PopHorror Let's Get Scared
.Once upon a time, our parents smothered us in their interests, and anything horror-related got the most money. People were gladly shelling out cash for the new scary thing. Our Halloweens were bountiful after walking for two hours and watching Night Of The Living Dead. Then, came Nightmare and Atmosfear, the craziest games I ever played. It terrified me as an 8-year-old kid knowing the game’s host would pop out. Then, I started to enjoy the suspense. The host wasn’t even that creepy looking, he was just loud which was extremely frightening. I put my big boy pants on and enjoyed the game to its full potential.
Synopsis
The object of the game is to collect six different coloured “Keystones” and thus beat the host. For most games in the series, the “Gatekeeper” is the host but in the 2006 game and three expansions for the original one other characters take the role of the host, introducing their own rules.To beat the host, the players must face their worst fear. If none of the players are able to win the game within the set time limit, the host is the winner.
In later games a DVD, is included with the game and acts as a game clock. The video stars the host of the game, who appears throughout the tape giving instructions to players. When a player has collected the Keystones, they can win the game by facing their earlier expressed “greatest fear”, which is actually just a random event; if they are successful they win the game.
Wanna Play?!
The game, released in 1991, was one of the first games to be played on VHS. Of course, there was a board and dice. You collected keys to win if you could finish the game, and I had several friends who threw the towel in. Not everyone could stand the booming voice and jump scares. One by one the game’s host would single out players to follow his grim orders. The game was a beautiful work of art, even if it sometimes scared me.
The game had six Harbingers who were given authority over a province. Each player took on a persona of the Harbinger they were playing as. The harbingers consisted of grotesque creatures named Gevaudan the Werewolf, Hellin the Poltergeist, Khufu the Mummy, Baron Samedi the Zombie, Anne de Chantraine the Witch, and Elizabeth Bathory the Vampire. The final character in the game is the games host, the Gatekeeper. His job is to ensure that the other characters do not escape from The Other Side.
The game required 3–6 players to attempt to collect keys while trying to beat the clock included on the video cassette. The original Nightmare sparked an entire revolution on the VHS-led games of survival. Because of the games success, we soon saw more complicated and complex stories. The next arrival of three more games of demonic fun, after that, all hell broke loose in the game series. It spawned even more successful games. The series has become iconic to horror lovers and has become very hard to come across. All I can afford from the games is cool memories.
The Characters
In the series of the Nightmare series, we are introduced to the harbingers one by one and they take over hosting the games. I remember them being MUCH creepier than the gatekeeper, he became old news, but not forever. The original Nightmare games sold well over what was expected, mainly because all my friends and I loved horror movies, and I am positive we weren’t the only ones. The games were kind of like a morbid Dungeons and Dragons. Here is a list of the Nightmare series hosts you would meet along the way.
- Nightmare I – the Gatekeeper
2. Nightmare II – Baron Samedi the Zombie
3. Nightmare III -Anne de Chantraine the Witch
4. Nightmare IV – Elizabeth Bathory the Vampire
Atmosfear
After the success of the Nightmare series, new games were released under a different and more foreboding name. The games held the same roots with a totally different storyline in each. More demons have popped through the veil and they are ready for a terrorizing fight. In the Atmosfear games, we are joined again by the Gatekeeper who kept the Nightmare games terrifying. There were also two booster packs for Atmosfear: The Harbingers.
There are not as many memories of me playing the Atmosfear games, as a kid however; I knew every single tape from the entire series by heart. My friends and I would play for hours, they were our escape from the real world. We spent many sleepovers with these games. They mean a lot, even the ones I can barely remember now. I was a geek, and so were all my friends. Most of us still are.
The Atmosfear series brought back our good friend the Gatekeeper, who is even more intimidating in these continuations. Other hosts consisted of Dr.Mastiff the Skeleton and Khufu the Mummy. In my honest opinion, the games were a little less popular as time progressed, however, I still owned them all. I still hold whatever memories I have alive. The Atmosfear games also got with the times and released the games on DVD which allowed them to give you a different experience every time you played.
In 2019 an app-based version of Nightmare was released by the creators of the series, Phillip Tanner and Brett Clements. And soon after, in 2021 The 30th Anniversary of Nightmare was released and did extremely well in sales once again. I must have picked the right culture to follow. Horror for me is life, including video and board games. This is just who I am, and Games like this were interesting before I had horror-related video games, this series is what I ran to.
Do you remember these games? Tell us in the comments!
