The Yume Nikki Fangame Inspiration Folder 2 is here!
(+ the 2015 original version!)
Apparently the original Yume Nikki Screenshot folder was more useful than I thought. So, I ended up making another one & reuploading the first one for some help to all those out there looking to make a fangame (or just like looking at other people’s pixel art).
What this is is just a giant folder with a bunch of little folders filled with screenshots of various fangames, sorted by world type. Most of these aren’t the entire fangame as that’s a bit hard to capture, but instead a taste of a few different worlds. There’s also some gifs from @yumegifi in addition to stillshots of games! The quality varies from fangame to fangame, but even the fangames that aren’t the best are good to know about so you don’t make the same mapping mistakes as they did. Fangames in this pack include:
Minus 1/Minus Ichi/-1
.flow
Akuma
Corallo
Debris
Dream Syndrome
Farewell
Gem Planet
Gnosis
June Exhibit
Lcd Dem
The Looking Glass
Lull Away
Me
Mong Jung Mon/Dream in Dream
Mortalis
Our Crazy Dream
NostAlgic
Outotsu Yume
Tsukumono Yume
Ultra Violet
Umbra
UnRequited
Uotamusosu
Withers
Veins
Yume Doodle
Yuque (v.02)
All of these games are at their most recent version as of 1/30/19, except Yuque as I took screenshots of it before 0.03 was released. Feel free to reupload the screenshots to the wiki or use them on your blog or what have you as well c:
I'm currently working in a yume nikki fangame, I'm working pretty fast but im unsure if it should be consider traditional or not! sorry if this is a dumb question but im new into the fandom I wish to know whats overall consider traditional, thank you so much in advance!
No problem! I can tell you didn’t read my FAQ though (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
(and don’t apologize for not reading it either because you’re fine!!! In the future, I don’t mind if you asked me something that’s already been asked because that means I just link you the post XD)
Anyway - A traditional Yume Nikki Fangame is a fangame where you:
Collect a set number of effects to progress
Have a nexus with doors/portals in a dreamworld, with most worlds already accessible from the get go
Don’t leave your bedroom (except if you possibly have a balcony)
(usually) No dialogue implemented
Have no linear plot aside from what you put together
Have most effects be cosmetic with a few effects that do something (those effects are usually Speed effect, Stop n’ Go/“Stoplight” effect, Weapon effect, Weather Effect, attract effect, & invisible from chasers effect)
Tend to have a good number of looping worlds
Are Clones of Yume Nikki essentially
Traditional fangames sometimes add little things in however:
.flow added friendship & rust meters, along with a second round of collecting items to get a different ending than the first two. It also had more of a concrete plot.
Lcd Dem had orbs to collect and it’s effects turned into art supplies in the real world
Yume Nissh allowed you to save in your dream if you picked up your dream journal, and unlocked different doors in the nexus the further you went into your dream
Answered Prayers had dialogue as well as an effect you could buy
Ultra Violet has menu skins you can collect & change via your computer, and you could find money on the ground without killing npcs
Essentially, the core gameplay of “person stuck in room so they dream/enter a dream like state and explore their big looping map dreams with effects that sometimes do something and sometimes don’t and the whole thing is very ambiguous” is what it’s all about. They’re just Yume Nikki reskinned or heavily modded: on the surface and in the meat it’s mostly different, but when you get down to the bone structure it’s Yume Nikki at it’s core.
A fangame stops being a fangame when you change up the formula too much and/or when you add more gameplay mechanics. Here are some examples of non-trational fangames:
Miserere has dialogue, somewhat of a plot, and most notably, puzzles to solve with items you’ve collected to progress rather than effects. It’s an open world adventure game like the rest, just closer to an actual adventure game at this point.
Somnium has the player flung into a random dream every time they enter a dream state rather than the player choosing a dream, and contains no effects. You end up collecting memories of the dream - surface memories you wake up from your dreams early, and deeper memories have you exploring deeper to get them.
