What you'd call a cat-astrophic situation.
Garfield's Nightmare (named Garfield in Garfield's Nightmare in the title screen), is a Platform Game developed by Shin'en Multimedia and published by Game Factory for the Nintendo DS, as a Licensed Game for the Garfield franchise. It was released in Europe and Australia in March 2007 and in North America later in August (it was skipped over in Japan).
One day, Garfield decides to eat his breakfast, lunch and dinner so he doesn't worry about food for the rest of that day and can focus on other activities. However, this proves to be a bad idea, as Garfield ends up feeling so stocked that he needs to go back to bed. When he falls asleep, he finds himself inside a land of nightmares and has to figure out a way to escape from it so he can wake up again.
The game is divided into four worlds that have each five levels (with the last one being a boss battle) themed around a setting. The levels, in turn, feature hidden bonus areas that can be found for a chance to earn extra lives.
No relation to the former Garfield's Nightmare re-skin of the Old Mill at Kennywood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This game provides examples of:
- 1-Up: Collecting a silver talisman showing Garfield's face gives him an instant extra life. It can be found in secret areas of levels.
- 2.5D: The game plays in 2D, but the graphics and assets are in full 3D.
- Acid Reflux Nightmare: The game's premise is that Garfield chowed down on way too much food before bed (it's actually normal for Garfield to overeat), and in his dream, he has an adventure across multiple dream worlds. Eventually, he escapes the nightmare world and learns a lesson. The food theme continues throughout the nightmare.
- Arduous Descent to Terra Firma: The third world begins as Garfield is transported to a stormy sky with Solid Clouds. Over the course of the levels, he gradually makes his way back to the grassy ground, which is shown by the background weather becoming calmer with each subsequent level.
- Balloonacy: In some of the sky levels, there are wooden platform hovering with the help of four balloons each, allowing Garfield to ride them and reach high places. changing direction whenever necessary. The fourth level also has red balloons that, upon being stood on, move onto a direction marked by a yellow arrow drawn on them (and that arrow changes direction each time Garfield jumps, similar to certain directional platforms in Super Mario Bros. 3).
- Balloon of Doom: The third boss is Jean Cloud, a sentient animal balloon that moves in the air thanks to three red balloons, and aims to harm Garfield by throwing teal-colored water balloons. Garfield has to hop onto an ascending helium balloon and stomp the boss to burst one of the three red balloons. Repeating the tactic until all three balloons explode will make the boss lose control of its flight and erratically move away, consummating its defeat.
- Bat Out of Hell: The later castle levels have bats that fly back and forth, though they're easy to defeat. The real danger comes from their King Mook, Warren Baty, which serves as the boss of the first world. It frequently tosses bombs at Garfield, and then does a feint to try to run over him (at the right moment, Garfield can jump to stomp it).
- Battle Theme Music: Each boss has a distinct battle music. The first one's is a mix of medieval and spooky flavor, the second one's is a frantic tune styled as marching music, the third one's is a more playful theme reminiscent of the boss fight tracks heard in the Crash Bandicoot games (especially 2 and Warped, thanks to the steel drums), and the fourth's is an electronic-styled theme (it's ironically the shortest too, considering the fourth boss is also the last).
- Big Creepy-Crawlies:
- The castle levels has large, green-colored beetles that roam across the ground; Garfield can defeat them with a basic stomp. Some big red spiders appear as well, swinging back and forth from ceilings with the help of their web threads.
- In the volcanic levels, some thick dragonflies with hummingbird-like beaks fly around and will attack Garfield upon first sight.
- Big Fancy Castle: World 1 shows a distant look at a large regal castle in the background, though Garfield doesn't get to explore it. Instead, he's exploring what seems to be a wide outdoors rampart surrounding it from afar, and it's filled with hazards like spiky floors, falling chained spiky balls, toxic pools, and falling columns. The later levels cross with Big Boo's Haunt, as Garfield goes through a graveyard placed within the rampart.
- Block Puzzle: The castle levels feature wooden boxes Garfield has to push or pull in order to reach high places. At specific points, he has to make way by destroying barrels to move the boxes and proceed forward. Later levels after the first world have wooden boxes as well, but their usage is less cerebral in comparison.
- Bonus Stage: Each level has a bonus door which, if entered, leads to a bonus area where Garfield can get extra lives. There's also a standard secret area in each level that has a life at the end.
- Boss-Only Level: The last level of each world consists solely of the boss guarding the end of said world. After Garfield defeats it, the level (and world) ends and the next one begins.
- Cartoon Bomb: There's a type of bonus area set outside Garfield's house where he has to stomp several trash cans holding round black bombs with lit fuses (three each) until he finds the one having the extra life he's looking for. There's also another bonus area set in Jon's kitchen, where Garfield has to stomp trash cans while dodging round blue mines that are already rolling around.
