History NightmareFuel / JimmyAndThePulsatingMass

** When Jimmy hears from the villagers in Smile that Cordelia has gone missing, It doesn't take long to discover a cave not too far from the area she was last seen. Once inside, you're greeted by Mr. Cat's home, completely vacant, and with the cabinet's doors wide open. Stepping inside the cabinet embarks the player on an absolutely ''dread-inducing'' trip through a nightmarish mansion, packed with telephones that yield no answer, a hallway vandalized with manic scribbles referencing a group named "The Skin Thieves", and an unsettling replica of Smile populated by dark, stringy, humanoid creatures. It can be noted that the music that plays when the Pulsating Mass or something related interacts with you is called "Skin Thieves".

** When Jimmy hears from the villagers in Smile that Cordelia has gone missing, It doesn't take long to discover a cave not too far from the area she was last seen. Once inside, you're greeted by Mr. Cat's home, completely vacant, and with the cabinet's doors wide open. Stepping inside the cabinet embarks the player on an absolutely *dread-inducing* trip through a nightmarish mansion, packed with telephones that yield no answer, a hallway vandalized with manic scribbles referencing a group named "The Skin Thieves", and an unsettling replica of Smile populated by dark, stringy, humanoid creatures. It can be noted that the music that plays when the Pulsating Mass or something related interacts with you is called "Skin Thieves".

* The Accelerated Dynamics building seems innocuous at first- you are attending a luncheon along with several other characters. Then you leave and can enter an elevator to go up... and the lights start flickering while the elevator shakes and lets you out, where you are met with a maze of cubicles and creepy flickering screens that turn on and off, and it becomes apparent that you have entered another Nightmare Zone. Other horrors include a soundtrack that manages to make office sounds (like keyboard typing) unsettling, several corpses- two of which are hanging from windows and four of which have black things coming out of their mouths- and, for a more conceptual horror, seeing the once friendly Mr. Groose warped into a greedy CorruptCorporateExecutive who has no problem killing Jimmy to keep his illegal arms dealing a secret.

* The titular Pulsating Mass, the BigBad of the game, is a prime example of VileVillainSaccharineShow. It is a pulsating mass of ''something'' that hates Jimmy and wants to corrupt and destroy his dream world- to this end, it corrupts and possesses many of the denizens, turning them into zombies with BodyHorror galore. It is massive enough that the final dungeon is a WombLevel taking place inside of it. And even worse, it is heavily indicated to be a representation of Jimmy's cancer, and as such, it can never truly be defeated.

Despite the cutesy exterior, ''Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass'' takes inspiration from both ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'''s more disturbing aspects and ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'', and it shows. Whether it be the titular eldritch antagonist or the many Nightmare Zones scattered throughout the game, Jimmy's adventure will have him face many horrors.

* The first sign that the game is not as cheery as it seems is in the Whisper Weaver's Cavern in Giant Garden. Unlike the cheery outside area, the cavern is dark, gloomy, and filled with giant spider webs and green goo. Your field of vision is very limited, as well, and the enemies are initially only seen as eyes in the dark (though the effect lessens when they reveal themselves as the goofy enemies of the outside). When you can finally enter much later in the game, you will find that the lower section is populated with creepy {{Giant Spider}}s, and the titular Whisper Weaver boss is a disturbing humongous spider with a [[https://jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass.fandom.com/wiki/The_Whisper_Weaver particularly ugly]] NightmareFace and SlasherSmile.

* Turnbuckle's Mansion is a HauntedHouse where the gameplay suddenly shifts to an AdventureGame-esque exploration. The mansion is filled with toys abandoned by their owners who have become angry at humans, and one of them, Pollyanna, is a CreepyDoll who will play hide-and-seek with you while jump-scaring you. At least one human woman has fallen prey to them, and her corpse can be found in the bathtub.

