Nightmare Frames

Text speed can only be set to normal or slow, with no full stop. I read slightly faster than normal, so a belated click occasionally made me skip the next line. Slow is fine until you get a call in the middle of a dialogue. This technicality and alt+tab hang-ups (use alt+enter) aside, the game is well-made. There's no voice acting but I barely noticed it, being carried away by other facets of this game's production. The atmospheric artistry of its painstaking pixel art matches diligent character and background animation, expressive portraits breathe life into conversations. I took a cab to the city where a bunch of people walked back and forth and cars drove by, creating a believable illusion of a busy street. A drop of ambience with fitting melodies also goes a long way, livening up every location you visit. This game doesn't stop there, however. Imagine my joy when I heard a custom song playing at the diner! And then the host chimed in, another song started, and another one... like it was an actual radio! Chef's kiss.
Alan
"Well, I only believe in Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese."
I loved the cold opening, drawing from the writer's imagination. It's an exception, we don't get Le Magnifique here in Los Angeles, 1985. We play as Alan Goldberg, an acclaimed screenwriter who struggles to write something original. It's his character-driven game. And Alan is bitter. The slasher exploitation genre has begun to dry up. At least that's how it was in Alan's jaded mind. Oh yeah, this game's world isn't exactly the same as ours, but its fake movies and studios all sound plausible. Anyway, where was I? Our guy's only real Hollywood success, an Oscar-winning romance, happened 5 years ago. Since then, he's stuck writing films he doesn't even watch and desires a breakthrough to get away from his B Movie lot. Hollywood is not a happy place for people trapped in its content mills. But there's no one to feel sorry for them, the fold usually throws these poor sods into the same living-a-dream pile with the cabal of nepobabies.
Alan is an erudite and an assh#le. What's also relatable about him is that he gets blackout drunk and pushes people away, offending them by being too blunt. Although, his unrelenting attitude makes him a fearless negotiator when it suits his interests. Such a charmer. He hates cats as well... it didn't exactly win me over initially. Cats and horror are my two favourite things. Then again, I think pandas are annoyingly dumb, so we both have hot takes. Anyway, Alan isn't fond of himself either. And come on! He didn't murder or sexually assault anyone. The only thing he ever groomed was his beard, which makes him a saint by Hollywood standards. Besides, a memorable disillusioned twerp who gets a share of character development is worth an army of agreeable duds and tactful scumbags. The supporting cast doesn't consist of these stereotypes alone, though. The few friends who inexplicably still talk to our hero are a tad more nuanced. With that attitude, could he ever make new ones? You'll see.
Sad as he is, Alan is doing better than most of them, often getting the blame for being unable to help their lousy careers. I like how sharp and laconic the dialogues are. It takes skill to write like that while maintaining the right balance between subdued humour and dignity to draw colourful characters, each one having a neat story I actually cared for. Too bad they were mostly one-offs, it's a shame almost none of them got to play a bigger role in the story. But those served as a great vessel through which the author has shown his incredible knowledge of the horror cinema, casually name-dropping, say, Tom Savini in the middle of a conversation, coupled with a little trivia. Or take Jane Fonda's workout VHS! You know, telling little sexy details for my own heart, out of dozens. And I definitely share his tastes in movies, for the most part. Above all, Nightmare Frames puts disgusting titbits right from Hollywood's underbelly into focus. These aren't just some lazy references, too. Serious themes are reinforced by the deep lore. This is a game about horror as much as it is a horror game.
Puzzles & Horror
It sure isn't about puzzles, those merely pull their weight. The game deals in inventory and dialogue types. The former is self-explanatory, the latter mostly involves talking to people in a certain order, sometimes talking to them again after doing something barely relevant. It's fine, they're interesting folk. All of it is handled in a simplified modern manner: right click for description, left click to interact. The puzzles are simple as well. I'd love to meet more resistance, but adventure games can sometimes do without it if the story they focus on is decent. Making games puzzle-heavy comes with the risk of breaking the flow or introducing moon logic, so I understand the hesitation. This game is like Unavowed in this regard. It did a good job, but my personal modern favourites are Blackwell and Deponia - because they outright nailed it. Still, the creeping conspiracy at the heart of it all is worth cutting the puzzles some slack. Reflecting the game itself, I saved the horror for last. It's a shame I'll have to be so obscure about it.
Before long, we find that a big executive who was about to turn Alan's career around blew his brains out. Atypically, our jaded majesty decides to get involved. The investigation soon attracts the attention of someone who could make Alan's dreams come true for the price of tracking a cursed horror film, considered long lost. A perfectly fitting premise. The tone shifts from miserable to sinister later on. All of the excruciating characterisation pays off after Alan falls knee-deep into the gory pit of occult obscenity. At the risk of sounding like one of these schlock producers, I'd say the setup is too restrained, if also admirably mature at that. I guess the idea was to keep the game classy, alas, I think it lacks a few more unsettling scenes spruced throughout. Say, a stimulating gushing wound or a particularly creepy corridor in the style of Barker and Friedkin to retain suspense. Sorry, man, I meant no disrespect. Regardless, a well-executed build-up leads to harrowing results, some of which... hurt. I sh#t you not. And the pain is exquisite.
My curator Big Bad Mutuh

