Nightmares Of Despair Demo

People wake up from comas with all sort of weird and rather scary stories, including tales about hell, purgatory and similar unpleasant places. In fact, not being able to move or make sense of what’s happening to you is scary in and by itself, even if there are no terrible monsters involved. Add a few spiders and a deserted building, on the other hand, and you’ve got yourself some grade-A nightmare fuel.

Nightmares Of Despair is a psychological horror game in which survival is the key element, so you have to avoid the monsters at all costs. Thus, there are no machine guns involved and you do not have to eviscerate hordes of demons in order to pass the levels. Instead, the goal is to simply avoid making contact with the creatures and stay alive by doing so.

The story talks about a boy named Alex, who happens to be in a coma. However, things are much worse than that, because he needs to confront his worst nightmares in order to wake up. Spiders, creepy tunnels and disturbing images are just a few of the trials he has to survive in order to get out of his own head. Unfortunately, the plot isn’t very well constructed and you can barely make heads or tails of it.

The developers put a bit of effort into the atmosphere, but it’s just not believable or scary, unless you are underage. While the environments are narrow and quite claustrophobic at times, they lack detail and you just do not feel like you are in a bad place. The occasional bloodstain doesn’t have the desired effect either, especially since the lighting is awful and you can’t see things sometimes.

However, the most disappointing part is the sound design, given the fact that it’s usually a big factor in horror games. In fact, titles like Amnesia gambled a lot on sound effects alone, given the fact that it barely featured any monsters. Unfortunately, the audio component in the game at hand is silly and badly implemented, which yet again ruins a potentially paralyzing atmosphere.

When it’s all said and done, Nightmares Of Despair is not a terrible game, but it doesn’t feel like a horror experience at all. Hence, unless you enjoy the thrill of walking around dark rooms and seeing the occasional spider clipping through walls, there are much better alternatives out there.