Nightmare

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Magnavox

Nightmare is a bit of an obscure Odyssey 2 title, especially for folks in North America. Released only in Europe, Nightmare has you controlling a fellow in a haunted house (Phantom House was its prototype title) and the goal is to make your way from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen, where you'll see a door, eventually climbing three floors and reaching the attic on the fourth floor…where the fellow will make his escape from the house by hurling himself out of the window and falling to his horrific death. Or maybe there's a tall tree or something out there that he can carefully climb down to safety from….but that scenario doesn't scream "Nightmare" like the splat of a body exploding like a water balloon after hitting the paved driveway after a four-story drop. Maybe I watch too many 80's slasher films. Anyway, as you make your way through the haunted house, there are ghosts that you need to avoid. If the ghosts touch the fellow that you're guiding through the house, you lose a life. Aside from ghosts, there are also lightning bolts that tear through the rooms, which will also make that fellow deader than a doornail. If you're thinking of just standing in one spot and waiting for a good time to make a run for the door, well, you'll find death there, too. A trap door will open and take another life away if you stay still for too long. Like most games of the time Nightmare gets gradually more difficult, the longer you play. After escaping the house multiple times, you'll eventually find that more obstacles will be in your way on each floor of the house and even that the exits will become invisible, requiring you to not just avoid ghosts, but also capture them, so that you can find the exit…and even later, you'll need to capture a ghost to make a chest appear that has the house's ground plan on it, which will make the invisible exit visible. Adding to the novelty is that Nightmare can also be a head-to-head game, with one player trying to escape while the other player controls the ghosts and tries to prevent it. Overall, Nightmare can take a little time to get use to everything, but once you get the hang of it, it's a pretty solid, unique game for its time.

Review added: 07/01/2026