The 90's was a weird time for both video games and tabletop games, mainly because people kept trying to shove video into mediums where it didn't really make sense. For video games that meant we had FMV/game hybrids like Phantasmagoria and Ripper, and for board games it meant they were bundled with VHS tapes like Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game. One such VHS-based tabletop game was Atmosfear (known as Nightmare in the US), a horror-themed board game which was basically Sorry! combined with a screaming Soviet.
Atmosfear was basically a game in which you had to try and grab keys to win and was hosted by 'The Gate Keeper', a shadowy figure who had a habit of shouting at random players and trying to make everyone jump. It went on to have a ridiculous number of sequels even lasting into the era of DVD and has something of a cult following these days. It turns out that we almost ended up with a SNES game based on the board game back in 1994.
Someone located a German version of the EPROM which contained the prototype version of Atmosfear on the SNES and now you can actually try it out for yourself. The game looks like it was shaping up to be a pretty standard platformer, but was actually being developed by Beam Software, the people behind Shadowrun on the SNES. While the game is technically unfinished there was actually quite a lot too it by the time it was cancelled. You can check out a video of the prototype below, or if you fancy giving the game a try for yourself you can get a copy over at Forbidden Palace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwKCEG2lBgs
What do you think of this find? Would you have added Atmosfear to your collection if it had been released? Let us know what you think in the comments.