* The Asymmetrical Cavern near the Giant's Feet. You enter a cave with no music, and there's nothing there but some glitchy TV screens. But when you enter the next room you a thrust into a pitch black series of tunnels with a chaotic soundtrack of people shouting different numbers and static. If that's not bad enough at the end of the tunnel you seemingly reach a dead end, but when you exit that room the layout of the tunnel has changed. The world will suddenly shift as though it's glitching out. At one point it looks like you've been teleported outside the cave, but when you try to leave the area the world shifts back into the cave. Eventually you're teleported to a long hallway, where all you can hear is a squishing noise. At the end of the hallway is a bizarre humanoid creature with empty eyes scratching at its exposed brain.
* The Tower of the Mad Queen is a twisted, grimmified AliceAllusion where you are first greeted by a giant caterpillar who will give you a riddle and send you down [[MortonsFork no matter your answer]]. The dungeon, belonging to the titular Queen, is filled with skeletons, blood, and even some flayed skin stuck to walls. When you have to venture into the caterpillar's mouth to encounter the Queen, she lets you know why; she has gone so insane that she thinks the skin on people's bodies is dirty and must be removed. She then shows off her husband, having been reduced to a skeleton, and a giant, boney hand and arm sticks out of a nearby hole, revealing the [[https://jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass.fandom.com/wiki/The_Mad_Queen demented visage]] of the Queen.

** At this point, [[DarkestHour everything seems hopeless]] - the only people who haven't been taken are Jimmy and Buck, [[MacGuffin The Secret Knowledge]] is out of your hands, and the Mass has begun the process of assimilating the world into itself, starting with the Central Hub, which has been turned into a fleshy EldritchLocation. And The Pulsating Mass itself isn't a slouch, either - while you fight it, it takes on the forms of your family members in a manner similar to that of [[VideoGame/EarthBound Giygas]]. Special mention goes to how when it imitates Andrew or Helga, it can inflict a unique status effect on Jimmy - [[TearJerker Heartbroken]]. The final boss theme, Organic Nightmare, is one of the most disturbing themes in the game, with a HeartbeatSoundtrack, heavy breathing, and organic pulsating.

* The Goons recruitment exam involves jumping down a chute that sorts them based on whether they're worthy. Jimmy and three other Goon candidates pass and enter the lower level of the Goons' hideout, while one of them has failed. When you leave the Goons' hideout you can find the failing candidate has been dumped outside the hideout onto the rocks that he's messily impaled on.
* At the very end of the demo we see that the Queen Bee and her guards have disappeared. All that's left is a strange green trail leading into the next room, hinting at some gruesome fate. In the full game we find out what happened to all the bees. The Pulsating Mass has mutilated them, leaving body parts strewn about the hive. In one room there are horrifically mutated corpses that appear to be fused with the pulsating mass. The enemies you fight in the level are all undead versions of the bees with green goop bleeding out of their bodies, with the exception of Drones, which appear to be nothing but lumps of flesh with eyes, a mouth, and wings. The boss of the level, Queen Bee, appears to be a veiny, skinless humanoid...thing, tearing itself free from a giant, pulsating bee abdomen.

* In the Ashby's mall, Jimmy jumps through a TV screen into his favorite show, ''Jonathon Bear's Playtime Forest''. The level is very cutesy, with all of the plants and trees made of wooden props. But the further in you travel the more the scenery changes into a hellish nightmare, Jonathon's animals friends turn into nightmarish, bloody monsters, and at the end you have to fight a giant, mutated Jonathon Bear, with one skeletal arm sticking out of his fur, a small eel-like creature protruding from his left eye, and many sharp teeth.

*** As nightmarish as Cordelia's murder is, the clothes on the floor are Mr. Cat's own, as he is seen wearing them in his cave prior to Cordelia going missing. The implication seems to be that he ditched his disguise to reveal his true horrifying form.

* The first sign that the game is not as cheery as it seems is in the Whisper Weaver's Cavern in Giant Garden. Unlike the cheery outside area, the cavern is dark, gloomy, and filled with giant spider webs and green goo. Your field of vision is very limited, as well, and the enemies are initially only seen as eyes in the dark (though the effect lessens when they reveal themselves as the goofy enemies of the outside). When you can finally enter much later in the game, you will find that the lower section is populated with creepy {{Giant Spider}}s, and the titular Whisper Weaver boss is a disturbing humongous spider with a [[https://jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass.fandom.com/wiki/The_Whisper_Weaver particularly ugly]] NightmareFace and SlasherSmile.
* The BonusDungeon in Wilted Lands is definitely a case of this, what with hallways randomly changing upon reaching a dead end, the near silence of the location except for the ungodly roars of... something, and the uncomfortably claustrophobic hallway that forces Jimmy to squeeze himself through as it shrinks, all leading up to an OptionalBoss called Slither, a giant [[SnakesAreSinister snake]] with BlackEyesOfEvil and TearsOfBlood.

