Pajama Sam in No Need To Hide When It's Dark Outside — also known as Pajama Sam: Don't Fear the Dark and Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide and sometimes referred as Pajama Sam 1 for brevity — is a PC Adventure Game and the first installment in the Pajama Sam franchise. It was made by Humongous Entertainment and released in 1996.
The eponymous Sam is enjoying an issue of his favorite comic book hero, Pajama Man, when his mother comes in and tells the Ambiguously Human young lad that it's time for bed. However, it's the first night where Sam is to go without any sort of night light, and the comic book he was just reading involved Pajama Man taking on the evil Anthropomorphic Personification of it aptly known as Darkness. Too scared to sleep without a light and inspired by his hero, Sam decides to don his Pajama Man gear to become Pajama Sam so he many venture forth into the Land of Darkness, find and capture his nighttime foe in a lunchbox, and finally be able to sleep in peace. However, things quickly go awry when his items are confiscated, and he must recover them before he can confront Darkness once and for all.
This is notably the first Humongous game to fully implement randomized elements, which would become a staple in their Junior Adventure series from here on. Each of Sam's items can end up in one of two locations completely independent of each another, with each location involving its own puzzle or puzzles to retrieve it. The items can also be obtained in any order, allowing for a great deal of player freedom while also providing further replay value.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: The entire adventure is heavily implied to be the product of Sam's imagination. The Land of Darkness is accessed from his closest, many items one would expect to find in a closet (like toys) are inextricably strewn about the place, and Darkness's own bedroom is extremely similar to Sam's.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The Land of Darkness is full of living objects, such as Otto the boat, Carrot the carrot, and King the minecart.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The randomized categories for the Brain Tickler Pop Quiz all have one question where all the multiple choice answers are correct. It's designed so that a kid who gets stuck on it will eventually muscle their way through.
- Bookcase Passage: A small library in Darkness's house has a rotating bookcase that flips around after pushing in books of a specific color. (They change every playthrough.) Behind the bookcase is a secret passage that leads to a Mad Scientist Laboratory and an exit to the mines. In certain paths of the game, there will be a magnet hanging on the hook on the wall behind it, which you'll need to collect the lunchbox if it is underwater and the nail in the mines, which you'll need to fix the chair in the potion room if the mask is in the room with the dancing furniture. To get the magnet, Sam must find a way to the other end of the bookcase passage.
- Bookends: The game both begins and ends in a bedroom. It starts off in Sam's room and ends in Darkness's bedroom, which looks eerily similar to Sam's.
- Broken Bridge: When Sam first falls into the Land of Darkness, he can go to one of three places: the mines, Darkness's house, and the river. The mines are inaccessible at first since King the minecart is rusted to the tracks and can't take Sam anywhere. While Sam can explore the first few rooms of Darkness's house, he can't get very far since the depths are blocked off by the Brain Tickler quiz, which he cannot complete without knowledge from other areas in the Land of Darkness. This funnels him to the river, which only requires completing a simple puzzle for Otto the boat to ferry Sam around. From there he will find a can of oil to free King, and the answer to one of the Brain Tickler questions will be found in either the mines or river if you poke around.
- Caught in a Snare: Sam gets caught by a rope snare trap almost immediately upon entering the Land of Darkness. This leads to him being accosted by a group of trees running a customs inspection and losing his items, forcing him to reobtain them all before he can confront Darkness.
- Collection Sidequest: Some of Sam's socks are littered throughout the Land of Darkness, and he needs to collect them all because his mom told him to get organized. There isn't any reward for finding them all, it's just there for fun.
- Company Cross References:
- Freddi Fish can appear on a poster in Sam's room in the beginning of the game.
- Darkness has a toy model of Putt-Putt on a shelf outside his room.
- Convection, Schmonvection: The mines in the Land of Darkness are full of open lava pits that don't have any negative effect on anything around them, like the wooden scaffolding for the minecart track (some of which is submerged into the lava) and the water meter that seems to be meant for the plumbing of Darkness's house.
- Creative Closing Credits: While the credits are playing on the rightmost third of the screen, the rest will slowly cycle though comic pages depicting events from the game. You can click on them to play sound clips relevant to that particular picture.
- Credits Gag: The end of the credits is topped off by a clearly bogus No Animals Were Harmed disclaimer followed by "Mmmmm, cheese" and "bye bye now bye bye" messages.
- Dark Is Evil: The version of Darkness in Sam's Pajama Man comic is a darkness-themed supervillain who seeks to shroud the world in eternal night.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Unlike the Darkness in the Pajama Man comic, the Darkness that Sam meets is harmless and just very lonely. This helps illustrate the game's aesop to kids about how the dark is nothing to be afraid of.
- Debug Room: Accessible via modifying the INI file of the game and pressing a certain key combination ("C" in the Steam copy). Notably this is the only means of manually determining which locations each of Sam's items are at (with subsequent games having an ingame option for this privilege).
