Nightmare Kart - TV Tropes (2025)

"This nightmare will never end."

In 2021, Lilith Walther — lead developer of the Video Game Demake Bloodborne PSX — made an important announcement: Bloodborne PSX was to be cancelled and a new project, Bloodborne Kart, would take its place. Of course, it was April Fools' Day, so everyone understood that it was simply a glorious meme and Bloodborne PSX development resumed afterward... at least, it was a meme, until Bloodborne PSX released and a trailer for the team's next project was announced. This fangame was originally slated for release on the 31st of January, 2024, however, on January 26, the game would end up getting delayed after legal issues from Sony Interactive Entertainment forced the team to strip away the Bloodborne branding in favor of making it an original game. On April 1, 2024, the game has been announced to have been rebranded as Nightmare Kart and to be getting released for free. The Itch.io version was released on May 31, 2024, while the Steam version was slightly delayed to June 5, 2024.

Nightmare Kart is a Retraux Mascot Racer Fan Game based on FromSoftware's Bloodborne, mashing up its setting, characters, and mechanics with classic kart racing chaos. Players can choose from a number of different Bloodborne-inspired characters to play as in order to race throughout the streets of Miralodia, a realm based on Yharnam, demolishing their opposition with an assortment of weapons. The game features 20 racers, 16 courses, a campaign mode, and a VS battle mode.

The game can be downloaded for free on itch.io here and on Steam from here.

Tropes:

