"Adventure that turns fear into fun."
— Tagline to the game
A PC game released in 1997 by Disney Interactive and developed by Creative Capers Entertainment and Window Painters Ltd. It centers around a young boy, named Ned Needlemeyer, who is sent into a world of nightmares where he must face his fears to get out.
For the Television show, see here.
Tropes featured by the whole game:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Some of the nightmare-dwellers are capable of this.
- All Just a Dream: ...Or Was It a Dream?
- At the Crossroads: The Quilt.
- Arc Symbol:
- The five Shadows are represented by five distinct symbols.
- The patching and the sickly green color of the Quilt usually appears whenever something bad is about to happen.
- Bloodless Carnage: In the game, Ned can get stabbed, decapitated, crushed, and other such fates with nary a drop of blood.
- Body Horror
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: During the use of the game's menu, Ned will talk to the player.
- Cats Are Mean:
- Two black cats in Attic, Basement, and Beyond which injure Ned with shards from broken mirrors.
- The word-animal cats in the Chalkboard area of Alcatraz Elementary.
- Closed Circle:
- The nightmare worlds.
- Subverted when exit portals are used.
- Cyclops:
- The Gum Monster from in the Mouth and Cyco (Toilet-Paper Cyclops) from the Bathroom Nightmare.
- As well as the Medical Shadow and Bathroom Shadow.
- Darker and Edgier: The game has lost much of the cartoonish and silly nature of the show. Even the music is eerier.
- Downer Ending: The first ending in which Ned is still terrified of his nightmares.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Shadows and disembodied monster hands (pictured right) in the beginning.
- Eldritch Location: Much of Ned's nightmare, but primarily in The Mouth and in the Attic, Basement, and Beyond.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The second ending in which Ned has conquered his nightmares.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: Everywhere.
- Foreshadowing: Many points during the intro.
- Homage:
- The game has the art class segment which is reminiscent of fighting games, namely Mortal Kombat and the use of its phrase, "FINISH HIM!".
- The environment of the Graveyard Nightmare is known for bearing a strong resemblance to the works of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey.
- Horrifying the Horror: As the game continues and the Shadows begin to reveal,
their expressions become increasing chilled and terrified themselves. - Mad Doctor/ Depraved Dentist:
- The Medical Shadow is shown to be the most insane and sadistic of the bunch.
"I'm going to rip off one of your fingers, put it in a jar, and keep it as a souvenir!"- Also, in the end, if Ned can beat the Shadows and conquer his fears, the Shadows are shown to be still hiding in his closet. They contemplate what to do now that Ned has won, and the Medical Shadow suggests that "We could perform hideous, painful medical procedures on ''each other!''"
- Subverted when it is shown that she was actually friendly and it just the child in Ned that made him fear doctors so badly.
- Doctor Shots, who will stab Ned clean through with giant needles if he gets caught when the Mouth closes on him, one additional piece of his outfit changing from white to a tooth decay mix of browns each time. If the decay spreads to his coat, you're ejected from the level.
- Drive-Thru Doctors that will swipe at Ned while he's rolling on the medical gurney.
- The creepy nurse in Alcatraz Elementary School, though she poses no real danger to him.
- Medium Blending: Artwork of both the background and some of the characters mixes with technicolor, Real Life artistry, etc.
- Mooks:
- The countless Attic, Basement, and Beyond mice are this to a fire-spitting furnace who repeatedly fries them, and also the Electro-Beavers in the Bathroom Nightmare are this to the rat overlords.
- Played Straight with the Plaque Monsters from in The Mouth.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Ned when he conquers all five nightmare worlds. At least in the Good Ending.
- Our Vampires Are Different:
- There is a vampire bat on the Chalkboard stage of Alcatraz Elementary spelled out with chalk and plaque vampire bats in The Mouth.
- There's a straight vampire who's a milk carton sculpture labeled "Vilk" in the Art Class segment, complete with the background of a haunted house.
- Red Herring: A toilet labeled "The Worst Toilet in Ned's Nightmare" which Ned chooses to outright avoid by leaping down into a chasm.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The mouse/ rat civilizations, and on a larger scale, an enormous realistic-looking ratnote can be found in one of the cutscenes.
- Secret Path: Escape portals between the Nightmare realms.
- Scenery Porn/ Scenery Gorn: In the game. The 2D artwork and animation STILL look beautiful even years later.
- Shout-Out:
- The Attic, Basement, and Beyond stage in the game has a likely reference to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in which a flock of birds swarm in through a window and viciously peck at Ned. This only happens after you've knocked a fake bird out of its cage.
- Ned's silhouette shakes hands with none other than Mickey Mouse.
