Video Game / Nightmare Reaper

Nightmare Reaper is a First-Person Shooter with Rogue Like elements developed by Blazing Bit Games.

The basic set-up for the game is that the protagonist is an unnamed patient in an asylum with a mysterious past that is uncovered as you progress, with the asylum itself seemingly having its own secrets.

The gameplay consists of blasting your way through the Patient's dreams using a mix of guns, explosives, melee and magical weaponry and collecting loot while doing so. Said loot can be used to upgrade the protagonist via minigame-based skill trees that have you either play through a platformer, shmup or a Pokemon clone.

The game was released on Early Access on July 19, 2019 and was officially released on March 28, 2022.

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Nightmare Reaper provides examples of:

• Abnormal Ammo: The Randomized Ammo mod causes your weapon to fire something it normally wouldn't. Examples include pile drivers firing pistol rounds, assault rifles shooting magical sparkles, and gatling guns firing human-sized cannonballs - all at the gun's speed.
• Abusive Parents: The Patient was raised by two horrific monsters, with her father beating her and her mother pimping her out for drug money.
• Action Girl: At least in her dreams, the protagonist is capable of serious asskicking.
• Ambiguous Ending: You either kill the Innocent personality or throw yourself into a furnace, and... that's it. The game shows little to no greater context or consequences of either choice, leaving the patient's future hazy and open to interpretation.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Secret walls are identifiable by a crack in the wall that is generally visually-distinct on any texture, but if the player struggles with spotting them, they also emit a telltale "billowing wind" sound effect that can be listened for to pinpoint them.
    • If you still can't find it, the Jade minigame lets you equip a Treasure Pet that can show you exactly where the cracks are on your map.
  • Remaining monsters and treasure are indicated via counters, meaning it's always obvious when a secret room has yet to be found or the player is missing 100% Completion on a stage. ^note Unless the secret room has treasure clutter, which always contains treasure but doesn't register as unclaimed loot until broken. Which sucks.
  • Ammo is simplified into three universal types that all weapons draw from, to eliminate the possible frustration of having to hunt for ammo for specific weapons.
  • The player is generally expected to unlock the Double Jump towards the end of Chapter 1, and from Gloom Mansion onwards, platforming begins to factor more into level design. If the player hasn't gotten the Double Jump yet, every platforming segment has a way to get around without it, so the player is never stuck.
  • Dying will kick the player out of the level, resetting progress for that stage and dropping everything but their retained weapon(s). However, collected money is kept, so if the player is struggling on a particular level, they can farm up money over repeat runs to become strong enough to push forward.
  • In the Skill Tree, money is only consumed on completing a stage, so there's no penalty for failure.
    • Speaking of the Skill Tree, there are no lives, and dying just resets the room, allowing the player to try as many times as they like.
    • Although Skill Tree stages cannot be repeated, they can be aborted without penalty by pressing the ESC key; if the player misses bonus money and treasure they want to collect, they can quit the stage before the exit and restart it to try and collect more of the loot. ^note The money earned is paltry compared to the main game, so it might not be worth it.
  • It's possible to turn off the minigames for the skill trees, though this also negates any monetary rewards you can earn from them.
• Armed Legs: The Power Boots turn your kicks into explosive blasts. Simply having them in your inventory will augment your normal kick into enhanced explosive kicks.
• Arrows on Fire: The alternate fire of the Longbow does this. It's good for dealing extra damage, but it has to be activated with every arrow, and burning enemies can potentially damage YOU if they bump into you.
• Ax-Crazy: The doctor's notes paint the protagonist as this. Going by what the gameplay entails, there's definitely some weight to it, though the only things she's seen slaughtering (so far) are the horrible monsters in her dreams.
• Automatic Crossbow: The Auto Crossbow is, as it's name suggests, a crossbow that fires arrows really fast. You can even pick up the arrows to refill your ammo.
• Bag of Spilling: At the end of every level, you choose one weapon to keep while everything else gets sold. With upgrades, you can keep weapons of higher levels and an endgame upgrade allows you to retain two weapons.
