Since he doesn’t have a lot of game experience, The Boy can get unnerved easily when, say, a big green monster is chasing Klaymen, or when there’s a door with a mystery behind it. He spends a lot of time wringing his hands and muttering “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” like a worried little auntie. But he has a good memory for the lay of the land, and once he’s made the wrong choice once, he’s pretty good at avoiding the same mistake the next go-round.

The Neverhood is on my PC-game thumbs-up short list, along with The Dark Eye and Bad Day on the Midway (which features music by the actual Residents). I’m dreading the day when my antique desktop computer dies, because I’m betting you can’t play these games on any computer made after 2010. We’re going to enjoy them while we can, and I hope we can make it through The Neverhood before the good times are over. Oh, dear.