Fleshchild was a linear progression of dreams every night, where in the daytime you solved puzzles & collected body parts and the nighttime you collected effects & explored your dream world in your dreams. You couldn’t choose which dreams you had or when to start & stop your dreams, and you could miss effects if you didn’t collect them the first time around. It definitely fell into the more “Yume Nikki Inspired” category than a traditional fanagme.
Coma is a fangame that’s a 2D sidescroller and has no effects.
Kataribesou_~Ensouki~ is basically a Yume Nikki RPG
Then there’s anything like NASU+ which takes the original characters from the game and puts them into a different genre entirely, which is closer to all other fandom’s fangames instead of just clones with different characters
The definition of fangames is so loose that the original LISA the First could fit into a traditional-ish nontraditional-ish fangame if it chose to classify itself as one, so if you choose non-traditional don’t worry about it. Both types offer different advantages and can be a lot of fun to make and play no matter what you choose. Just have fun making your game :)
forgot I made this silly chart during Dream Diary jam: a small list of perspectives you could possibly put into your fangame (or non-yume nikki related game!)
@akairoyume we were spitballing things like that in DDJ oddly enough
To do a regular, 3/4th perspective world like most RPG Maker games but flipped upside down you’d have to redraw your character like this:
Feet up, larger bottom to smaller top. If you’re making a Yume Nikki Fangame specifically, you’d have to do this for every single effect, along with all the sprites in the world. From there you’d just put a picture of your floor texture over it and boom.
Basically, it’ll be harder if you don’t know how to draw the bottoms of things and don’t know how to program a NES/Retro/8bit world. If you know how to do both, then it’s just more tedious since you’re just going to go in and do things over and over again :v
Hello, im wondering what needs a game to count as a Yume Nikki Fangame? I have tried looking around, what exactly makes a ynfg, but couldnt find anything hah, so I'm asking yall (I have kind of an idea, but not sure, if it counts as fangame or not)
A yume nikki fangame is such a broad and abstract concept it can be “as long as you call it a fangame it’s a fangame”. Generally, I’d say it has to have a few of these things to qualify: a “dream” and an “awake” state (or at least 2 different points of travel), a somewhat open world with a focus on exploration, things to collect, and general weirdness. Here’s was my criteria for when I was handling the Dream Diary Jam that goes into more depth of what I mean by those things, but anyone can feel free to chime in with what they think defines the genre. :)
Hi! I love Yume Nikki so much so I wanted to make my own Yn fangame. I have the main character and their room design already. I have RPG Maker 2k3 too, I just don't know where to start. Can you give me some tips?
I’m a big fan of planning things, so I’d at least plan out:
What kind of gameplay the game will have (if it’s traditional or if you’re adding a bit more or a different formula)
How many effects you want (you can have a little list of ones you want in your first release and ones you want in your entire game)
What worlds you want (you can make a list just like effects!)
A small flowchart of maps for your first release so you know what you want to put in and what you want to keep out, like this.
Plan out if you want any endings or anything as well.
From there, I’d start making the bedroom, implement the dream/awake switches, and start mapping. This tutorial here is helpful to start with, and there’s some rad tutorials here and here on the Dream Diary Jam page. If you check the discord tag of this blog, there’s some Yume Nikki discords you can hop in, hang out, and ask for advice in as well.
I actually had some written out for Dream Diary Jam that I keep forgetting to post, so yes, you’re in luck. In the small Yume Nikki fangame Community, we have a term called “Hell Mazes”, named after the original Yume Nikki’s big red pulsating map that was a bit frustrating to get through. These maps are large, confusing, and serve to frustrate the player rather than to challenge them. Here’s some steps on how to avoid one of those.
Whatever you do, I’d plan my maze out first. Grab a sheet of paper or MSPaint and doodle down a rough idea of what you want. Here’s my process of making a maze:
Step 1: Draw out your starting and ending points. Step 2: Connect them like this so there is at least one main path out of your maze:
Step 3: Fill out the rest of the maze with branches leading to dead ends or connecting paths.