- Checkpoint: The poles that have barber-styled stripes serve as respawn points in case Garfield loses a life.
- Dream Land: While asleep, Garfield is trapped into a land filled with enemies and hazards, hence the game's title. He can only wake up after he goes through it in full.
- Floating in a Bubble: In the sky levels, some coins are suspended in the air thanks to bubbles, without moving from the current position. Garfield can burst the bubbles to grab the coins.
- Goomba Stomp: Garfield can defeat most enemies by jumping over them. However, this won't work against spiked mooks.
- Ground Pound: Garfield can perform a stomp attack when the player presses A to jump and then B. It becomes handy to press switches in the ground.
- Gusty Glade: The first level of World 3 (which takes place in the skies) features fans that, when turned on, blow a wind that is strong enough to push Garfield upward or sideways (depending on the position of the fans and where they're blowing). While most fans prove beneficial for Garfield to reach new places, others are detrimental to his progress and thus have to be turned off by pressing switches. The level also has small tornadoes that must be avoided.
- Law of 100: Garfield will get an extra life for every 100 donuts he gathers in the levels.
- Lethal Lava Land: World 2 takes place in a burning wasteland with active volcanoes. Touching lava spells instant death for Garfield, and some fireballs will periodically jump from it as well. Jumping between pendulums and moving platforms requires good timing to avoid falling down. Some levels also have small volcanic geysers from which streams of fire erupt periodically.
- Level Goal: Each level that isn't a Boss-Only Level concludes when Garfield touches one of the rotating arms of a pole striped yellow and red. The arm marked with a red X doesn't yield anything special, but the one showing the black silhouette of a meal gives Garfield donuts.
- Level in the Clouds: World 3 takes place in the skies, and Garfield has to make his way through a path made of Solid Clouds, tall beanstalks and thick poles colored red and yellow in a checkered pattern (Garfield jokes that he has lost so much weight that he can walk over the clouds). Among the present assets and looming hazards, there are whirlwinds that move back and forth, ventilation fans that can be turned on and off with switches, fiendish crows, thorny branches, clouds that attempt to zap Garfield when he's beneath them, floating mines, fairground rockets, and cloud platforms that dissolve shortly after Garfield stands on them. Interestingly, in an inversion of the Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography, the first level shows the sky being stormy, the second is played during a calm rain, the third takes place during a sunny morning with a rainbow in the background, and the fourth not only shows the sun but is also placed closer to the ground (the music also goes from tense to cheery over the course of the world).
- Lone Wolf Boss: Despite the heavy presence of enemies and bosses, none of them are part of any overarching antagonistic group, and Garfield simply wants to wake up from his nightmare. When he defeats the last boss (who is simply standing on Garfield's way), he gets the fourth and final alarm clock, the awakening happens and the game ends.
- Playing with Fire: Patrick Sweaty is a large green dragon that lurks within the lava, and is the boss of the second world. It spits streams of fire onto Garfield before trying to attack him with its head (which ends up giving the cat the chance to attack it).
- Plot Coupon: The gold-colored alarm clocks, which Garfield needs to collect in order to wake up from his prolonged nightmare. Each clock is guarded by a boss in a specific world.
- Ribcage Ridge: Many large dinosaur ribs are present in the second lava level. Some are in the background, while others are an implicit part of the pathway Garfield is going through.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: World 4 takes place in an arctic landscape next to a cold lake. There are many blocks of ice that can be destroyed with a Ground Pound, as well as ice spikes that pop in and out from the snowy ground, larger ice blocks that move back and forth, and geysers whose water elevate ice platforms that allow Garfield to reach high spots. Enemies include penguins and hovering spiky monsters. Despite the low temperatures, there are still flora (such as flowers of different colors, algae-like plants and bushes) that grew in the ground, and strangely in some of the leaning icicles in the background as well.
- Snowlems: The arctic levels have sentient snowmen that throw snowballs at Garfield, though the latter can defeat them easily with a stomp. Their King Mook is Franz Coughka, the boss of that world (and also the Final Boss of the game); it's a bigger, taller snowman that shoots snowballs from its hat, but also penguins Garfield can stomp to reach the hat and hurt the boss.
- Spikes of Doom: The castle levels in World 1 have platforms where spikes protract and retract periodically, requiring timing to be dodged.
- Springy Spores: The volcanic levels feature dancing green mushrooms Garfield can jump on for an upward bounce, though this will also make the mushrooms explode into a cluster of noxious gas. Holding the A button will make the bounce even higher, allowing Garfield to dodge the noxious gas more easily.
- Super Drowning Skills: Being a cat who hates water, Garfield will lose a life if he falls onto a lake moat.
- Well, This Is Not That Trope: The prologue of the game has Garfield begin telling a story that happened "once upon a time"... and quickly clarifies that it's not about a "boring" fairy tale, but instead a fateful event that happened to him during an adventure.
