The Nightmare was developed by Marc Russell Benioff and his own label Liberty Software. Benioff was the principal programmer for Crystalware and was responsible for most of their past titles. Crystalware sold it’s catalog of games to Epyx who then repackaged them and in some cases retitled them and it looks like Liberty Software did the same with The Nightmare. I covered all of this in more detail when I covered Crypt of the Undead.
Epyx knows how to create an atmospheric game manual as evidenced by the documentation that accompanies the game.
Like it’s predecessor, Crypt of the Undead, there are numerous quotes scattered throughout the game manual that helps to provide atmosphere.
The premise of the game is that you’re trapped in your own nightmare and need to escape from it. Your own mind has conjured a castle setting and you need to find a way to escape before your nightmare becomes a reality; trapping you within forever. The game gives you eight hours to escape the castle which contains four levels.
The four levels of the castle are not very big and I found the map to be smaller and less confusing than the previous Crypt of the Undead. I started to map out the first level of the castle and then realized that it wasn’t really necessary. The game can be played with a joystick and keyboard combination and that is exactly what I did. You can also use the joystick button to pull up a menu if you want to completely avoid using the keyboard.
The puzzles are object oriented. Once you find a particular object; whether it be a key or a holy cross; having the object in your possession is enough to get you through a locked door or a guardian.
One of the objects that you’ll need to complete the game and get past one of the final guardians is Moriu’s decapitated head. In typical dark humor fashion you can find this gruesome object in the Headsman’s Room. There is a lot of creativity that shines through in the various castle locations and I enjoyed my exploration of the four levels just to see what the room labels and map would look like.
There are not as many adversaries to worry about in this game compared to previous Benioff entries. There is a pack of rats on the first floor which are very hard to kill. I died multiple times trying to kill them but once you do your power is increased significantly and then the other combats do not seem as tough. There is a “bride of frankenstein” like mistress on the second floor of the castle and on the third floor there is a ghost which stalks you.
Your ultimate goal is to successfully navigate what the game calls the Tunnel of Death and find and pick up your Mind’s Eye. You then carry the Mind’s Eye back to the entrance of the castle and this will free you from your nightmare. The Mind’s Eye is pictured below.
There are many different objects to find and by finding these objects they usually allow entrance into a new area of the map where you’ll find another object and that pattern repeats itself. Objects you’ll want to find are:
- Moriu’s Head
- Key to the Royal Chambers
- Umbrella
- Key to the Chapel
- Cross
- Dagger
- Key to the Wizard’s Keep
- Quarterstaff
- Key to Rorgon’s Room
- Key to the Gatehouses
- Can of mace
- Magic lantern
- Ring of Protection
The Ring of Protection will get you through the force field that surrounds the Mind’s Eye once you’ve made it past all of the guardians.
Once you obtain the Mind’s Eye and carry it all the way back to the castle entrance on the first floor you’ll get the winning message above.
It took about 2.5 hours to beat The Nightmare. It was creative enough and short enough that it kept my interest and I enjoyed the playthrough. I played it on an Atari emulator with no problems.
Next up on the docket will see the return of the wonderful world of Eamon. I will be taking the character of Fost Longstrider through Eamon #6: The Death Star and Eamon #7: The Devil’s Tower – both from 1980. I had been playing The Ring of Darkness and put quite a bit of time into it -probably 26 hours – and just finished so I’ll be working on a detailed write up for that as well. I’m currently playing Dungeons of Daggorath in the background right now. Normally I’m playing slightly ahead of my blog posts. Luckily I had a backlog of write-ups to complete while I worked on the challenging Ring of Darkness. I also strive to add a few games to the website’s database each and every day. Until next time….