Personal Nightmare

[ReamusLQ]

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available) (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/678)

[Clyde]

Well mine crashed after the second try, anyone have any suggestion of making this thing work?

[Cartman3k]

Horrorsoft created REALLY creepy games, just remember those great Elvira - Mistress of the Dark games! Or Waxworks!

Excellent! :ok:

[Cartman3k]

PS:

The one who needs more stuff:

http://www.nemmelheim.de/horrorsoft/elvira/index.html

Elvira, playable online! :kosta:

[Nikson]

Yay, my first review is on the front page! :D

[rallier]

heyyyyyy what r u saying u need dosbox to play the game? i tried it in windows XP without even tweeking anything just doubleclick on the test file and it works like a charm :) (ok maybe the animations are a bit fast) but i don't think it should affect the gameplay. the hours ticks every 1-2 minutes though i don't know if that's what should happen.
only one question! how do u exit the game?

[rallier]

sorry the Pn.bat file

[Nikson]

Every system is different. For me it doesn't work in pure XP.
Yes, the hours tick by, quickly. When midnight comes, the vampire will come to the streets and kill you unless you stay at the motel until morning. Focus on taking him out, since you need to do some things at night to progress! :)

EDIT: to exit the game, type "Exit".

[qball]

I got excited when I saw that this game had been added, but after testing it I found that it was the same copy everyone else seems to be hosting. The problem lies with the graveyard behind the church. With every copy I've played, walking through this area causes the graphics to screw up.

:cry:

[Gelfo]

Originally posted by Cartman3k@Oct 27 2005, 07:49 AM
just remember those great Elvira - Mistress of the Dark games!
Ha, I have fond memories of Elvira too, got it a car boot sale a few months after its release, never got far on it though, too hard for me :)

My, didnt she have big.. hair

I like Personal Nightmare too, I get the graveyard glitch too, it's very annoying.

[TheChosen]

Interesting....but hard and UGLY (Even for my eyes). :sick:

[Nikson]

Yeah, I know the graveyard glitch. The game still runs fine, you just can't see the picture. Therefore, you pretend its all text-based.
Type "look" to get the full description of the area.
Click the "Room" button to see if there are any items lying around.
Type random sentences that describe actions doable in a graveyard :D

[Guest]

Killed vampire but it crashes when you open the vicarage door on the black screen. This game worked on Dos 5 when I played it in 1990 at uni.

BTW, the programmer who wrote the engine is 'alun cox' who now helps maintain the linux kernel. He worked with horrorsoft as work experience from swansea university in 1989.

[Guest]

I can see the intro and the initial credits... then some gray lines appear and the game crashes.
Any idea on how to make it work?

[Guest]

Isn't working at all :/ when I start the game in dosbox, it crashes almost immediately.

[Volken]

'


Personally, my favorite adventure on Amiga, ever !

You can rationalize about its graphic today, but this game has unbelievable atmosphere within.
Almost like the real thing. So many details.

I would love to find good old original for Amiga again.

For life of me , I can't quite recall, how do you initiate conversation with folks inside the game?
Some reminders please?

I remember there was a several funny things you could do, something developers certainly hardly planned ;)

For example, while escaping from a vampire, if you initiated conversation just before last screen when
you are about to manage to escape, waited just a second longer… you spoke with him just as you would
when he was civilian over the day :)


Great days, great machines, pronouncing present oblivion of creativity that places bitter taste today.

[Guest]

This version is the CGA/EGA early release(only 5.25 inch disks). I played the VGA version in early 1991, it came on 3.5inch disks on dos (it seems impossible to find this version on the internet) and it didn't have the cemetery black screen crash.

I even checked the back of my Atari ST box of this game and it shows a 2 screenshot of the PC version in EGA and VGA-256.

[Guest]

http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1141360712-00.jpg

IBM PC VGA version

[Guest_Joe_*]

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3818/11...12002222yy9.jpg (http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3818/1141360712002222yy9.jpg)

Screenshots of PC VGA version that came on 3.5inch disks.

[Guest_Splintakill_*]

DONG!!!! Goes the midnight bell, I go outside, AND THE VAMP SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUTTA ME AND KILLS ME. everytime, How do I kill that begger?

[Shaden]

I am incredibly stuck on this game, since the start. Are there any actions besides the ones on the screen? Is there any action to talk with people?