• Bedlam House: The asylum that the protagonist is in isn't the nicest place, considering that you can constantly hear distant screaming. The protagonist's latest therapist implies that she was handed off to him with zero preparation, as a means of getting rid of her and her increasingly problematic mental health. Toward the end of the game, the third floor is trashed in a Noodle Incident that ripped the ceiling off, and someone has dug graves on top. No explanation is given for this.
• BFG: A few Level 3 weapons qualify, such as the Howitzer or the Mini Nuke Launcher, to name a couple of examples.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Possible by pairing the Longbow weapon with any of the Sword weapons.
• Boring, but Practical: Many weapons, especially Level 1 weapons, sacrifice flashiness for simply being reliable and effective. Good examples are the Knife, which provides a fast melee and ammo-less throwing knives for range, and the Gem Staff, which offers moderately-powerful perfectly-accurate hitscan attacks with no ammo cost, at the drawback of a slow fire rate and being really boring. ^note Also, NG+ will give weapons a damage multiplier, but starting with level 1 weapons.
• Bullet Time: The Speed powerup slows down everything except the player's movement and attacks (but not counting their projectiles.)
• Cast from Hit Points: Any weapon with the Blood Ammo modifier will use your health as ammo instead of their usual ammo pool. Also, the Martyr Staff does this with its secondary fire.
• Catapult Nightmare: Whenever you die in-game, your character sees herself bleeding out only to suddenly end up back in the asylum.
• Chainsaw Good: The Chainedsaw is a common weapon that comes with a grappling hook useful for both reeling yourself towards enemies and dealing with platforming puzzles. There's also a Level 3 chainsaw weapon that easily tears apart crowds.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The unlockable documents detail the rather traumatic past of the protagonist, which includes being a feral child raised by Abusive Parents who pimped her out.
• Degraded Boss: In Act 3 you'll start facing previous bosses as minibosses.
• Desperation Attack: One skill unlocked from the Jade Skill Tree is the ability to instantly enter Nightmare Reaper mode at low health.
• Disc-One Nuke: Since weapon drops are randomized, it's very possible to get a Legendary Level One weapon that will serve you well for a long time.
• Disguised Horror Story: The game pitches itself as a high-octane, bloody retro shooter in the vein of things like Doom or Blood, but while in the waking world outside of the shooting segments, the player is free to explore the asylum itself. It's filled with creepy ambience and horrible noises, and even has low-key Jump Scares in the form of lights occasionally shattering when the player approaches. It's eerie, but nothing else happens. Then Chapter 2 comes along...
• Double Unlock: Unlocking a skill requires having both enough money and completing a minigame. As of an update, the latter can be turned off.
• Dual Wielding: The Ghost Axes and Dual SMGs are this by default. The Reflection powerup applies this to any weapon. Pair it with either of the above, and you get QUAD Wielding!
• Emergency Weapon: Some weapons, like the Knife and Gem Staff, do not consume ammo, but are otherwise somewhat weak compared to others. The kick, which is always available through a dedicated button, also arguably counts.
• Ethereal White Dress: Bosses are announced with the presence of a crying Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl in all white that transform into the boss as soon as they're interacted with. The protagonist also wears one - made of a hospital gown, of course.
• Evil Laugh: Downplayed as we don't know where the protagonist's morality lies, but picking up a new weapon or killing multiple enemies in quick succession will cause the protagonist to let out a soft, sinister chuckle.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Two variations:
  • The Chainedsaw comes with a grapple that pulls you straight towards anything you hit it with.
  • Act II gives you a grappling hook you can use any time. Compared to the one above, it's more affected by physics and used more to swing around the new vertically-inclined levels. Act III upgrades it so that it can grapple across water and bottomless pits.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Patient’s Abusive Parents are the ones responsible for her mental illness and demons.