- Detachable Doorknob: The hall of doors in Darkness' House has a door with a loose doorknob, which comes off if you click on it. The loose doorknob then becomes an item in Sam's inventory, and he can use it to open the door of the riverside shack, where he can find his flashlight in the path where it's there or a hammer in the paths where the flashlight is in the mines or his mask is in Darkness' living room.
- Dumbwaiter Ride: There's a sentient dumbwaiter in Darkness's House that leads from the laboratory to the kitchen and vice-versa. Sam can ride the dumbwaiter up from the lab to the kitchen, but if he tries to ride it down to the lab, the dumbwaiter will prevent him from doing so. In the path where Sam's mask is hidden under a sentient table that dances when it doesn't see Sam, Sam needs to use the Invisibility potion to make himself invisible. However, since this potion only lasts for a short time, the fastest way to get up to the living room, which is right next door to the kitchen, is by riding the dumbwaiter.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Sam originally wore a mask as part of his superhero alter ego in the first game, a quirk he dropped entirely from the second onward. A line of dialogue in the second game suggests Sam ditched the mask because it was getting itchy. In addition, the first game is the only one that doesn't start with you looking for his cape, rather you actually search for the three items that eventually become the key items you need to retrieve.
- Unlike the later games where you need to collect/rescue 4 items, this game only requires 3.
- Easter Egg: Carrot has a number of extra interactions that are completely superfluous while he's in Sam's inventory. You use him on the trees outside the garden you find him in and on the pot in the kitchen, and he'll also pop out after using a few spells in the basement lab.
- Eltrich Location: The palace of doors is aligned at a 90-degree angle difference from the rest of the Land of Darkness, with the Brain Tickler doors located on the ceiling and the door back to the Land of Darkness on the floor. Gravity aligns itself accordingly but Sam can just walk up the wall back through the Brain Tickler doors if he wishes to do so. The music for the palace of doors overrides any current music and remains until it finishes if Sam returns back to the Land of Darkness.
- Empty Room Psych:
- If the game is on a path combination where the mask is in the living room and the lunchbox is in the underground lake, then the island with the wishing well is totally superfluous to the main plot.
- The living room is also superfluous to the main plot if the mask is with carrot and the flashlight is in the shed at the river.
- The small music room accessible from the palace of doors is also irrelevant if the lunchbox is in the underground lake.
- Exact Words: When talked to, the Wishing Well may say Sam is allowed to call him a randomized gibberish name. When Sam asks about how he got the name, the Well states that he never said it was actually his name, just that he can be called that.
- Fantastic Racism: A trio of trees by the wishing well do not permit anyone to pass through their road unless they are also a tree. Why? Because they're jerks.
- Game Within a Game: The mines have a Remote Mining Terminal with a minigame known as Nuggets, which is a clone of Snake that uses a minecart train with gems.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: Sam finally goes to sleep at the end of the game.
- Gravity Screw: The hallway of doors randomly has a different orientation of gravity compared to the rest of the Land of Darkness, being rotated about 90 degrees.
- Hidden Object Game: The socks you need to find for the Collection Sidequest are hidden in the backgrounds of various areas. You need to identify and click on the socks to retrieve them.
- In Spite of a Nail: Each of the items Sam needs to retrieve have similar story beats no matter which specific path the game dictates to get them:
- To obtain the flashlight, Sam needs to obtain an item in the palace of doors.
- The lunchbox must be obtained by traversing the underground lake. An easy way to determine where the lunchbox's location is by visiting the area by the wishing well (and see if it is readily accessible or not).
- The mask is obtained by visiting a room on the "first" floor of Darkness's house and by heading through the kitchen.
- Irony: Otto the boat is afraid of the water. He thinks wood sinks in water due to being told so by a friend, and as a wooden boat he'll immediately be pulled down under the logic of that inaccuracy. Sam helps him get over his fear by demonstrating that wood does indeed float.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: A lab can be found hidden within the deepest bowels of Darkness's house behind a Bookcase Passage. It contains various scientific instruments, a Brain in a Jar, and a book of weird potions. Sam can actually make the potions; while these are mostly just fun Easter Eggs, one of them is the key to getting his mask in a randomized item path.
- Minecart Madness: The minecart tracks in the Land of Darkness are laid out as if they're for a roller coaster, with loops, sharp turns and drops, and even jumps. You actually have to make quick decisions on where to go in the gold mine section before King the minecart decides for you.
- Nap-Inducing Speak: Otto the boat offers some "Gratuitous Educational Content" in the form of an overly-detailed explanation of how geysers work if you click on one, which causes Sam to briefly nod off.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: The game's final puzzle asks you to find the key to Darkness's locked closest. Opening the cupboard in his room causes a huge stack of keys to fall out into a pile on the floor, and clicking on the pile yields no results. The real key is still in the cupboard hanging on a hook, which you might have seen for a split second when the rest of them fell out.
