deal of dialog to keep a player going, and his aforementioned requests break up the monotony, but monotony is an inherent part of the design, and for those who medically struggle in the attention department (hi there!), the parts where there’s nothing but clicking to occupy a mind can see it drifting off.
Partway through the game, I kept my finger on task while grabbing my phone and looking up Trickshifters on eBay. They were cars you could shoot from launchers, and they had a little lever on top of them that could “program” little stunts when they zoomed along. I never had any as a child, being in fact a toy line so obscure even I hadn’t heard of it.
Where was I?
Clickolding’s overall lacking audio doesn’t help it. Aside from the clicking sounds, there’s only slight ambient noise and garbled Simlish from your employer - that last point became an issue for me, since I lost my attention at one point and subsequently missed the dialog text that gave me a new task. I had to wander around until I happened upon the answer.
Despite the game’s moments of pure inactivity, it is still intriguing enough to be worth clicking through to the end. It certainly helps if you can relate to its themes which, as noted, exist pretty close to the surface. It also only takes around 40 minutes to finish, maybe less if you’re a consistently swift clicker, and the brevity serves it well.
Oh, and if physically tapping a button isn’t for you, holding it will tell the game to automatically click. Be warned, though, that this process is significantly slower, only clicking at a pace slightly faster than casual.
Clickolding is quiet and calm in spite of its unsettling undercurrent. Through straightforward interactions and a lot of clicking, a tone and subject is strongly established. I found it affecting enough to power through moments of monotony that my ADHD really didn’t care for, and I won’t forget that weirdo mask in a while at the very least.
7/10