• Guns Akimbo: The "Reflection" power-up lets you dual-wield via some form of self-duplication, resulting in you dual-wielding two-handed guns and reloading them with an extra pair of arms.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: There are multiple types of sword weapons, like the Claymore, the Sword and Shield, the Katana...
• Heroic Mime: Other than pain grunts and the occasional sinister chuckle during gameplay, the protagonist never utters a word, either verbally or in written format.
• Infinity -1 Sword: A Level 1 Legendary falls here; it lacks the power of Level 2 or 3 weapons, but can be retained from stage to stage immediately, and with the right modifiers can be an extremely reliable workhorse.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Level 2 Legendaries, and Level 3 weapons, period. The former are very powerful and reliable weapons, and if the player has the skill from World 4 of the Skill Tree to retain Level 2 weapons can easily carry them to the end of the game. Level 3 weapons are leagues more powerful and with the right modifiers will generally trivialize the stage they're found in, but requires an endgame upgrade to equip them.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: It's heavily implied one reason the protagonist's quest to fix a girl's psyche manifests as a mish-mash of Doom-style FPS games and RPGs is because that was the only source of entertainment and respite said girl had for a long time. As a result, the protagonist knows how to operate heavy weaponry and kick demon ass because the games taught them to.
• Jump Scare: Downplayed, but present.
  • In the Hospital, light fixtures will sometimes explode when the player gets near. It's harmless, but startling.
  • The "Ghost Head" random event in normal gameplay technically counts; the environment turns dark as a Nightmare Face of the protagonist will repeatedly fly into the player's face and scream, dealing damage unless the player looks away and/or breaks the event-causing orb. It's not very scary, as there's a delay before the scream, the scream itself isn't particularly loud or startling, it happens repeatedly, and the damage is not very high (to give the player plenty of time to destroy it without a risk of sudden death.)
  • In the real world in Chapter 2, a creepy "Shadow Lady" will begin stalking the player as they explore the hospital, rushing them if caught. She can't harm the player, but it's very unsettling.
• Katanas Are Just Better: A Level 2 melee weapon. It has a fast, wide-reaching melee strike, and can also launch Sword Beams.
• Kick Chick: There's a dedicated button for kicking, mainly meant to be used to move environmental objects, open secret walls, and as an Emergency Weapon. Skill Tree upgrades can make it stronger, faster, and longer-reaching, making it a decently-effective weapon in its own right. Also, there's a weapon that is a PowerFist in boot form.
• Kill It with Fire: Any explosive weapon, or a weapon with a fire effect, sets enemies on fire - useful, especially with mooks.
• Kill It with Ice: Frost weapons and the Ice modified allows this, slowing and eventually freezing enemies solid, allowing for easy shattering. Some enemies later on can do it to you, too.
• Kill Sat: The Orbital Cannon is a remote control that when activated will cause a laser from the sky to home in on and devastate any enemy in the vicinity.
• Last Lousy Point: If the player is not judicious about hunting for secret walls as they progress, expect to spend a lot of time after a level has been cleared out trying to sniff them out, especially on the larger, more complex maps encountered later in the game.
• Life Drain: Any weapon with a Drain Chance modifier has a chance to give back health when damaging enemies. The Martyr Staff has this as an innate ability with its primary fire.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Monsters exploding in a cornucopia of blood and body parts is a rather common occurrence. The game has settings to turn this off for the squeamish, or to turn it UP for truly Brutal Doom-levels of carnage.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Sword and Shield weapon offers a shield as its alternate fire. It can block a surprising number of things, and upon taking a certain amount of damage will unleash a powerful Counter-Attack when lowered.
• The Mentally Disturbed: The Patient is genuinely mentally ill, and is locked in her minds filled with her inner demons.
• Mirror Boss: The final boss' second form is effectively a copy of the player character who fights with a similar moveset, including being able to use the Nightmare Reaper powerups that start spawning
• Mood Whiplash: The meat of the game is a DOOM-esque retro shooter, complete with metal music, gory violence and over-the-top weaponry. Inbetween levels, the player is thrust into the Hospital, where they can roam and explore the eerily-empty building bit-by-bit, completely defenseless and with nothing but distant screaming and other horrific noises for company.