• Adaptational Curves: Nicholas, the Captain Ersatz of Micolash from Bloodborne, is way taller compared to the other hunters. This is so that he's more proportionally sized with the vehicles everyone rides.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: In the Golden Ending, similar to the ultimate ending of Bloodborne, being victorious against the angel Miralodia causes the Hunter to transform into a small abomination themself. It then starts crawling towards Margo's carriage to drive off in it.
• Baby Carriage: "Baby Margo", the Mergo Captain Ersatz, "appears" as an empty, self-propelled baby carriage zipping about the racetrack at high speed.
• Bandage Mummy: The Hunter's appearance is nearly entirely bandaged beneath their outerwear. The one part of them that isn't covered this way is their beastly right hand.
• Bait-and-Switch: Micolash/Nicholas's intro cutscene shows him shambling offscreen, towards his kart, his shadow projected onto the wall. Obviously, he's going to get into the kart and drive off... and then he instead does a goofy-looking sprint into the distance.
• Bathos: The game is built around a grim and bleak Gothic-Lovecraftian horror setting while also being a silly and wacky kart racer where the contrast between the two is used to enhance the humor.
• Captain Ersatz: When the game was rebranded to remove direct references to Bloodborne, the playable racers became these.
  • Hunter is the Hunter, being the player's representative in Story Mode.
  • Hermann is Gehrman, a wheelchair-bound old geezer who you take the place of in one of the endings.
  • Onnête is the Doll, being a lifeless automaton and servant to the Gehrman counterpart that nonetheless wishes to aid the Hunter.
  • Father Gregory is Father Gascoigne, being a priestly figure with a machine gun who transforms into a bestial form.
  • Raven is Eileen the Crow, with the two sharing a corvid theme.
  • The Matilda Sisters take after the Shadows of Yharnam, both being groups of cloaked figures that are actually a bunch of snakes beneath their clothing.
  • Mistress Marie is Lady Maria, both of them encountered in a clock tower and fighting the protagonist to stop them from uncovering ugly secrets.
  • The Outsider breaks the trend slightly, as he has an identical model to the Bloodborne PSX boss "Gilbert, the Outsider", who was inspired by Gilbert from the original Bloodborne instead of being a direct parallel. Like the PSX boss, he is encountered in a mansion's lobby (though the bookcases have been rearranged to form a racing course), and helps direct the Hunter towards the clock tower.
  • Nicholas is based on Micolash, who similarly runs like a maniac, wears a cage on his head, and can warp between magical mirrors in his boss fight while raving about the knowledge he's learned and how he doesn't want to be awakened from his nightmare and lose it all.
  • Baby Margo is Mergo, as invisible babies only shown through their stroller's presence.
  • The Dream Watchers are the Messengers, as a group of tiny Friendly Skeletons that provide various support tasks (in this case, counting down each race and being the sidecar rider for the Hunter).
  • And the Angel Miralodia is the Moon Presence, the being responsible for the dream realm the cast is trapped in after humans tried to make contact with a being beyond their own realm.
  • Many of the Fodder characters are also this. Trolls, Werewolfs, Dogs, Crows, Snakeballs, and Patients are essentially the same as their Bloodborne counterparts with little to no changes. Skeletons are the Yharnamites with their usage of torches and plank shields.
• Cheat Code: There is a menu for inputting cheats and unlocking various bonus features, such as a Big Head Mode (TOPHEAVY), Bottomless Magazines (BEASTSBEWARE), and "Bunlith" as a variant of the Fodder kart (YEAG).
• Cool Bike: The Hunter and Father Gregory get to ride some cool-ass Steampunk bikes. Raven has a more contemporary-looking motorcycle colored a tasteful blue.
• Cool Car: Onnête's vehicle of choice is an antique motor carriage with flaming car mufflers, which can hold its own against the many bloodthirsty racers of Miralodia.
• Cool Sidecar: The Matilda Sisters ride a scooter with an attached sidecar. Two of them share the scooter seat, and the third (on the sidecar) is the designated gunner. If the Hunter is the one driving this vehicle, the sidecar is instead occupied by one of the Dream Watchers
• Cool Sword: The secret ending features Radiant Moonlight, a transparent reference to the recurring Moonlight Greatsword featured in multiple FromSoftware games. It's assembled from three moon shards that combine with a basic sword, and like the Moonlight Greatsword it has a glowing, pale-turquoise appearance and fires Sword Beams when swung.
• Creative Closing Credits: The first half of the credits has the developers and voice actors' names printed on the sides of buildings as the perspective flies through a racing map, followed by more traditional white text scrolling on a black background for the Patreon supporters.
• Creator Cameo: "Bunlith", the Funny Animal persona of lead developer Lilith Walther, can be unlocked as a "Fodder" variant by using a Cheat Code.
• Dash Attack: The various melee weapons allow your kart to lunge forth as they swing.
• Dem Bones: One of the most common Fodder enemies, which serve as generic racing rivals or can be ran over in some maps in order to earn Blood (which improves your speed), is the Skeleton.
• Denser and Wackier: It's a lawyer-friendly version of the Bloodborne setting, but a kart racer. Instead of all the characters slaughtering each other, they're vying to win a race around the tracks. Much of the humor in the trailers is the stark juxtaposition of the grim, bleak seriousness of the narrative with lighthearted mascot racing.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The sniper rifle disorients the user by forcing them to zoom in, has a slow reload speed between shots, and is the only gun that doesn't have the auto-aim that all the others do. This is counterbalanced by the absolutely massive damage it does if the user can connect a shot, enough to One-Hit Kill anyone unlucky enough to be in its way.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The moon shards, as alluded to by Nicholas: finding them allows you to access the secret ending, in which the shards combine with your sword to form Radiant Moonlight.