* Ebeezil's Domain, a cold, dark, and lonely world where everyone who wanders into it is said to be doomed to wander forever, dreaming without sleeping. They all become the Sleepwalkers, creatures with BlackEyesOfEvil. Ebeezil himself can never fall asleep, for if he does, the world will be destroyed.
* Turnbuckle's Mansion is a HauntedHouse where the gameplay suddenly shifts to an AdventureGame-esque exploration. The mansion is filled with toys abandoned by their owners who have become angry at humans, and one of them, Pollyanna, is a CreepyDoll who will play hide-and-seek with you while jump-scaring you. At least one human woman has fallen prey to them, and her corpse can be found in the bathtub.

* The final dungeon and showdown against The Pulsating Mass:
** The last area is the Central Hub, now having been taking over by the Pulsating Mass. As a result, it is one giant WombLevel with organs and eyes everywhere, and filled with grotesque enemies like the [[https://jimmy-and-the-pulsating-mass.fandom.com/wiki/Flesh_Orb Flesh Orb]].
** At this point, [[DarkestHour everything seems hopeless]] - the only people who haven't been taken are Jimmy and Buck, [[MacGuffin The Secret Knowledge]] is out of your hands, and the Mass has begun the process of assimilating the world into itself, starting with the Central Hub, which has been turned into a fleshy EldritchLocation. And The Pulsating Mass itself isn't a slouch, either - while you fight it, it takes on the forms of your family members in a manner similar to that of [[VideoGame/EarthBound Giygas]]. Special mention goes to how when it imitates Andrew or Helga, it can inflict a unique status effect on Jimmy - [[TearJerker Heartbroken]]. The final boss theme, Organic Nightmare, is one of the most disturbing themes in the game, with a HeartbeatSoundtrack, heavy breathing, and organic pulsating.

* You find Punch Tanaka standing on a bridge lamenting his failure to defeat Jimmy. Suddenly Jonathon Bear walks out and encourages him to end it already, which he then does by jumping off the bridge. Having your adorable teddy bear companion tell someone to kill themselves out of nowhere is incredibly jarring.

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[SarcasmMode Very normal things to find in an 8 year old child's imagination.]]-]]]

* The Accelerated Dynamics building seems innocuous at first- you are attending a luncheon along with several other characters. Then you leave and can enter an elevator to go up… and the lights start flickering while the elevator shakes and lets you out, where you are met with a maze of cubicles and creepy flickering screens that turn on and off, and it becomes apparent that you have entered another Nightmare Zone. Other horrors include a soundtrack that manages to make office sounds (like keyboard typing) unsettling, several corpses- two of which are hanging from windows and four of which have black things coming out of their mouths- and, for a more conceptual horror, seeing the once friendly Mr. Groose walked into a greedy CorruptCorporateExecutive who has no problem killing Jimmy to keep his illegal arms dealing a secret.

* Information Isle, the home of the Information Guys. When you get there, the whole place is eerily empty. Then you encounter a zombified Information Guy feasting on the remains of a deer who then tries to kill you, and soon learn that they are investing the island. You then have to enter a dark, creepy tunnel where the Totem that transformed them all into zombies lies in wait.

* In the mall level, Jimmy jumps through a TV screen into his favorite show, ''Jonathon Bear's Playtime Forest''. The level is very cutesy, with all of the plants and trees made of wooden props. The further in you travel the more the scenery changes into a hellish nightmare, Jonathon's animals friends turn into nightmarish monsters, and at the end you have to fight a giant mutated Jonathon Bear.
* The progression of Grimclaw throughout the game is pretty unsettling. At the start of the game you just see an innocent bird circling around its nest atop the peak of the mountain, but after you come back to Homeflower later in the game, you now find it undulating painfully and creepily in a ball in its nest, no longer flying idly around. And when you finally encounter Grimclaw in person, he is fully corrupted by the Pulsating Mass, with his wings fleshy and veiny, and three disgusting leeches using it as a host.