Do you ever watch a horror film and you’re not intrinsically connected at all to the story or characters? That’s In Nightmare for me. The overall experience is fine with some decent puzzles and art design, but overall, In Nightmare fails at keeping you at the edge of your seat. It’s rather like sleeping on the chair instead.
In Nightmare tells the story of a boy with a traumatic upbringing. He has communication problems with others at school and has a troublesome history with his parents. After a series of unknown events, he is seemingly in a coma, trying to wake up from an awful lifelike nightmare.
The concept for the game sounds emotionally powerful, but it all falls flat with its cutscenes and storytelling techniques. Most of the context is built up from notes you pick up in the world. The cutscenes are exceptionally vague to the point of not needing them at all. In those cinematic moments, you see the character models in a shadow form performing in mime as you walk around. The illusive imagery gives you little context to what is going on during these narrative moments.. We also don’t see any kind of character progression within the protagonist, making for a bland story overall.
Some form of voice acting would have helped the game’s emotional goals. We can’t see the face of the protagonist, but hearing a voice would have gone a long way. Horror fans may enjoy the crypticness, but for an interactive medium, you need to be invested, and for me, it failed in this aspect.
Lacking scares
In addition, In Nightmare failed to spook me once. It has some intriguing creature designs from the red-eyed monsters and a shadow with crawling hands on the surface of the floor, but without any emotional stakes, it all falls flat. The perspective of the camera also doesn’t help as we don’t see the child’s face or his reactions. Once again, we don’t have that emotional connection we need to be invested..
The puzzles are well designed for the most part. Using a red-eyed monster’s rage to thwart a blockage of rose bushes makes for a great a-ha moment. In addition, the Infinite Classroom, a maze of misty doorways, is pretty ingenious as you need to follow the pattern of candles from another room to guide your way through. You have to think outside the box for some moments, and most of the time, that a-ha moment is satisfying. But in other, more challenging situations, you’ll be left confused.
The chase scenes were also well implemented as you have to think on your feet. You’ll move around and push blocks out of the way to get out of reach from the Shadow, for example.
Some of the puzzles are perplexing.. Without a guide, and to be honest not many are out there, you won’t be able to figure out some conundrums. For example, the introductory puzzle in Chapter 3 has all sorts of roman numerals and hard-to-read signage on the floor, which makes it difficult to figure out what exactly you have to do.
Undercooked stealth system
The stealth system is also frustrating. At points in the game, you’ll have to hide away from the nearby monsters. The beginning levels have the worst elements of stealth. With your companion pet Bikti, you can spot where an enemy resides. By pressing the right stick, it gives an overall area of where the monster is. However, this power is very weak. It only gives a general direction, not any proximity. They may be right next to you or many meters away from your position. Due to its restrictions, it doesn’t really help at all.
What makes things worse is how specific monsters, like the witch, can easily spot you from far away, leading to much frustration. Bikti can also zoom around ahead of you, but this will cost Dream Essence to use it and its distance is limited as well. Dream Essence is a resource that can be drained over its usage. Potions for this are all over the game, but it can be stressful to use because of how the meter can drain.
Lastly, on the gameplay front, almost all of it is repetitive. It does add in a few elements here and there to mix up the formula, but the stealth elements feel slow and tiring after Chapter 1. Some of the puzzle elements fall through as well as they become increasingly cryptic.
Flourishing art design
Thankfully, the art design does help carry the game through. The red-eyed monsters stand out in Chapter 2 of the game as they reside over the streets of the town at night. The stealth system is improved in this area as it’s easy to see them and you can sneak more effectively. They have a ghoulish red glow from their eyes as well, creating an intimidating, yet effective way of presenting stealth segments to the player. The dim and foggy scenes of an abandoned school also created the right scene.
The hub as well looks beautiful with its sparkling diamond-like bridges and structures. It’s a magical element that truly stands out after the depressing scenes of each chapter.
A decently sized game
In Nightmare has six chapters to complete, which will take you around eight to ten hours to finish. However, there is more to do than that. You can obtain new outfits by finding collectibles, and you can read all manner of lore that is dropped throughout each level. You are also tasked to find all the true endings in In Nightmare. Whether or not you’ll be invested enough in the story or the game to collect everything is another matter.
Overall, In Nightmare disappoints with its lacking narrative and some strange puzzle gameplay elements along the way. The art design is well made, but without an emotional connection with the main character, the environments and graphical style is for naught.
Disclosure: Gamepur was provided a game code for review purposes.
