''Personal Nightmare'' is a

horror Horror may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Genres *Horror fiction, a genre of fiction **Psychological horror, a subgenre of horror fiction **Christmas horror, a subgenre of horror fiction **Analog horror, a subgenre of horror fiction * ...

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

developed and published by Horror Soft for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

in 1989. It was released digitally by

Adventure Soft Adventure Soft is a British video game developer and publisher established by Mike Woodroffe, initially as an importer and reseller of Adventure International games as Adventure International (UK), and later using the names Horror Soft, Advent ...

in July 2009 on

GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt, based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through i ...

Plot

The game focuses on a town where The Devil has invaded and the

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who i ...

has four days to eliminate all possessed citizens (led by a

witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

and a

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

) and finally purge the evil by defeating the Devil himself before he can take over.

Gameplay

The game makes use of a combination of text-based commands, clickable verbal commands and clickable objects to progress. A compass indicates which directions the player can travel. Much of the game's movement and actions are

real-time Real-time, realtime, or real time may refer to: Computing * Real-time computing, hardware and software systems subject to a specified time constraint * Real-time clock, a computer clock that keeps track of the current time * Real-time Control Syst ...

based so there is a day and night cycle. The player's

inventory Inventory (British English) or stock (American English) is a quantity of the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying ...

can be viewed in the respective menu. There are many encounters that can kill the player (ideally at night time) unless the player performs a proper action to avoid them. Newer versions of the game omitted the encounters where the players gets garroted. The player loses the game if four days pass and all the required possessed citizens have not been killed and the devil has not been repelled.

Reception

''Personal Nightmare'' was generally well-received, including the ratings of 87% by ''

Zzap! Zzap! may refer to: * Zzap!64 ''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by ...

'' (Amiga), 84% by ''

Computer + Video Games A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', wh ...

'' (Amiga and Atari ST), 74% by ''

CU Amiga ''Commodore User'', (also referred to as ''CU'') later renamed to ''CU Amiga'', is a British magazine initially published by Paradox Group before being acquired by EMAP. Timeline ''Commodore User'' was launched in October 1983 with an initial pr ...

'' (Amiga) and 7/10 by '' Datormagazin'' (Amiga).

References

External links

* * * {{Adventure Soft 1980s horror video games 1989 video games Adventure games Adventure Soft games Amiga games Atari ST games DOS games Fiction about the Devil Games commercially released with DOSBox ScummVM-supported games Single-player video games Video games about vampires Video games about witchcraft Video games developed in the United Kingdom