Please note: The above screenshots are from the original free edition (see download link below) of Nightmare Highway. There is also a purchase link below for the CocoFest Edition, which is upgraded with additional gameplay elements.
Nightmare Highway is a hybrid BASIC and machine language game written by Ken Reighard and based on real events. For those that don't know the full story - Terry Steen, a Coco game author from the 1980's himself, was driving to CocoFest 2019 (Click here for information on the next CocoFest) at night, when an abandoned couch on the highway suddenly showed up in the dark, too late for Terry to stop. He collided with it and damaged his car. Trooper that he is, he got the car in for repairs, and used a rental to still attend the Fest that weekend. This became the talk of the Fest, and on the CocoTalk weekly show (Click HERE to go to the Youtube page that has both previous episodes and the live show each Saturday at 1 PM EST). This ended up first spawning a song, and then Ken's game.
The mission in the game is to get to CocoFest after driving a certain distance. You can switch between 4 gears, and you have to dodge chairs and couches on the road (and pick up the green fuel cans... or you won't have enough fuel to make it). Aside from the 4 speeds you can achieve with the 4 gears, you can only steer left and right. You get more points in the higher gears than the lower ones. If you make it to the Fest, you get bonus points for how long you were in each of the 4 gears, with the highest speed gears worth the most. You then go to the next Fest, and the difficulty increases.
And that covers the original free release, which is pictured above in the screenshots. The following year, Ken did an upgrade for the 2020 CocoFest - which then got cancelled due to the CoVid pandemic starting. This version plays similarly, but now adds "the power of Terry". This is where the player collects the letters lying on the road to spell the word "Terry". If the player collects all the letters, the Power of Terry is enabled, which clears the road of all obstacles for a limited amount of time (giving the player some time that they can go to 4th gear for the most points without worrying about running into anything). This version is on sale both as an electronic download (see link below) or as a physical DVD-ROM in a jewel case, with some bonus content (a link to that is on the same page as the download link below).
Title: Nightmare Highway
Author: Ken Reighard
Publisher: Ken Reighard
Released: Original Edition: July 2019. CocoFest Edition: 2020
Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 32K RAM, disk drive
Download link for the Original Edition (Free).
Purchase link (both electronic, and physical souvenir editions available) for the CocoFest Edition (upgraded from the one above) with the "Power of Terry".