- In the School stage, the principal makes an accidental phone call to "the happiest place on earth" when trying to reach Ned's parents.
- Throw the Book at Them: An angry librarian squishes Ned between a book in Alcatraz Elementary as does the skeleton man in the Graveyard Nightmare if Ned disturbs him. The latter had actually crushed some other poor people the same way and stuffed them into his bookshelf.
- The Unfought: None of the Shadows are directly fought or confronted.
- The Unsolved Mystery:
- The true nature of the Attic, Basement, and Beyond Nightmare, its connection, if any, to the real world, and Sally the little girl's connection to Ned was never learned.
- Some have speculated that the little girl Sally may actually be Mrs. Needlemeyer herself as a child.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: On newer systems, the Rat Ladder puzzle and Gurney arcade sequence can be harder to complete due to processor speed making the associated animations much faster than normal.
Tropes featured in the intro/outros and cutscenes:
- Dodgeball Is Hell: The passage from Alcatraz Elementary to the Medical nightmare results in Ned getting clobbered in the head several times by this, with a bump on his head for good measure.
- Multiple Endings: More specifically, a good ending and a bad ending.
- Phoney Call/ Evil Phone: Ned answers the phone while his parents are away, but before we find out who it is, he gets tangled in the phone cord and freaks out thinking something has got him.
- "Psycho" Strings: As the view of the hallway begins to stretch out in the intro.
- Spear Carrier: The enormous pair of clawed monster hands—a likely Eldritch Abomination—that casts Ned into the Shadows' Nightmare World does not appear again unless the player ends with the good ending to which it brings him to the final battle. It is also seen on the game cover, but portrayed as more slender and presented in a much less cartoonish manner.
- Swarm of Rats: In the Medical to Bathroom Nightmare cutscene.
- Void Between the Worlds: When Ned is first cast into the Nightmare World by the Shadows.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: In the cutscene from Alcatraz Elementary to the Bathroom Nightmare.
Tropes featured in the Graveyard Nightmare:
- Anthropomorphic Food: The pumpkins, if they still count as food.
- Bat Out of Hell: There's one in the mausoleum.
- Dem Bones: A skeleton man lounging in a reclining chair while reading a book.
- The Grim Reaper: The Graveyard Shadow, foremost, and another with a more standard design.
- Kill the Cutie: The little boy wearing a party hat who helps Ned escape from the Jar gets eaten by the Jack-in-the-Box monster immediately after.
- Mutagenic Food: Ned eats zombie girl scout cookies... Guess what happens?
- Nightmare Face: The Green Ghosts do this to each other, though none of them find it scary.
- Off with His Head!: A scissor demon and Grim Reaper jump out of the background and cut Ned's head off only for it to reappear seconds later.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The silly Green Ghosts who don't want to scare Ned, just each other. One of them just wants to play her accordion, oblivious to another trying to saw off the branch she's sitting on.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: One that is essentially a beating heart, needle-clawed hands, and cadaver-Esque head attached to a long spine. When beaten, it explodes, leaving a deflated heart hanging from its spine.
- Our Zombies Are Different: A zombie girl scout, zombie dad, and Ned's zombie parents.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Trick-or-Treater carrying a paper bag holding a cat wearing a mask disguised as a dog.
- Later, he's holding a cat in a zippered-bodysuit disguised as a dog wearing a mask disguised as a cat.
- Primal Fear: A little girl who's afraid of the dark had her nightlight stolen by a bat.
- Reality-Changing Miniature: One puzzle in the Graveyard Nightmare shows an ant farm where multiple ants are shoveling dirt into a cave that looks like the room Ned is in. Then suddenly the real room gets filled with dirt and plasters Ned against the screen, which squeaks as he moves side to side. Pushing a lever with his yo-yo removes the dirt and solves the puzzle.
Tropes featured in the Medical Nightmare:
- Afraid of Needles: A big part of the nightmare.
- Benevolent Architecture: In the Mouth stage, the dental brace can be used both as trampolines to jump over obstacles and as a sort of tightrope that Ned can use to climb across dangerous/ impassable areas. Also, bloody veins can be used to climb up to secret areas.
- Blob Monster/ More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The Gum Monster.
- The Elevator from Ipanema: The pitch black waiting room where you choose which stage to visit has Muzak playing.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: The Gum monster can't move its mouth far enough to bite Ned, but he can knock his teeth out in one shot.
- Hospital Gurney Scene: First part of the doctor level.
- Mood Dissonance:
- The Uvula song being performed in a bloody, diseased Eldritch Mouth.
- Muzak being played in a dark waiting room, alongside a chair that either takes the form of a gurney with clamps or a dentist chair that eats anyone that sits in it.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: A spinning one attached to a wall, no less, and it has to be stopped at one of eight jars of organs (depending on how many were taken at the start) to free Ned.
