Through the Nightmares

Through the Nightmares is a challenge-driven platformer about Sandman, a benevolent spirit who enters a nightmare to save children and return them to their families. The dream belongs to Morpheus, a god who has turned sleep into a prison, where buried fears come alive. To free the children, you must confront Morpheus and escape the nightmare.

Explore the dream

The game spans 45 handcrafted levels across three chapters and six locations, shaped by children’s fears and memories. These include dark woods, spider-infested suburbs and a long-rotten castle, as well as settings based on Nordic folklore, modern-day suburbia and medieval ruins. Each chapter contains hidden challenges and lost items to recover; returning those items to the children’s rooms reveals the sources of their nightmares and clues about their pasts and Morpheus’s story.

Use Sandman’s abilities

Sandman’s three abilities let you interact with the dream world and reshape levels:

• Size-Shifting: Change size to pass through tight spaces, manipulate traps and increase jump distance. Your size also affects your weight and speed, changing how you interact with the environment.
• Downward Strike: Hit walls and floors from mid-air to break through them, reveal paths and activate mechanisms. Changes you make to a level persist after death.
• Checkpoint Flask: Pick up and place the flask anywhere in a level to set a checkpoint. It lets you resurrect three times before sending you back to the start.

You combine these abilities to find routes, manipulate the environment, uncover secrets and overcome challenges. Deaths are frequent, but instant respawns let you try again quickly; the checkpoint flask gives you control over where you respawn.

Survive the hazards

Morpheus twists ordinary objects into traps and monstrous foes. Environmental threats sync with the soundtrack, so your movements require timing and precision. Enormous creatures hunt Sandman, and you must outrun them or face a swift end. The game’s low-poly art and original score bring its nightmare settings to life.

Uncover the secrets

Dozens of secrets await discovery. Collect personal items from the children’s nightmares to learn about their pasts, reveal more of the story and piece together what happened to Morpheus. His mind holds the truth behind his descent into madness, but he will not give up those secrets willingly.