• Multiple Endings: After defeating the final boss, the player finally finds the remnants of the girl's sanity, represented as a young girl. By this point, it's become clear that the player character is in fact one of the demons tormenting the girl who had been weaponized by the Doctor to help cure her mind. The demon is given a final order: kill herself.
  • Sacrifice: The player character, as an inner demon given sapience, throws herself into a pit of fire, fully purging the girl of her inner demons.
  • Control: The player character instead kills off the Innocent personality, ensuring she will be permanently insane.
• Mysterious Waif: The protagonist. Heroic Mime, wears a white dress (well, hospital gown, but still), largely unknown past, and the plot (or what can be found of it) revolves around her.
• The Musketeer: Be it guns, swords, spellbooks or bombs, the protagonist has no problems murdering things with them.
• Nail 'Em: Comes in two flavors: A decent Level 1 weapon that doesn't do anything special, and as a recurring trap that spits out giant spikes at you.
• Necessary Drawback: Weapons are grouped into 3 Levels; Level 1 guns are basic starter weapons and, while still varied and useful, are fairly-mild in terms of power. Level 2 guns are much stronger; Level 3 weapons are generally Infinity Plus One Swords that make a stage MUCH easier. By default, the player can only keep a Level 1 gun, but will eventually unlock the power to get Level 2; where the trope comes into play is Level 3 weapons, which requires an incredibly expensive (12 million coins) upgrade only available near the end of the game to keep through the levels.
  • Any weapon that fires singular, more powerful shots, such as the sniper rifles or the Hand Cannons, will use multiple units of ammo per shot to keep them balanced. Even "infinite magazine" perks are still limited, as rifles will require the protagonist to work the bolt (and thus keeping down on DPS).
• New Game Plus: Beating the game and fully exploring the hospital will allow the player to start over at an increased difficulty and find weapons with bonus damage modifiers.
• Nitro Boost: Horse Water, a powerup that gives a massive boost to speed, jump height, and attack and reload speeds for a time.
• No Name Given: The protagonist does not have a name, though she is given the moniker of "The Patient".
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Hospital. There's no music, just light ambience and all the horrifying noises you can shake a stick at. Despite the ambience, and the state of the rooms, doors, lights, shelves, and the writing on the walls changing from stage to stage, the place itself is entirely empty; no other being is ever seen. Until Chapter 2...
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: The "Ludicrous Gore" setting, natch. Enemies explode like oversized blood balloons and it's rare for a fight to end without every surface painted a mixture of pink and red.
• Phonýmon: The Topaz Tree Skill Tree takes the form of a Pokemon-like minigame where you catch and raise monster to fight and unlock upgrades.
• Product Displacement: The portable device where you access your game menu and unlock upgrades is obviously a Game Boy Advance SP but without the branding.
• The Reveal: About three-quarters of the way through part two, it becomes clear that the notes revealed after every level are notes from the doctor to the player character. Up to eleven as the last levels of part two are completed: the doctor, unable to do anything about the demons that controlled his patient, weaponized one of them to hunt down the rest, and that personality is who you've been playing the whole time, trying to find the original, innocent girl buried somewhere under all the nightmares. The bosses were the powerful demons that overwhelmed the girl and caused her to act violently in the real world, and the twisted landscapes and creatures you've been destroyed are her fracture psyche. The mini-game worlds ending with "Sorry, she's not here" make a lot more sense after this reveal.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Downplayed with the Six-Shooter, which is a decently powerful Level 1 gun. Its Level 2 upgrade is the Magnum, which counts as a Hand Cannon instead.
• Shock and Awe: Electric weapons and the Shock modifier. Electric weapons stun enemies, chain damage between them, and deal more damage if fired into water (including to you, if you're standing in it.) Enemies will start to use it later on, as well.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Shotguns come in pump-action, semi-auto, sawed-off and automatic variations.
• Shout-Out: Many, as the game is a love letter to retro FPSes.