Now you got yourself a maze. Start playtesting it from there and see how frustrated you get with it. Remember: if you’re not having fun getting through a map, your player is not having fun. You don’t want your player to be bored or frustrated when playing your game - that’s when they put it down in favor of doing something more fun like cleaning the house or rearranging their music collection.
More tips under the “Keep Reading” below:
If your maze is big, I’d put in interesting things for the player to discover or interact with along the way so the map has more of a purpose than just “Go from point A to point B”. It’s also more entertaining that way.
Too many branching paths or dead ends are a pain, no matter how big the map is. They work in mazes you’ll do on a piece of paper since the person completing the maze can see all the branches of the map at once, but they don’t work as well when players can only see a part of the map at a time.
It’s always a good idea to add in a few unique landmarks, like npcs or larger objects so the player can orient themselves better in the maze. A hedge maze could have a few odd statues here and there, an area with a small pond, a small area where the maze breaks into a few flower beds, a gardener trimming the hedges… that sort of thing.
One person on the Dream Diary Chat brought up that it would be nice if the Hell Maze in Yume Nikki had different colored sections in it rather than all of them be red. Mazes are easier to digest in sections as they become smaller mazes that are easier to understand.
If there are chasers in your map, make the with of the maze’s pathways 2 blocks wide instead of one, and have a few areas that are 3 by 3 squares or whatever you like. This gives your player more room to move around. The more room they have to move around, the less likely they are to ragequit.
Speaking of ragequit, have chasers be at a slow or moderate pace compared to the player’s speed. Having them outspeed the player in a large maze is unfair.
It’s ok to make a small maze. You don’t need it to be 100x100, you can just have it as 50x50 and get the same effect.
I’m of the mind that having paths that go off from the main path but then rejoin it is better than having paths that lead to dead ends. The player can still feel lost when they go around in a loop, but without having to backtrack all the way from where they left off.
You can add in an item that makes it easier for the player to get through the maze, like a compass that guides them or a switch that makes all the enemies disappear. Not necessary, but it feels rewarding when you discover a secret like that.
Have the maze be optional: instead of having one certain area that can only be reached via hell maze, have a back way to them in addition to the hell maze path. Or have a way to bypass them completely by doing something like answering a question right.
Obscuring the player’s vision is a dick move. If you’re going to make the area dimly lit or covered in branches or fog, make the map simple. The challenge of regular mazes is getting through all the branching paths since they’re confusing. The challenge of obscured mazes is that they’re obscured by darkness or another object making it hard to see. Resist the urge to punish players by making them go through that. Even if it’s supposed to be scary, it will stop after the player gets used to the dark from being stuck in there for 15 minutes plus, or reloads their save file for the 3rd time to start over at the beginning.
If the player saves at save points instead of via the menu, have a few save points scattered around the map to help them out. If there are chasers nearby however, that might screw over a player’s save file by saving too close to a chaser. Having safe spaces chasers can’t get to near your saves can circumvent that nonsense.
Adding a More Cohesive Storyline to Your Yume Nikki Fangame
Traditionally, Yume Nikki fangames are open world non-linear exploration fest with little to no dialogue, leaving a lot of things open to interpretation. However, that doesn’t mean the developer has to stick to it: there’s several ways to tell a more concrete story in your game, even without dialogue. This post will go over some techniques you can use to achieve a more solid story.
➤ Start the game with an introductory sequence. This gives the player more context to why the protagonist is exploring their dreams or jumping into different worlds or what have you. Answered Prayers and The Looking Glass pulled these off well. It doesn’t even have to be a long sequence either: .flow starts with Sabitsuki in a black room, with 5 seconds of the screen glitching out before static takes over and the game starts. A nice way to set the mood for the game.
➤ Use a growing nexus. When your player enters the nexus for the first time, have there only be a small number of doors they can access. Then, as they explore each world, they can find certain events or effects that unlock new doors in the nexus. This allows you a degree of linearity for your fangame without sacrificing too much of the open world feel. You can even put a few “wake up” events to the real world that move the real world pot forward (if there is a plot outside of the dream world).