- Umbrella Drink: Rotted toothmen can be seen drinking from these during the Uvula Song.
- Womb Level: One-half of the medical nightmare in the video game takes place in a giant mouth.
Tropes featured in the Alcatraz Elementary School:
- Bee Afraid: During the Chalkboard stage, big bee drawings will try and give Ned stings.
- The Bully: There is a minor baddie that tosses Ned into a trashcan if he gets near.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: This guy
◊ has got some serious school spirit. - Dracula: One of Ned's opponents in The Locker stage, aka, Vilk.
- Dumb Muscle: The Clayman.
- E = MC Hammer: The chalkboard stage.
- Insane Troll Logic: The principal punishing Ned for clogging the bathroom toilets because he was the only one there at the time, not because of any substantial evidence.
- Kids Are Cruel: Most of the students in the school are either bullies or completely apathetic.
- Mascot: The school's is a wolverine.
- Noodle People: The pipe-cleaner skeleton.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: While getting his picture taken.
- Parental Substitute/ Mistaken Identity: If Ned manages to call the right number, two unfamiliar adults scold the principal for him blaming their son Max (Ned) for clogging the toilets and proceed to lead the boy out.
- Sadist Teacher: The children were in tears that day...
- Scary Librarian: This old lady will try and catch Ned in her book.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Ned had let a frightened kid out of a cell he'd been trapped in only to have him disappear and leave Ned to have an embarrassing school photo of himself taken instead.
- You Are Number 777444: The students at Alcatraz Elementary all have convict numbers.
Tropes featured in the Bathroom Nightmare:
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice: The rats, who have chipmunk-like voices, throw electrical objects at you while singing a Villain Song about how they enjoy electrocuting people.
- Down the Drain
- Electrified Bathtub: The mice throw electrical appliances into the water-filled bathtubs and try to shock Ned.
- Fear Is the Appropriate Response/ Run or Die: The Drain Snake.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Three fun-house mirrors depicting Ned going through generic puberty angst, such as acne, excessive height, and body hair. Even Ned thinks it's lame, albeit slightly unsettling to him at first.
- Growing Up Sucks: There is a musical number about this.
- Mighty Roar: If Ned falls into the chasm below the pivoting bathtubs, a loud monster roar will sound.
- Mouse World: It's populated by intelligent, sadistic, talking mice.
- My Future Selves and Me: Ned sees three future versions of himself during The Puberty Song.
- Sinister Tango Music: The Rat Tango is sung by the evil rats in the bathroom level, about they like to kill people by electrocuting them.
- Slave Mooks: The Electro-Beavers to the Rats.
- 13 Is Unlucky: Thirteen dead mice are needed to make the ladder to reach a secret area.
- Villain Song: The game had "The Mouse Song". The Rats explain in their song that their motive for tormenting you is, essentially, For the Evulz.
Tropes featured in the Attic, Basement, and Beyond Nightmare:
- Cool Car:
- Supernatural, 70s-style car that morphs into a rocket? Hell yeah.
- The Alleged Car: In addition to missing the side door, the car appears completely non-functioning, that is until a key is found.
- Creepy Basement: Obviously.
- Fireballs: The living furnace spews out balls of flame. Rats that run by sometimes fall victim to this, as can Ned if he stands too close.
- Lazy Dragon: At one point you come across a dragon head mounted on the wall… but then you see that she's actually just sleeping, and the rest of her body is visible near the wall◊. Despite this grisly introduction, she's actually really friendly. Waking her up will prompt her to tell you poems (albeit somewhat macabre ones) with a cheerful Granny Classic voice.
- The Lost Woods: The short, second setting of the Attic, Basement, and Beyond Nightmare.
- Mind Screw:
- A door that when Ned enters he is spat out of the phonograph.
- Same thing if Ned climbs the left ladder in the starting area after scaring off its black cat with the yo-yo.
- Our Dragons Are Different: There is a female dragon's head mounted on a wall that will tell Ned three scary stories in the form of limericks.
- Pocket Dimension: A possibility, for it somehow had some sort of connection to the real world, according to Sally.]]
- Repetitive Audio Glitch: The phonograph that plays the same simple tune over and over.
- Schmuck Bait:
- A box that reads "DANGER DON'T TOUCH".
- Subverted when it turns out to be an oversized and morbid, yet harmless, insect, or simply nothing.
- The Walls Have Eyes:
- The Dark Woods area.
- Subverted when they turn out to be fake.
- Wedgie: The wallpaper turns into a bunch of hands that grab Ned and give him a major wedgie.
