Weird Dreams is a Flip-Screen Scrolling action / adventure / Survival Horror game released in the late 1980s.
The backstory described in the novella that came with the game is this. The protagonist, Steve, is in love with a woman named Emily possessed by a demon named Zelloripus. At some point Emily tricks Steve into taking some pills to cure his flu, thus granting the demon access to his body and mind. Steve's dreams get increasingly lucid, weird and painful. A psychiatrist and then a neurosurgeon try to cure him. The game starts with Steve in the operation room taking an anesthetic and experiencing yet another dream, hopefully not his last.
Provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The game came with a lengthy novella that gives a lot of backstory to the situation.
- Band Land: The right mirror in the Hall of Mirrors leads to an area with a piano-based floor. You have to get past a Jack-in-the-box whose playing on his teeth to make the keys open up and cause you to fall if you don't stop or jump at the right time. Then you need to get past a fat ballerina without getting kicked, the Jack-in-the-box again but harder, and grab an electric eel without getting shocked.
- Climax Boss: The bee from the beginning of the game eventually smashes its way into the Hall of Mirrors, engaging in a duel with Steve before the second half of the game.
- Creepy Child: The little girl, face clad in a Slasher Smile.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After you kill the little girl, her ball will fly into your inventory and help you out at certain points in the game.
- Dying Dream: If you fail, this dream will be your last.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Be very careful what you interact with in this game, as most of them will cause you to lose a life.
- Flatline: Shows when you lose all your lives. Through the game you can see your heart rate, stuttering and increasing when you get beaten.
- Flying Seafood Special: The fishes in the desert stage.
- Food Eats You: Failure to avoid the giant cooked chicken results in you getting eaten alive by it.
- Gainax Ending: Either Here We Go Again! or Sudden Downer Ending. You defeat the final boss and wake up on the operating table. Then, one of the surgeons morphs into the little girl from the soccer ball segment (who may be Steve's girlfriend Emily) and attacks you with her knife. Either your nightmare just got real, or you haven't woken up yet.
- Guide Dang It!: Some enemies can be beaten by whacking them with a stick, but often you'll need to be more creative.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The little girl tries to kill you with a man-eating ball. You have to throw it back at her at just the right moment so it eats her.
- Karma Houdini: In the backstory Emily gets away with transferring the demon to Steve, as no one knows that this is how he became possessed.
- The Many Deaths of You: There is over a dozen things the hero can die to, with several of them having unique death animations. He can be stabbed, driven over, eaten, kicked, electrified, etc.
- Mind Screw: It's called "Weird Dreams" for a reason.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Many monsters, including a football (soccer ball to stateside tropers) have a lot of large teeth. The author
came up with the idea while waiting in line at the dentist's. - One-Hit-Point Wonder: You die in one hit, and go back to either the start of the room you're in or the Hall of Mirrors.
- Quicksand Sucks: There's a quicksand pit in front of the statue that will take you back to the Hall of Mirrors.
- Scary Jack-in-the-Box: A very tall Jack-in-the-box threatens you in a few rooms. What's notable about him is that what can be first mistaken for a large, frilly neck ruff is actually a gigantic Cheshire cat grin, so big that it extends far off his face. He can play his teeth like a piano in order to control the giant piano that makes up the floor in an attempt to stop you.
- The Scream: Your character screams whenever he dies.
- Shamu Fu: Fighting a bee with an electric eel and then fighting weird monsters, and then the Big Bad demon, with a fish.
- Stalked by the Bell:
- If you take too long to kill the man-eating flowers and advance to the next screen you'll be killed by an unavoidable lawn mower.
- If you take too long getting past the fat ballerina the piano key platforms will start disappearing.
- If you stand still on one screen too long while holding a fish, the fish will fly out of your hand and eat you.
- Surreal Horror: Strange environments, stranger weapons, and the strangest enemies, and oh, god, all the teeth!
- Survival Horror: Supernatural environment, underpowered protagonist having to rely on his wits, any encounter may kill him. Though the game isn't mentioned among the founders of the genre, despite its age.
- Tennis Boss: The little girl.
- A Winner Is You: In the Commodore 64 version. The other versions are no better: The screen cuts back to the four surgeons, implying that the operation was successful and you've woken up, but then one of the surgeons' heads suddenly turn into the psychotic little girl's, the screen cuts to black, a wicked laugh is heard, and the game abruptly dumps you back to the DOS prompt/Amiga Workbench desktop/Atari GEM desktop).
- World of Chaos: What else to expect from a demon-induced nightmare?
- X-Ray Sparks: The death animation for the eel shows our hero's skeleton.
- Your Head Asplode: The most common death animation.