- No OSHA Compliance: The mines. Lava everywhere, tons of broken tracks, tracks that stretch when King rockets over them, low-hanging light fixtures (one of which Sam hits his head on)...
- Overly Long Gag: If if you click on a geyser while exploring the river, Otto will go on a tangent about the science behind them to Sam. During the fairly lengthy lecture, the words "Gratuitous Educational Content" will continually flash at the bottom of the screen.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Sam is able to disguise himself as a tree to trick some racist trees just by putting a hollow log on his head.
- Parental Bonus: Some of the game's writing and humor will very likely go over the target demographic's heads. For example, the reason Sam loses his items at the beginning of the game is because they are confiscated during a customs inspection, the living bridge has some dialogue about the basics of supply and demand, and Carrot is written like an antiestablishment hippie.
- Permanently Missable Content: One of the socks needed for the Collection Sidequest can spawn in Sam's bedroom at the beginning of the game. You cannot reenter the room once Sam lands in the Land of Darkness, so missing that sock makes completing the collection impossible.
- Point of No Return: It's not possible to leave Darkness's bedroom once Sam enters it. You have to complete the final puzzle to unlock the closet and beat the game at that point.
- Pop Quiz: Inside Darkness's treehouse is a set of purple doors known as Wink and Blink that host a quiz show called the Brain Tickler, which has questions about several random Real Life categories (cooking, animals, etc.) and one about the Land of Darkness. Completing the Brain Tickler is necessary to gain access to the lower levels of the treehouse.
- Railroading: One of the categories for the Brain Tickler is always about the Land of Darkness, and the question either asks about the reading of a water meter in the mines or the color of a flower on the river. While the Brain Tickler is a multiple choice quiz and you should be allowed to guess, you have to go find and interact with the meter or flower to be able to answer the question, as otherwise Sam's options are all some variation of "I don't know".
- Rhymes on a Dime: All of the dialogue in Darkness's kitchen is spoken or sung in rhyme. No real reason why there specifically, it just happens.
- Running Gag: Every time Sam enters the room with the Doors of Knowledge, Blink and Wink will be debating about various subjects before stopping themselves.
- Rust-Removing Oil: King the minecart is initially unable to transport Sam through the mines because his wheels are rusted to the tracks. Using the can of oil to clean up the rust will not only free him, but completely remove the rust as if it was never there.
- Security Blanket: Unlike his lunchbox and flashlight, Sam doesn't actually need his Pajama Man mask for his plan to capture Darkness to work. However, it helps him feel brave enough to do so by finishing the ensemble that allows him to fully emulate Pajama Man.
- Story Branch Favoritism: The credits shown after beating the game show comic panels of Sam's adventures in the Land of Darkness, almost all of such events are guaranteed to happen on a regular playthrough. The one exception is the one in the mines with King the minecart, as its panel explicitly show events that can only be done on a specific route for obtaining the flashlight (the one that involves delving deeper into the mine that's only accessible via demolition and is exclusive from the route where the flashlight is locked behind a shed without a doorknob).
- Supernatural Sealing: Pajama Man beats his version of Darkness by sealing the supervillain away in a Bad Guy Containment Unit. Sam takes inspiration from this for his plan to beat the Anthropomorphic Personification of darkness, Darkness.
- Take That!: If the potion to make Sam immensely rich is used, an agent of the IRS will immediately show up to confiscate all his newfound wealth. All Sam is left with is a moldy piece of cheese, which proceeds to get stolen by a mouse.
- The Trees Have Faces:
- When Sam first enters the Land of Darkness, he is caught by a forest of sentient trees with faces who confiscate his flashlight, lunch box, and mask. The tree who holds the rope he is caught in lets him borrow her rope and actually feels bad about him losing his things, encouraging him to explore the Land of Darkness to find them.
- After Sam helps Otto the Rowboat overcome his fear of sinking, Otto can take Sam to Darkness' garden on the other side of the river. This garden is guarded by a forest of sentient trees like the ones seen earlier. These ones don't take Sam's things, but they are very snooty and only let trees into the garden. Fortunately, Sam is able to fool them by wearing a hollow log on his head.
- Visible Invisibility: When Sam becomes invisible using the invisibility potion, he is still visible to the player as a set of white outlines.
- Void Between the Worlds: The game starts with Pajama Sam plummeting into a swirling vortex into the Land of Darkness.
- What the Hell, Hero?: You can use Carrot on the stove in the kitchen to have Sam think about cooking him. Carrot will immediately chastise Sam for this.
- When I Was Your Age...: When Sam first enters the Land of Darkness, one of the things the player can click on is a tree root that shapes itself into an old man with a long beard. The root will then say such things as "Back in my day, we had Pong. Now there was a video game." and the contradictory "Back in my day, they didn't even have video games."
- Wishing Well: Sam meets an anthropomorphic wishing well in Darkness' garden. When he tosses in a penny and tries to make a wish, the Wishing Well wishes for him. When Sam asks why he did that, the Wishing Well says, "Who's the Wishing Well here, you or me?"
