October Nightmares

October 16, 1970. The Canadian army patrols the streets of Montréal. They are looking for a British diplomat and the Deputy Premier, both kidnapped by the Front de Libération du Québec. At first light, the Canadian government suspended everyone's individual freedoms. Hundreds of arbitrary arrests are made. They are arresting artists, left-wing intellectuals, unionists and activists for national independence. An operation of political repression is underway. Fear reigns in Québec.

Petit-Cartier, a working-class neighborhood in Montréal, lives in anguish. Several members of their community were arrested. Further arrests are feared. In addition, a possibly supernatural phenomenon occurs. The nights of the residents are inhabited by recurring nightmares. Nightmares so vivid, so real, they possess their bodies all day long. An old man, sane the day before, woke up completely mad. Two people vanished in the middle of the night. To find her brother, Hélène must investigate the phenomenon and dive into the depths of nightmares.

October Nightmares is a first-person point-and-click video game. The game is experienced in a day and night cycle that is spread over several days. From morning to dusk, you move through a neighborhood that you can explore freely to unearth its secrets. The main objective is to identify the last victim of the Snatcher, an otherworldly creature, among the residents. Armed with your camera, you must investigate the neighborhood for signs of its passage. When night falls, you can access the world dreams, a dark world that mixes horror with puzzle solving. Over the nights, you must explore the confines of this world to follow in the footsteps of the Snatcher and, perhaps, discover the terrible fate reserved for those who have been taken.

October Nightmares is a cosmic horror game. The inspiration comes mainly from the work of H.P Lovecraft, more precisely his Dream Cycle. Lovecraft is the author who introduced me to horror literature about twenty years ago with The Whisperer in the Darkness. Reading this novella opened the doors for me to all of his writings, but also those of Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, and other writers of the genre. However, October Nightmares is not an adaptation of a Lovecraft short story. I freely draw my inspiration from Lovecraft's conception of the world of dreams to create the universe of the game. You are going to live a story that is essentially Lovecraftian which takes up the main themes of Lovecraft's work.