➤ Add dialogue. There’s no rule that says you can’t use dialogue in your game. The Looking Glass & Witoru/Neta Dream worked in dialogue pretty well to their game, you can add it to yours too.
➤ Blocking off areas with puzzles only solvable by having the right effects. This is another way to add some linearity to your game without sacrificing the exploration. They could lead to optional events or important areas of the game, or could just open up new areas.
➤ Making effects mean something. You can have all the protagonist’s effects be something symbolic, something they do in real life, or something they just like. All of those add more character and more story to your game. Even cosmetic effects can do something. Say one of your effects is a clown nose. When the protagonist puts it on and honks their nose, nothing usually happens. When your protagonist has it on around a certain NPC and honks their nose, the NPC could laugh. Oreko & the helmet effect are a good example of this.
Effects can also fit a theme you have going on in the game. P.S. Rose has all of it’s effects related to flowers. Feel free to get creative.
➤ Having repeating themes, motifs, or events. Having eyes show up all over the place to represent insecurity and paranoia. Placing a certain type of flower symbolizing love appearing around a certain NPC that can be seen in a few different places in the game. An event or similar events happening over and over again can draw attention to whatever you’re trying to convey to the player.
For example, seeing some NPCs that usually have heads walk around without heads, then visiting another world full of dolls with one of them having it’s head chopped off, and the protagonist looking into the mirror and seeing their head chopped off as an event all seem like important foreshadowing or symbolic of something that happened in the protagonist life due to how much the idea of decapitation is repeated. It sends a message to the player without you having to outright say “yo, this is something important”. The example I gave is a unsubtle example of course, you don’t have to do something as obvious as that. :p
➤ Adding in various counters to your game. Basically, adding 1+ to a variable every time X happens, and subtracting -1 from the same variable every time Y happens, and having the number affect events in the game. These make up morality systems and friendship meters in other games. With these, you can give a sense of progression without losing the non-linearity of the genre since the player is making a number or two increase as they go along.
.flow uses these well: there’s a friendship counter with Oreko that goes up by one point every time you enter the nexus, by 5 points if you visit her or 10 points if you have the diving helmet on per dream session, and goes down by 10 points if you kill her. If you reach 30 points with Oreko, you end up unlocking a new nexus background, an event where Oreko is holding hands with young Sabitsuki in the industrial maze, and a transparent Oreko in the star world that gives you a new menu if you interact with her. Conversely, if you hit -30 she stops appearing all together in the dream world. .flow also has the rust counter which goes up every time you see a gorey event, and adds more blood to Sabitsuki’s keyboard when she wakes up. Both of these show things changing without Sabitsuki having to go in a straight line to activate these events.
➤ Add extra details. The small details that make everything that much nicer. Think of how Madotsuki wakes up with a crick in her neck once every so often. Or how when you de-equip the Witch Effect at the witch event Madotsuki falls out of her bed. Add small things like that. Maybe the main character de-equips the weapon effect and refuses to re-equip it when they’re around a certain npc. Maybe they do a funny little hop when they witness an event or meet an npc they like. Animations like that go a long way when you’re doing visual story telling.
➤ Planning your story before you start. Take some time. Write things down. Work out a timeline in the protagonist’s life beforehand if you’re exploring their subconscious. If they’re exploring another world that has had a long history, write a timeline for that. If they’re experiencing a plot as they go through their dreams or other worlds, write down what happens & map it out.
A good way to make sure your ending(s) doesn’t seem right the fuck out of nowhere is by planning the ending(s) first, and then working backwards. This way, you know where you’re going and you can get your game there with a clear goal in mind, putting in some nice foreshadowing and having a natural progression/build up of events leading up to it.
It’s harder to put a defined story into a Yume Nikki fangame, but that’s alright. Ambiguity and non-linearity is part of the genre’s charm. You can explore concepts and stories you wouldn’t be able to in a regular linear game. Go wild, dreamers.
