Sleep No More with Nightmare
Whew, what a week. Between the flu running rampant through my household and still not feeling a hundred percent, I wasn’t even really playing games. It was like everyone here was Regan from the Exorcist its been rough stuff. I was so sick I started writing an article about this amazing game I was playing, only to find out I wrote about it a few months ago. Well, it was just a teaser at the time but now there is a full version out, and you should definitely go play it Anglerfish. Then as we all started to get on the upswing of it all, our sewage started back up into our place… it had been a complete nightmare. So when I saw the title of this game I wanted to go check it out because it seemed right up my alley for this week, Nightmare.
Nightmare is the work of DimaTM a developer from Ukraine. It pits us in this nightmare where we need to explore, collect, and craft items to help us wake up from this nightmare and to protect ourselves from these monstrosities who want us to stay asleep and stay trapped forever.
Not only does Nightmare look really good, but it managed to keep me stressed the hell out the entire time I played it. Each game lasts around twenty to thirty minutes, with replayability in mind it changes up the enemy and item locations which help keeps it fresh.
One thing Nightmare does incredibly well, is that it plays with light and makes you second guess what you are seeing. Which obviously plays into the stressful nature. Adding to this, even more, is while you search the house for more things to increase how much light you have, you start hearing these noises…it just does a great job at conveying the vibe and atmosphere.
Being a rogue-lite there are some things in place to help move the gameplay along like gaining experience and unlocking perks that affect future runs through the game. Also, it should be mentioned but Nightmare looks really good. Not only the environmental layouts and objects but I really enjoyed the enemies. Walking down a hallway only to see a ghost floating by as your flashlight flickers. There is something really interesting, going on with the AI here for these nightmare creatures. It seems to curve the difficulty with how well you are doing. This is a nice feature, it is honestly a difficult game with a lot going on mechanics wise so pay attention to the tutorial!
Nightmare has a lot going for it, especially when it comes to quick bite-sized gameplay chunks which is great because it makes it easy to pick up and play when you are say laying in bed trying not to expel the demon like Pazuzu has possessed you. But it’s got a unique mechanic with the draining light sources leading to less sanity which makes trying to wake up from the nightmare a lot more difficult. Not to mention the fact that the enemies are nightmare-inducing. The environments are well thought out and by mixing in the sound design it all plays off really well. I’m not going to sit here and say I’m happy that my entire family was sick. But I am happy it led me to find Nightmare, the developer seems really open to taking feedback and to the idea of continuing to develop Nightmare into an even more fleshed-out game.
Be sure to check out the developers’ Youtube and Discord. more importantly, check out Nightmare on Steam. As we come to a close on the year and I prepare for good old Canadian winter, I dive deeper into horror to warm my soul. I really hope over the next few weeks to find some good holiday and, more specifically snow based horror. So if you have any recommendations, let me know!
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