"Where there's Bendy, there's always trouble brewing!"
— joeydrewstudios.com
Bendy in Nightmare Run is a free-to-play mobile boss runner game and an official spin-off of Bendy and the Ink Machine. It features Bendy and his friends running from various bosses that they must defeat, and it's based off of lost Bendy cartoons found in the franchise's Joey Drew Studios.
Four stages, or "episodes," came with the initial release. The first stage is pirate-themed "Bendy Walks the Plank," and the boss is Chester, a living treasure chest. The second stage is city-themed "Bendy in Death and Taxis," and the boss is Gaskette, a living taxi. The third stage is junkyard-themed "Bendy in Soup Gone Bad," and the boss is Canoodle, a living soup can. The fourth stage is library-themed "Bendy in Dewey Decimated," and the boss is Dewey, a living inkwell.
Bendy in Nightmare Run was released August 15, 2018 by Joey Drew Studios and is available for download at joeydrewstudios.com/run.
Bendy in Nightmare Run contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The promotional art reveals the bosses' motives for chasing Bendy.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Players can unlock several costumes for Bendy and his friends with bacon soup. About four are unlocked by beating the final stage of each episode (one costume for defeating it per character), and the rest are unlocked by reaching certain character levels.
- Animate Inanimate Object: All four bosses of the initial release.
- Ballistic Bone: One of the things that can be thrown at the bosses is an unlockable skull.
- The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In:
- Canoodle throws silverware like javelins, which makes the eating ends hit the earth first and stick in the ground. Even the spoons end like this, although they're nowhere near as pointy as knives and forks.
- In the death animation for Dewey, he's impaled by his own fountain pen nib-first.
- Boss Game: Every "episode" is divided into 5 acts in which the primary goal is to fight the boss until they give up the chase, or in the case of the final act outright die. With every next act the boss fights get more hectic and difficult, boosting the boss' health, adding in more attacks, more Mooks, and more obstacles.
- Chest Monster: Chester.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Because this spin-off takes place in the cartoons' universe, Bendy keeps his original grin through it: a wide, toothy grin that pushes his cheeks up into his eyes. He wears it no matter what boss he's running away from or what costume he's wearing. His character profile describes him as having a huge appetite for trouble, and the promotional art reveals that he's the one who messed with the bosses in the first place, so....
- City with No Name: The stage for "Bendy in Death and Taxis."
- Disproportionate Retribution: While Bendy is a troublemaker, and bosses do have their reasons to kill Bendy, Dewey wants to brutally kill Bendy over knocking over books in the library. Compared to other bosses' reasons, his reason feels a bit like overreacting.
- Double Jump: Bendy and his friends can jump while airborne.
- Down in the Dumps: The stage for "Soup Gone Bad."
- Endless Game: Whenever a boss is defeated on a Nightmare level, the boss revives at full health and continues the chase.
- Endless Running Game: The design that makes the Nightmare levels endless.
- Evil Is Bigger: All the bosses are big enough to eat the playable characters. Subverted with Dewey, as the playable characters appear to have been shrunken down to create a Macro Zone - the final victory scene will show the player character dressed as a librarian and scolding a suddenly much-smaller Dewey.
- Excuse Plot: Each boss chases Bendy and his friends because Bendy wronged or provoked the boss.
- Explosive Barrel: A TNT-stuffed barrel is one of the heavy-tier weapons.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief:
- Bendy is the Fighter. Having no special gimmick or drawback, He's able to take more punishment than his friends overall, but lacks bonuses.
- Alice is the Mage. She can randomly duplicate Bacon Soup, but has lower overall HP.
- Boris is the Thief. He can find weapons more often than his friends, but takes more damage from enemy attacks.
- Gangplank Galleon: The stage for "Bendy Walks the Plank" with a bit of Palmtree Panic mixed in.
- Glass Cannon: Boris can find weapons more often compared to the other two characters, but he also takes more damage from attacks.
- Ground Pound: Bendy and his friends can kill mooks that get too close by jumping in the air and stomping down on them.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Boris's default outfit is a pair of suspenders with gloves and shoes.
- Improbable Weapon User: Canoodle hunts Bendy down using giant silverware though considering how he's a giant sentient soup can, it's probably not too improbable.
- Improvised Weapon: The default weapons are a brick, a fireaxe and an anvil. Many of the unlockable weapon skins are also unorthodox for combat.
- Jack of All Stats: Bendy, the default character with no gimmick or matching drawback. His weapon and soup collection levels are standard, but he takes less damage from attacks than Boris and has higher health than Alice. This can make him a Master of None or a Crutch Character if the player is good at dodging or going for the No Damage runs.
- Lighter and Softer: Far less frightening than Bendy and the Ink Machine with Bendy and friends being Super-Deformed and fighting off silly, cartoonish monsters.
- Little Black Dress:
- Alice's default outfit is a short, strapless black dress adorned with only a white bow on the chest.
- Her flamenco outfit also has a short, strapless black dress as its base.
- Macro Zone: The stage for "Dewey Decimated", specifically taking place in a huge library. The final act's victory splash screen implies that Bendy and company are actually shrunken during said stage with artwork of Bendy scolding a now much smaller Dewey.
- The Mafia: Dewey seems to have this theme with his suit cuffs, dress shoes and ink-pen-tommy-gun hybrid weapon.
- Bendy's gangster outfit also looks the part.
- Money Multiplier: When playing as Alice, every now and then a can of bacon soup will randomly double, triple, quadruple or even sextuple in amount, making her ideal for gathering more cans of bacon soup quickly. The trade-off is that she has the lowest health pool in the game.
- Offscreen Teleportation: No matter how far Bendy and his friends run through the gauntlet sections, the boss always drops down right behind them when they get out.
- Only One Name: Justified in that the characters are cartoons. There's Bendy, and there are the bosses: Chester, Gaskette, Canoodle, and Dewey.
- Our Angels Are Different: Alice is a Horned Humanoid with a Holy Halo but no wings who is "sent from above," dresses in a Little Black Dress, and is noted for her talents in song and dance. Her description says that she brings light to everything she touches.
- Promoted to Playable: Bendy, Boris, and Alice. Justified in that this occurs in their cartoon world rather than in the real world as in BATIM.
- Scary Librarian: Dewey in his promotional art has been stated to be a librarian. His method of punishing those who misbehave in library involves death. And Bendy misbehaved.
- Scary Teeth: In contrast to Bendy and his friends, all of the bosses have sharp, pointy teeth in a perpetual frown.
- Sentient Vehicle: Gaskette.
- Species Surname: Alice Angel and Boris the Wolf.
- Spectacular Spinning: The animation for most thrown weapons.
- Super-Deformed: Boris and Alice have Bendy's size and proportions rather than their more humanoid appearances in the cartoons and official artwork.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Although its damage is fixed at two points, there is an unlockable sword that Bendy and his friends can throw.
- Unlockable Content: Players start with Bendy in his signature look, but Boris and Alice can be unlocked, as can new costumes for all three of them. Even a golden version of the characters can be unlocked, either with a lot of bacon soup or by using them to run a certain distance.
- Wrench Whack: One of the medium-tier weapons.
