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Does anyone here remember the Atmosfear games?
I used to love them... I've always been 'into' supposedly scary things, and I used to think Atmosfear was hilarious. You had one hour to 'beat the game', and you knew how much time was remaining becauuusse... you got a video with the game!
As soon as you hit play, you'd get a greeting from your 'host', which would then be followed by an on-screen timer. It was then a mad rush to beat the other players to getting to the middle of the board first. At certain 'times' in the game, the host would suddenly appear on the screen, and everyone would have to stop playing while he did something based on chance. (Current player has to roll a dice/current player misses their turn/current player chooses someone else to lose a turn etc.)
I distinctly remember the main host, 'The Gatekeeper', picking on the youngest player (which he called 'maggot'), and generally causing mayhem through the game. As it went on, and the timer got closer and closer to the hour, his appearances became more frequent, and things got hectic. There was a few minutes where he'd appear just 20 seconds or so after he last left, and repeatedly came back to hinder the gameplay. The gatekeeper's face got more mutated and scarier as the timer went along, and when it hit 60 minutes, everybody who was playing was considered 'dead'. (Or, everyone lost at least.)
There were several expansion packs after that too... I had two of them, II and IV. Each expansion had new cards, and most importantly, a new video with a different host.
Everyone I've talked to about this game said it really scared them, and looking back on it, I can see why... I always thought it was funny to play though... the gatekeeper always made me laugh. He did a lot of 'boo' type scenes, where he'd suddenly shout at people when you least expected it, after spending so long talking in whispers.
I think they made a sequel too called 'The Harbingers', but I never played that one... and they recently re-released a DVD version to replace the video one. I don't think they released the expansions on DVD again though, which is a real shame...
I used to love them... I've always been 'into' supposedly scary things, and I used to think Atmosfear was hilarious. You had one hour to 'beat the game', and you knew how much time was remaining becauuusse... you got a video with the game!
As soon as you hit play, you'd get a greeting from your 'host', which would then be followed by an on-screen timer. It was then a mad rush to beat the other players to getting to the middle of the board first. At certain 'times' in the game, the host would suddenly appear on the screen, and everyone would have to stop playing while he did something based on chance. (Current player has to roll a dice/current player misses their turn/current player chooses someone else to lose a turn etc.)
I distinctly remember the main host, 'The Gatekeeper', picking on the youngest player (which he called 'maggot'), and generally causing mayhem through the game. As it went on, and the timer got closer and closer to the hour, his appearances became more frequent, and things got hectic. There was a few minutes where he'd appear just 20 seconds or so after he last left, and repeatedly came back to hinder the gameplay. The gatekeeper's face got more mutated and scarier as the timer went along, and when it hit 60 minutes, everybody who was playing was considered 'dead'. (Or, everyone lost at least.)
There were several expansion packs after that too... I had two of them, II and IV. Each expansion had new cards, and most importantly, a new video with a different host.
Everyone I've talked to about this game said it really scared them, and looking back on it, I can see why... I always thought it was funny to play though... the gatekeeper always made me laugh. He did a lot of 'boo' type scenes, where he'd suddenly shout at people when you least expected it, after spending so long talking in whispers.
I think they made a sequel too called 'The Harbingers', but I never played that one... and they recently re-released a DVD version to replace the video one. I don't think they released the expansions on DVD again though, which is a real shame...
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