  • The secret rooms can contain shout-outs to various FPS-focused youtubers, most prominently Gggmanlives and Civvie 11.
  • The protagonist's default melee attack is Duke Nukem's kick.
  • The Chained Whip is clearly patterned after the Vampire Killer. Most obvious with its alternate fire.
  • The Gem Staff is clearly inspired by Heretic.
  • And the Ice Shard Tome could be inspired by Hexen.
  • The cowboy enemy has its visuals and weaponry taken from Blood's protagonist, Caleb.
  • Though the Puzzle Trap Box is visually based on Hellraiser, mechanically it behaves like a Pokeball, complete with captured enemies breaking free if not wounded enough.
  • One hidden area features a lambda symbol and a microwave you can sabotage by pressing the button in it enough.
  • Several to DOOM, with the protagonist sometimes spawning to fight you if you attack the gold rabbits, one secret room with the infamous FIREBLU texture, and the Factory arena map having an identical layout to E1M1, Hangar.
  • Another contains a Headless Kamikaze, complete with screaming.
  • Another possible hidden room bears resemblance to CorpseParty.
  • The Mini-Nuke Launcher is more-or-less Unreal Tournament's Redeemer, with a remote-guidance option.
  • The laser cannon looks like a grayer variant of the Quake III: Arena railgun.
  • Speaking of Quake, the railgun itself has a spiraling trail - itself a shoutout to Eraser.
  • The Dual SMGs alt-fire works similarly to McCree's ult of targeting enemies multiple times, just with slow-motion.
  • The Judge is basically Judge Dredd's Lawgiver, complete with multiple firing modes.
  • The Scrap Launcher is the Flak Cannon from the UnrealTournament series.
  • The Devastator is the Bolter from Warhammer 40,000.
• Smart Gun: Comes in two Level 3 varieties:
  • The Smart Gun, which is exactly like the one from Aliens which homes in on enemies. Aside from that reloading will toss the cartridge as a grenade while the Alt Fire deploys it as a turret.
  • The Judge is basically the Lawgiver from Judge Dredd, complete with various firing modes such as automatic, armor piercing and explosive rounds.
• Soft Water: It doesn't matter how high the fall, a knee-deep puddle will negate all damage. There's even an achievement for doing this enough.
• Starter Equipment: The knife is a common Level 1 weapon. It's fast and damaging at close range, and has an easy-to-use ranged attack that doesn't cost ammo. With the right modifiers it's an excellent choice for a workhorse to carry over between levels.
• Stuff Blowing Up: There are a multitude of explosive weapons available, and the Explosive Shot modifier turns any weapon into this.
• Super Mode: The titular "Nightmare Reaper" upgrade turns you into a demon that tosses out explosive blasts with your primary fire and a laser beam with your alternate.
• Title Drop: Nightmare Reaper is the name of a powerup shaped like a hot-sauce bottle, which temporarily gives the player character demonic attacks (exploding orbs or blood streams) with no ammo cost. The appearance of the player character while using Nightmare Reaper is on the cover.
• Token Heroic Orc: The player character is this. Once a demon plaguing the mind of an innocent girl, her doctor turned her against others of her kind in a bid to finally cure her.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Upgrades are earned via platforming minigames, Pokemon and a sidescrolling shoot 'em up of all things.
  • Chapter 2 opens up the Hospital for further exploration, and features something of a shift to Horror as the (defenseless in the waking world) player navigates the place while being stalked by a shadowy entity. While the Hospital can be explored in Chapter 1, it's much more closed-off and nothing happens other than some creepy noises.
• Wham Episode: The Gold Cartridge Final Boss Level. You find the girl, but instead of leaving with her, she says "Thank You, I Choose You, The End", then takes a bow and explodes. This means it's possible that the Innocent personality wants the Player Character personality to become dominant.

• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: All the minigame worlds end with "Sorry, she's not here", indicating that your adventure will still continue. It's not obvious who "she" is and why you're searching for her until The Reveal.

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