• Duels Decide Everything: All of the conflicts in this game are settled by kart racing. Yes, even when an Eldritch Abomination descends into the nightmare to kart battle with the Hunter.
• Gatling Good: Father Gascoigne/Gregory has one during his boss fight, and in his bestial form he tears it off and starts shooting it at the player directly, forcing the player to circle around him to avoid getting hit. A gatling gun is also one of the weapons you can pick up to spray bullets forth.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Father Gregory, Nicholas, and the secret final boss Miralodia all start their fights with driving segments in which you have to chase them down.
• Handicapped Badass: Herman, originally the wheelchair-bound Gehrman from Bloodborne, is shown to be able to compete in motor vehicle races just by pushing his chair around in his debut trailer.
• Head Pet: Nicholas, the Micolash Captain Ersatz, has a tiny yellow bird on his head. According to Word of God in the comments of the reveal post, the bird is also named Nicholas.
• Horse of a Different Color: One of the vehicles is a massive wild hog. Yes, it can drift and powerslide like all the other vehicles.
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: The tallest character, Nicholas, is shown to own a tiny little go-kart in his intro scene, but this trope is subverted since he actively defies using it. The trope is played straight with Miralodia, a giant eldritch being who uses a tiny toy-like tractor as a vehicle.
• Inherently Funny Words: The cheat that unlocks Bunlith: "Yeag", a nonsense word associated with them. Typing in that cheat has the announcer chuckle evilly and then read it out-loud in a dark, gravelly voice.
• Injured Vulnerability: If a racer spins out after being hurt by a projectile, this leaves them in a vulnerable state where they can then be boosted into — this does a "Visceral Boost" on them, further weakening the victim (and giving the attacker a speed boost).
• Meido: The Doll's counterpart, Onnête, plays up the servant angle more by having a full on classical Victorian maid outfit.
• Molotov Cocktail: One of the weapons is this. A bottle filled with flaming substance, it's placed on the track and will damage any racer that runs over it.
• Monowheel Mayhem: Lady Maria/Mistress Marie's trailer shows that her vehicle of choice is a giant clockwork wheel, which takes the shape of the Astral Clocktower's clock.
• Multiple Endings: Ordinarily, completing the 13th stage of the Story Mode ends with a Last-Second Ending Choice the Hunter submitting their own life, and awakening back in their world, or refusing to leave the nightmare and taking Herman's place (complete with a wheelchair). There's also the secret ending: collecting the 3 Moon Shards (the locations of which are hinted at during Nicholas' boss fight) and refusing leads to the True Final Boss fight against Miralodia, Architect of the Dream.
• Nitro Boost: Aether Vials enable you to temporarily boost your speed when used.
• One-Steve Limit: An aversion, as Nicholas and the bird on his head share the same name.
• Or Was It a Dream?: In the default ending, similar to Bloodborne, the Hunter dying in the realm of Miralodia leads to them awakening back in their own world...only to suddenly get run over by Gregory and Onnête's vehicles.
• Punny Name: Lady Maria is recreated in Bloodborne as the Doll. In this game, Mistress Marie was possibly recreated as "Onêtte". Marie. Onêtte. Nicholas, wearing a Cage on his head might be another one.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: At the start of the campaign, you can choose between a feminine and masculine voice for the Hunter.
• Retraux: The assets shown in the trailers use the same PlayStation 1-ish art style as Bloodborne PSX. Textures are pixelated, objects have vertex warping when in motion, and a thick distance fog covers things that are too far from the camera.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The lever-action shotgun has a massive spread that makes it deadly at point-blank and not useful outside of that range.
• Shout-Out:
  • The announcement trailer features a parody of the AKIRA poster when the title drops, with the Good Hunter approaching their bike identically to Kaneda towards his own. For another AKIRA reference, the release date trailer features another homage, this time to Kaneda sliding on his bike away from the camera (spoofed with Father Gascoigne/Gregory doing likewise).
  • The rebranded name is a reference to the PlayStation 1 horror game Nightmare Creatures. The title is shouted out in a similar manner upon hitting start.
• Sprint Meter: The game is defined by a stamina bar and management of it. It's one of two resources necessary for activating your Aether Vials and many weapons are tradeoffs between dealing lots of damage and costing lots of stamina.
• Super-Speed: Micolash/Nicholas's trailer shows him to be able to compete in kart races by simply running really fast. Beating him in Story Mode unlocks the Birdcage "kart" for the Hunter, allowing them to do the same.
• Super Wheelchair: Herman's wheelchair has been tricked-out with a massive motorbike muffler, one that spews gouts of fire whenever he revs the engine.
• There Can Be Only One: The 13th stage of Story Mode has every important character return, including Father Gregory and Nicholas, to participate in a Battle Royale to determine who among them is the ultimate Hunter.
• True Final Boss: Stage 14, the battle against the angel Miralodia, which can only be accessed by finding the Moon Shards hidden in Father Gregory, the Matilda Sisters, and Nicholas' boss fights.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: By progressing in Story Mode, the Hunter unlocks the karts of the other racers they defeat, adjusting their top speed, handling, and acceleration. This includes Mistress Marie's monowheel, a birdcage to run around like Nicholas, and a variant of Margo's baby carriage driven as an infant Angel.
• Video-Game Lives: For the True Final Boss, the Insight that the Hunter's been collecting in the previous stages turn into these, with the default "die and awaken in their own world" ending occurring if they're all used up.
• The Weird Sisters: The three Matilda Sisters are a group of witch-like Snake People that toy with the Hunter in their quest to get to the clock tower of Miralodia.