Game 431: The Nightmare (1982)

    

The Nightmare

United States

Liberty Software (developer); Epyx (publisher)

Released in 1982 for Atari 800

Date Started: 23 August 2021

Date Ended: 23 August 2021
Total Hours: 2
Difficulty: Very Easy (1/5)
Final Rating: 11
Ranking at Time of Posting: 32/444 (7%)

    

I can't find much on The Nightmare, so let me tell you what I guess about it. First, I guess that it started as a Crystalware game. Crystalware, as you my recall from my 2020 coverage, was a short-lived developer that specialized in quantity over quality. All of their games have a similar look and feel, blending action, adventure, and RPG elements without fully satisfying in any of those three areas. Marc Russell Benioff, who went on to found Salesforce and make billions, was one of Crystalware's programmers, responsible for Quest for Power (1981), The Forgotten Island (1981), and a few other titles. Liberty Software was Benioff's label.

    

A new game begins. There's no character creation.

      

Crystalware started to fall apart around 1982, and Automated Simulations acquired their catalog just as Automated Simulations was changing its name to Epyx. They re-released most of the Crystalware games under new names. For instance, Quest for Power became King Arthur's Heir, and The Forgotten Island became Escape from Vulcan's Island. I can't find any Crystalware precursor for The Nightmare, so I would guess that it was still under development when Crystalware made the hand-off.

   

The Nightmare is the typical Benioff/Crystalware game with the typical Epyx overproduction. That company could make you think a dog turd was a filet mignon. They would take 200 lines of code and accompany it with a 23-page manual full of evocative artwork, quotes from classic literature, and an elaborate framing story. The gameplay experience must have been a let-down for a lot of contemporary players, but the ride home from the computer store must have been epic. In this case, the manual is full of quotes about nightmares and death from Ambrose Bierce, Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and "a tombstone in Painswick Churchyard, Gloucester, England." Grotesque, gothic images, some from classical sources I can't identify, accompany the text.

      

A well-designed box suggests a quality of gameplay that isn't here.

     

In reality, there's nothing so nightmarish about gameplay. The setup of The Nightmare is that you're having a nightmare about being trapped in a castle. You have eight hours (real-time) to escape or your nightmare will become reality, and you'll be trapped there forever. The castle has four levels, and you maneuver your little icon through its rooms and corridors with the joystick. There are no keyboard controls. The joystick button calls up a small menu in which you can check your inventory and single "power" statistic.

   

All you have to do is wander around the castle collecting objects. Each floor has a bunch of rooms--their names spelled out on the screen--and about one-tenth of them have something in them. (Examples: Armory, Supply Room, Cloak Room, Lounge, Trophy Room, Annex, Laboratory, Royal Crypt.) Most objects give you access to another room in turn. There are no adventure-game style puzzles here. If you have the right object in your inventory, you can walk through the door or past the guardian that it allows you to pass. The floors aren't very big, and you don't have to map them.

       

The graphics aren't bad, but you can't do anything here.

 

There are exactly three enemies in the game: a rat pack in the dungeon, a "mistress" on the second floor, and a ghost on the third floor. Killing the first one is tough with your starting power of 100, but my experience is that once you've killed the first one--which boosts your power over 200--than the other ones are pretty easy. To really hedge your bets, you can just run from them until you get one of the weapons, after which you're invincible. If you do die, you can "reincarnate" with no items (so I don't know why you wouldn't just start over) or reload, since you can save anywhere.

     

Attacked by a rat pack that looks like a turtle.

     

I won in less than two hours--I can't imagine anyone needing the full eight--and most of that was backtracking. I think the winning sequence was:

    

• Get Moriu's Head in the unlocked Headsman's Room (basement)
• Get the key to the royal chambers in the Key Room (basement)    
• Enter Queen's Royal Chambers with key to royal chambers and get umbrella (second floor)
• Enter Bird Room with umbrella and get key to chapel (third floor)
• Enter Chapel with chapel key and get cross (first floor) 
• Enter Vampire's Lair with cross and get dagger (second floor)
• Get the key to the wizard's keep in the Headsman's room (basement)

         

I pick up a key. Another item awaits to my east.

       

• Enter Wizard's Keep with key and get quarterstaff (third floor) 
• Get past first and second guardians in Tunnel of Death with the quarterstaff and dagger, get key to Rorgon's Room (third floor)
• Enter Rorgon's Room with the key, get the key to the gatehouses and the can of mace (basement)
• Enter gatehouses on first floor and get spear and magic lantern (first floor)
• Enter Storage Room with magic lantern and get ring of protection (second floor)

    

There is one "side issue": In the Library on the second floor, you find a book. Reading the book (there's a menu command specifically for this) brings up some text that says, "Bath Keeper's Warning: Beware of the Psycho!" If you don't heed this warning and accidentally wander into the bath chamber on the second floor, a "psycho" appears and automatically kills you. You have no ability to move or take any other action.

     

A "psycho" kills me in the bath. That's original.

     

I never figured out what a pair of pajamas in the Royal Crypt got me, but other than that, it's just about finding the right items in sequence. Once you have everything, you got to the third floor, where there's a small mazelike room that the manual calls the "Tunnel of Doom." It has four guardians, and some combination of items--I would guess quarterstaff, dagger, spear, and Moriu's Head--gets you past them. (The guardians aren't enemies. They don't fight. They're like locked doors; they block you if you don't have the right item and let you through if you do.) Maybe the can of mace is important instead of one of the other weapons.

    

I lack the right item to get past this guardian.

    

The Ring of Protection sees you through a final barrier, and then you pick up your Mind's Eye.

      

I don't even know what that means.

      

Taking this back to the entry on the first floor triggers the "congratulations" screen.

      

I guess there was one ghost, but otherwise nothing "haunted" about it.

      

Both of Benioff's previous games featured the same limited, short, easy gameplay. It's too bad because there's a lot of potential in these graphics and room names. With a little text, some more complex controls, more frightening enemies, and a puzzle or two, Epyx could have had a decent adventure-RPG hybrid. There were even Crystalware titles like House of Usher (1980) that could have served as models. 

   

In a GIMLET, it earns:

   

• 1 point for the game world. It's not much of a setup. They could have come up with a dozen other reasons why a character would have to escape a medieval castle other than "he's having a bad dream."

• 1 point for character creation and development. That's generous. The "power" statistic doesn't do that much for you.

         

My "power" goes up as I find a new weapon.

      

• 0 points for no NPCs.

• 1 point for encounters and foes. That's for the inventory puzzles.

• 1 point for magic and combat. The simple power comparison and dice rolls aren't worth more.

     

The three combats are resolved based on your "power" and random rolls.

      

• 1 point for equipment, which adds to your power.

• 0 points for no economy.

      

My endgame inventory and power.

   

• 2 points for a main quest.

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics actually have some promise. While I normally don't like the joystick, it works okay for such a simple interface. I must not have sound configured correctly in Altirra because I didn't hear anything, whereas a video online indicates that it has various dits and boops.
  

• 2 points for gameplay. It gets that for being over quick. It's otherwise linear, not replayable, and far too easy.

    

That gives us a final score of 11, 1 point higher than I gave Benioff's two previous games (this one had slightly better graphics). His talents clearly lay in another industry.

***

Edit: In an article on his blog, El Explorador de RPG suggests that this game probably originated as Glamis Castle, a planned epic title from John and Patty Bell of Crystalware. In a Crystalware newsletter, John Bell announced that he planned to visit the Scottish castle on a trip to the United Kingdom and that the game would use layouts and photographs from the real castle in the game. Either the trip never happened or Bell couldn't incorporate the new material before Crystalware fell apart.