A lot of indie horror games--including some of the most popular and well-received--have no ambition beyond imitating the classic movies that inspired them. It's refreshing that this game, which is explicitly *about* horror cinema, actually puts in the work to establish its own voice, style, and point of view, rather than simply playing other people's hits and hoping to get the credit for them. It also understands its own limitations and seeks to work within them: there's no voice acting, but the developers clearly understood that it was better to accept the limits of their budget and abilities than to slap some subpar audio in just because people expect it. It works much better unvoiced than I think it would have otherwise. This is an intriguing, creative horror story with a well-defined protagonist and genuinely creepy atmosphere, and I look forward to trying out the studio's follow-up.

(English) It's the 1980s, you're a deadbeat director in LA trying to find the "scariest horror movie of all time." A long-winded, story-centered 'detective' game slowly unfolds, leading to places darker than I could have ever guessed given how the game started. In fact, kudos to the developer, submerging the game's mood further and further into the darkness with each act. We start in sun-glittered Hollywood, eventually make it to some 'abandoned' village in outer California... and, well, I won't spoil where we go from there. There are tons of references to 80s cinema, literature, horror classics, and all the film and production drama surrounding it. The game is definitely well researched. The horror is well delivered, particularly in the final act, where it was quite terrifying despite being in pixellated format. Be warned though, the game is text-heavy and there's no voice acting. It also features less synth-y 80s music than I would have hoped for.
(Türkçe) Yıl 1980'ler, Los Angeles'ta “tüm zamanların en korkunç korku filmini” bulmaya çalışan umutsuz bir yönetmeni oynuyoruz. Heyecanlı, hikaye merkezli bir 'dedektif' seruveni bizi baya karanlık yerlere götürüyor. Atmosfer ve ortamın her yeni bölümde daha da korkunç, karanlık yerlere gömülmesi de oldukça başarılı. Gittikçe artan bir gerilim var ve sonunda kaliteli bir kreşendoya ulaşıyoruz. Güneşte parıldayan Hollywood sokaklarından, Kaliforniya'nın dışındaki 'terk edilmiş' bir köye ve oradan... (spoiler vermeyeceğim, oynayıp görün). 80'ler sinemasına, edebiyatına, korku klasiklerine ve bunları ilgilendiren tüm tarihsel olaylara tonlarca gönderme var. Oyun kesinlikle iyi araştırılmış. Korku öğeleri pikselli formatta verilmesine rağmen etkili - beklediğimden daha etkili - özellikle son bölümde. Ama uyarayım, oyun metin ağırlıklı ve seslendirme yok. Ayrıca umduğumdan daha az 80'ler synth-elektronika müziği içeriyor.

As with all of Postmodern Adventure games, they hit this one out of the park! Their dedication to the story, and relevant histories, is impeccable. The amount of research and development that is put in to their games sets their catalog apart from the rest. The character development progresses naturally and wasn't forced or nonsensical. The puzzles require thought but aren't difficult enough to induce a rage quit scenario. The level of gore and jump scares is just perfect. Highly recommend.

Excellent point & click adventure game. Visuals, sound, and narrative are all top notch. Puzzles don't get to be too difficult, but there are still some head scratchers. Easily recommended.

Being honest here, I was expecting a good game after "An English Haunting", but not THIS.

Nightmare Frames is one of those games you have to experience it for yourself. The game is very well crafted, with portraits of the characters that allow you to connect with their pixel version better. The story never lags, it's always moving forward, and its progress feels natural.

The main character, Alan, is one of my favorite type of characters: he starts in a bad place, where he feels like he's stuck in life, and develops through the game until he reaches a point in which he actually has a good ending, the kind where he knows he can step forward and get better.

The rest of the cast consist mostly of secondary characters, however I feel like this game suffers a bit of the same as "An English Haunting": the villain is a weak character. He's not weak by any means, but we're not allowed to interact much with him, nor see what he's like before the ending.

As for the puzzles, I still miss some sort of task list, but I must admit that this time the puzzles felt more natural. I knew what to do most of the time, and got stuck only three times.

All in all, a great game that's woth it's full price.

Five stars! Best game I have played in a while. Great story line. Great dialogue. Entertaining characters. Game play is fairly linear, but not painfully so. UI is good. Lots of fun 80's references. Beautiful graphics if you are into pixel art and painted portraits. Good music. Honestly, my only (minor) complaint is that there is no option for setting music/SFX volume separately.