Play Smurfs : Nightmare Online

I remember picking up Smurfs: Nightmare for the Game Boy Color back in 1999. It was published by Infogrames, a name you'd see on a lot of cartridges back then. This was during that era where licensed platformers were everywhere, and this one had you guiding Papa Smurf through a cursed dreamscape.

You control Papa Smurf himself, navigating a series of side-scrolling levels. Your main goal is to find and rescue your fellow Smurfs, who are trapped in bubbles scattered throughout the dream world. The gameplay involves classic platforming: you jump across gaps, avoid enemies like bats and spiders, and use a magic wand to defeat them. A key mechanic is the ability to switch between the foreground and background planes on certain screens, which opens up new paths and makes exploration more puzzle-like. The game can be quite unforgiving, with precise jumps required and enemies that respawn quickly. Moving through its colorful, sometimes frustrating stages feels like a determined, methodical crawl.