I guess that, once I manage this, I will really enjoy the game.

[Guest]

Is there any reason why this game won't work in Dosbox? I've tried eveything in it, including uping the cycles and framerates, and the game crashes right when you're about to play. This crashing process also happens when I play the game in Win XP.

I have Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla. Please help :sos:

[The Fifth Horseman]

Is there a setup (install, config, setsnd...) executable in the game directory? Run it and configure the sound correctly.

[Guest]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Feb 5 2007, 12:53 PM) 278096</div>
Is there a setup (install, config, setsnd...) executable in the game directory? Run it and configure the sound correctly.
[/b]

No, there isn't any setup or anything... Just 3 executables (Pn.bat, Test.exe, and Unpack.exe), and dosbox freezes when the unpack file is executed. And it was mentioned earlier that if you play the other 2 executables, the game gets these weird gray lines on the screen when the game is about to start, and for me, after this happens, my dosbox closes. So I think maybe this game is broken or something.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Did you look for COM files in that directory?

[Guest]

Erm... no <_< , I didn't. But I just checked now, and the game doesn't have any COM files either... But it does have a .sav file named TEST... But unfortunately, there's a .BAT file also named TEST.

Sorry for all of the trouble, it's just, this game looks pretty good, and I want to play it. Sorry :(

[Shaden]

If you open unpack(.bat, i guess), the game won't work on DOSbox, so if have opened it, you will have to erase the game and extract it from the zip again. To play the game I usually use PN. TEST should work too, but i don't know.

[Guest]

:brain: :brain: :brain: :kosta: OMG!!!!

Thank you so much!!!! It works!!!!!

:cheers:

Thank you!!! :thanx:

[Guest]

I didn't have any problems starting the game. I just double-clicked "Test" and the game runs fine under XP. No need for Dosbox here.

[Guest]

To Shaden: You cannot talk to people. You don't have to do it to complete the game.

[Guest]

Please help me. I cannot get to the vicarage. Does anybody know how to do it?

[Mynoris]

I got excited when I saw that this game had been added, but after testing it I found that it was the same copy everyone else seems to be hosting. The problem lies with the graveyard behind the church. With every copy I've played, walking through this area causes the graphics to screw up.

:cry:

Yeah, my sibs and I have been trying to win this game since my father first got it for his Amiga back when I was around 10-11 years old. o_O And every time we try to get into the vicarage, the game freezes.

Has anyone been able to get past it yet?

[humorguy]

My one (maybe I have another actually!) claim to fame - I worked with the guy that did the story and puzzles and pretty much everything except the graphics for this game. He did the same for most of the other other Horrorsoft games as well - all on a part time basis, while he owned/ran a computer game store that I managed! He would spend every minute in the back room of the store, trying to come up with ideas, and I saw him scribbling stuff on his notepad sometimes when he was in the front of the store - this is how many games were written back then! The store, by the way, sold Amiga, ST and PC hardware, software and games. We also was one of the last stores to have C64 games still in stock and did a swift mail-order with them! :)

[personalnightmare]

I've been trying to complete this game for 15 years.

I was surprised by a mention of a VGA version on 3.5"ers, I've never seen it but I have seen a picture of the plastic red box with PC on it, so it must exist somewhere. It was a German copy.

All the cardboard box 'Box Office' with Elvira on are the CGA 5.25" versions and none of them will play the vicarage. I know - I've bought 4.

One thing you can do with the original floppies in install the game in EGA mode. It looks awful but the vicarage behaves different. The graphics still screw up but you can go inside and it doesn't crash. You can cut the woman out of the wall (you can't see it - the screen is just a jumbled mess) and get her stuff. But when you try to go upstairs it CRASHES:mad:

So you can't get your savings book and finish the game.

I've even tried emailing author Mike Woodroffe on numerous occasions as I'm desperate to finish it. Never had a reply.

PM me if you have any links or info to the PC VGA version or any links to any of the Horrorsoft dudes. Mike and Simon Woodroffe, Alan Cox, Teoman Irmak,
Alan Bridgeman.

[Jhms]

Someone has posted the vampire death sequence of the PC VGA version on Youtube
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kfv8nOKBO4w&feature=channel_page

looks a lot better than the EGA version on this site.

[TheReaperman]

'


Personally, my favorite adventure on Amiga, ever !

