Richard's Nightmare

3:33 a.m. The house shakes. A crack opens in the hallway ceiling, a demon's head peers out of it upside down, and its tail drags Richard, in his pajamas and down to one slipper, into a nightmare made of his own house.

Richard's Nightmare is a cinematic platformer in the style of the PC classics of the early 1990s: flat polygons, 16 EGA colors, FM-synth sound and not a single word of dialogue. Every jump is a commitment, every screen is a puzzle, and the clocks in the scenery tell you how much of the night is left.

RUN, LEAP, HANG ON
Richard is animated by code, frame by frame: he runs, leaps over the void, catches a ledge by his fingertips, climbs, tiptoes to the edge and windmills his arms to keep his balance. One misstep and he tumbles like a rag doll.

TWELVE LEVELS, TWO ACTS
The Fall, the Cages, the Flooded Cellar, the Endless House, the Clock Attic, the Heart. Then, under the house, where time runs backward: the Basement, the Foundations, the Collection, the Mirror, the Well and the Root. Race the dawn, then race 3:33.

A FLASHLIGHT AND A BASEBALL BAT
A shadow beast that runs you down, packs of imps, black hands reaching out of dark water, ghosts that pull your soul out of your body, eyes in the dark, your own double, a giant, and the demon who collects sleepers. Duel the masked guards with your bat. Tap the flashlight to dazzle, hold it for a shield of light, charge it to burn the shadows away. Watch out for pendulums, guillotines, teeth in the floor and rotten planks.

A REAL OLD SCREEN
320 × 200 pixels in 16 EGA colors, a pixel font, sounds played by an emulated FM sound chip from the late 1980s, and a CRT screen, on by default: curved glass, scanlines, glowing phosphors. If you allow it, the front camera adds a faint reflection of you on the glass. That picture is used live, on your device only: it is never recorded or sent anywhere.

MADE FOR TOUCH
Beige retro keys on the screen (arrows or WASD, Space, F for the flashlight), a game controller or a keyboard. English and French.

No ads. No in-app purchases. No account. Nothing collected. Plays entirely offline; your progress is saved on your device.

Contains fantasy violence, some blood and frightening scenes.