PlayStation 4 Review Code Provided by Maximum Games
Horror and puzzle fans are always on the lookout for the next title that will take them through a mysterious series of levels that guide them through a strange world with hidden answers behind the story. The latest game to bring this experience is In Nightmare by Maximum Games and Magic Fish Studio. This PlayStation exclusive indie title takes players into a horror-filled dreamland to overcome the strong emotions of a child with trauma. But does the game itself bring an entertaining experience for the player? Let’s dive in.
Story
Overall, this game’s story is not told directly and is partially left to the player to be discovered. Through a series of notes and documents that can be found, along with the various memories, areas, and enemies encountered, the story will slowly unfold. While I could give my speculated details on the story, I’ll stick to factual observations that layer the base of the story.
A child grows up in a troublesome family home where the mother and father are often fighting with each other. Whether it be over the child or something else, they can’t help but pull the child into the situation and occasionally even take out their frustrations on him. Feeling the internal dread of the stress these outbursts caused, the child would often find himself alone and having his own outbursts as he tries to understand and manage his own emotions.
Gameplay
This entire game is played from a singular top-down perspective. You won’t be able to turn the camera, zoom in, or look around from other directions. However, you do have a butterfly companion that sticks with you the entire game and acts as a second set of eyes. You can use the butterfly to safely check your perimeter.
Along with the butterfly’s ability to go a little further out, you can use two abilities to help you find items or explore your surroundings. To do these, you will need Dream Essence and Dream Consciousness. The Essence will provide a brighter light and can be used to go even further away from you, giving you the chance to go through walls and check-in other rooms that are completely out of sight. The Consciousness will provide a blue light that will reveal hidden secrets for you to follow. Typically starting from a white scuffed spot on the ground, you use the Consciousness to reveal hidden footprints to follow, hidden pathways that open up, and even invisible pathways.
Both of the butterfly’s abilities do have limited use and so you will need to collect refill bottles throughout the levels. They are pretty much everywhere and I never ran out of refills, even when heavily using the abilities. As long as you are exploring and looking for notes and collectibles, you will constantly find these refills. Along with the refills, you will find one other usable item; the blinding orbs.
These blinding orbs can be thrown and will temporarily stun enemies that are chasing you. This is great when you just need a little more time or need to get away and hide from a chasing enemy. It only takes one grab to get a death, so make sure you stay out of reach!
As you make your way through the game, you will be faced with countless puzzles. They did a great job with this as no two puzzles really felt the same and there was a solid mix of styles used throughout the game. Even in the ending levels, when it came time to truly face the enemies and take them down, it has fittingly satisfying puzzles to complete the task and get the job done.
In between levels, you will be in an overworld-type area. Here you will have a player unlockables section where your collectibles will be put together to form the different playroom sections, a trophy case to see your accomplishments, and more. Other than that, this is also where you will enter each level. Going in a clockwise fashion, level one starts on the bottom left (or 7 o’ clock) and then the other levels will unlock as each is completed.
Audio and Visual
You can really tell where they got the inspiration for this game when you take a look at the audio and visual aspects of the game. This game is a slightly brighter, but visually comparable to the Little Nightmare series. Other than the top-down camera angle being used, it would be hard to argue they look nothing alike.
The music choice for the game is in the same respect as it had intense music for chase moments and more calm music for exploration. The light silence and eerie tones when sneaking through areas were definitely an impacting aspect as well.
Replayability
Other than aiming to find all of the collectibles, I don’t see much reason to play the game more than once.
What It Could Have Done Better
The lack of camera movement was really a frustrating factor in this game. There were plenty of times I was confused about where to go or felt lost when the answer was right in front of me, but I couldn’t tell because of the camera angle. I understand what they were going for, but even the ability to lean the camera in different directions would have been helpful. This setup just felt limiting.
There are some rather harsh bugs when playing the game. Some that even caused me to have to go back to the start of a load file. Good news is that they were always near the latest autosave in my case, but it would have been frustrating if it wasn’t. The main bugs always took place with the enemies, whether it be the boss disappearing and not returning as they should or an enemy animation just not happening but when it kicks on it throws me above the map.
Verdict
In Nightmare is a solid horror puzzle experience that is entertaining in its own right. While I had some problems with different aspects of the game, it was a great game to play through. It is unfortunately not very gripping in design, likely due to how it can be frustrating in odd ways. But even with that said, I am glad to have played through it and enjoyed the majority of the time on there. Plus, the puzzle solving alone was nice mix to complete.
In Nightmare is now available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
