Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside

Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside (also known as Pajama Sam 1) is a 1996 children's adventure game originally released for PC and Mac. The first game of the Pajama Sam franchise, it sold nearly 3 million units and won 50 awards.

The game was first released on October 18, 1996. The game was reissued on December 7, 1999. In August 2008, the game was re-released as a Wii game by Majesco Entertainment renamed as Pajama Sam: Don't Fear The Dark, which was only available for a limited time due to legal problems concerning the port's development. This game was ported to iOS by Nimbus Games under the title Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide in December 2012. A Nintendo Switch version was released in February 2022, followed by the PlayStation 4 version on the PlayStation Store in November.

Plot
A young boy named Sam prepares to go to sleep with his bedroom light off for the first time, but quickly becomes frightened by the darkness. Inspired by the bravery of his superhero idol, Pajama Man, Sam assumes the role of Pajama Sam by donning a red cape, purple mask, and gathering equipment to confront the darkness, which he believes to be an actual living being. While searching for Darkness in his closet, Sam falls down a portal which takes him to the Land of Darkness, a world where the sky is always dark.

Not long after Sam enters the Land of Darkness, a group of sentient trees trap him with a rope snare and confiscate his superhero gear and mask, hiding each of them in three different locations. After Sam frees himself, a friendly female tree, to whom the rope belongs, lets Sam borrow it and encourages him to look for his missing items. While exploring the different parts of the Land of Darkness, Sam meets a boat named Otto and a mine cart named King, who both aid him throughout his mission.

After retrieving all his items, Sam enters Darkness' bedroom and nervously confronts him only to realize that Darkness is actually very nice but lonely because he has no friends to play games with him. Feeling sorry for Darkness, Sam befriends him, and they play "Cheese and Crackers" (a variation of tic-tac-toe) together. Afterwards, Sam returns home and goes to bed, having overcome his fear of Darkness.

Gameplay
The game is notable for its multiple game scenarios; when the player starts a new game, each of the three items that need to be collected are in one of two locations. In addition to this, the player needs to carry out different actions in order to retrieve these items. The player does not have control on which scenarios can be encountered in a playthrough, a feature that becomes available in subsequent sequels. An optional side-quest involves looking for ten pairs of Sam's family's socks hidden throughout various locations. The game also contains a few minigames, some that are optional (such as Nuggets, a Snake-esque minecart minigame) and some that are mandatory (such as The Brain Tickler, a quiz game show that allows Sam to enter the house's basement upon completion).

Development
Pajama Sam was displayed at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June. A writer for Computer Games Strategy Plus noted that the character of Sam was "conceived as a pumpkin, [but ...] underwent design changes and now sports a realistic green head as he sets out with his PJ's, blankie, lunchbox and flashlight". The original pumpkin-head character design was later referenced in the third installment, Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet, where Sam must wear a hollowed-out jack-o-lantern over his head to gain access to a restricted area.

Reception
The original release of Pajama Sam received general acclaim, getting scores of 92% from Coming Soon Magazine, 9.5 out of 10 from Electric Playground, 8/10 from Unikgamer, 4 out of 5 stars from Allgame and 4 out of 5 stars from Adventure Gamers.

The 2008 Wii port, titled Pajama Sam: Don't Fear the Dark was praised for the ease of play with the Wii Remote, but the save-game framework was criticized for looking ugly and for autosaving at inopportune times, including overwriting save files after the player had passed a point of no return.

Legacy
Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside spawned three sequels. The first, Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't so Frightening, was released in 1998. In 2000, Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet was released, and was the final game with Pamela Segall Adlon voicing Pajama Sam. After Humongous Entertainment was purchased by Atari, Pajama Sam: Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff! was released in 2003. The success of the game also resulted in a number of children's books being released between 1999 and 2001.