You can rationalize about its graphic today, but this game has unbelievable atmosphere within.
Almost like the real thing. So many details.

I would love to find good old original for Amiga again.

For life of me , I can't quite recall, how do you initiate conversation with folks inside the game?
Some reminders please?

I remember there was a several funny things you could do, something developers certainly hardly planned ;)

For example, while escaping from a vampire, if you initiated conversation just before last screen when
you are about to manage to escape, waited just a second longer… you spoke with him just as you would
when he was civilian over the day :)


Great days, great machines, pronouncing present oblivion of creativity that places bitter taste today.

To talk, just type talk to and click or write the person you wish to talk to then about and pick an object or subject.

[TheReaperman]

DONG!!!! Goes the midnight bell, I go outside, AND THE VAMP SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUTTA ME AND KILLS ME. everytime, How do I kill that begger?

To sort the vampire, grab the garlic from the pub kitchen and show it to the guy when hes walking around (Before midnight). Then he leaves you alone...

To kill him, grab a mirror from the pub bedroom. Head to his crypt during the day. Head to his coffin. When he starts to get up, run back to the entrance. He'll wait there but wont attack due to sunlight. Then REFLECT sunlight onto the vampire and hey presto!

[Paco]

Game is sold at GoG (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/personal_nightmare).

[red_avatar]

On the plus side, the corruption present in the game has been fixed on GOG.

[Rkichardks]

The game at GOG is 7 MB. The ega version on this site is 1.9MB. I wonder if that means the GOG version is the VGA version.
Also this game had been added to SCUMMVM in the 0.14 beta. I heard they fixed the bug, 1 bit needed to be flipped. If someone can contact them we could find the single hex digit that needs to be changed so the Vicarage section will not crash.

[dosraider]

The game at GOG is 7 MB. The ega version on this site is 1.9MB.
Dosbox is included in the GOG dosgames downloads I thought.
Dosbox 0.73 = approx 4.3MB.

[Rkichardks]

Ok Guys I found out what caused this bug with the Vicarage screen.
(back up your original 72.out file before you do this).
Open file 72.out in a hex-editor.
From menu select Goto offset(h) and enter D1D2
Now change the current value (in hex) of 20 to 40
save file
I just tried this, ran the game in DOS realmode and it worked, then tried it in DOSBOX, it works.

[red_avatar]

We'll need to alter the archive we got on Abandonia as well then.

[Rkichardks]

I compared the file 72.out (from original personal nightmare 5.25 disks 1989) to the file 72.out on http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/personal_nightmare, The only difference in the file was a 20 replaced by a 40.
Very strange the original game shipped with this massive bug. I wonder if the 3.5" disk version (released December 1989) also had this.

[red_avatar]

I compared the file 72.out (from original personal nightmare 5.25 disks 1989) to the file 72.out on http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/personal_nightmare, The only difference in the file was a 20 replaced by a 40.
Very strange the original game shipped with this massive bug. I wonder if the 3.5" disk version (released December 1989) also had this.
Well I found several versions of the game (different languages as well) and they ALL had the bug.

[Luchsen]

Fixed.

[Nicor]

There are some very interesting messages in the code of this game. I debugged the game and used the dosbox debug version. A lot of graphics exists in the game that are not shown when you complete the game. Screens that show the devil, the open coffin of the vampire close up etc.
There are also messages in the code. Text linked to the graveyard says "Typical English sheep-shaggers from england will be impaled".
Also there is a wizard/god mode where you are invincible and can also walk through walls and closed doors.

[personalnightmare]

It works!!! At last.

Still can't finish it though. I keep getting arrested on the 3rd morning "For having stolen property in my room at the pub".

But you have to steal stuff to complete the game - the hammer , the secatures. All of this stuff I never let go anywhere near my room.

The bugle you HAVE to steal and take in your room or you can't avoid the toy soldiers. I put it straight back in the morning when I wake up (feeling refreshed). Mr & Mrs Jones can't even know its gone.

Any ideas if certain objects are triggering this? You can't avoid the policeman.

[twillight]

I hate games where you have to do things quickly, despite yu have no idea what to do.
Not to mention I tend to search for "that tiny hidden questitem" for 60 minutes and still not find it.

This is why I loved Monkey Island: I had to escape bloody many times to figure out how to do it properly, and the game even "rewarded" me for being a noob!
But this kind of games sounds "interactive movies by walkthrough" to me.