Yume Nikki

By: Derek Yu

On: April 9th, 2008

In Yume Nikki (or “Dream Diary”), you play a young girl who can delve into a bizarre, and sometimes extremely frightening, dreamworld in order to collect “effects” that can alter her appearance in the dream. Some of the effects also have abilities that can be used there. At (almost) any time, our heroine can wake herself up and return to her small, spartan apartment, where she can write in her diary (save), or play a simple minigame on the television.

I really like this game. The lack of dialogue or any “action” fills me with this strange sense of dread. I also like the contrast between the tiny apartment and the enormous dreamworld. And visually, the game really reminds me very much of Earthbound (especially Moonside!) and cactus, which is a pretty awesome and terrifying mix.

Download the English version of the game here (42 Mb), via Rapidshare. The download includes the RPGMaker runtime, as well as instructions on how to configure your computer’s language support to play the game. It’s a fairly painless process.

Thanks, Anarkex!

UPDATE: Tim to the rescue! Mirror, via WHFF.

Posted in Doujin, Highly Recommended, RPG, Unique / Bizarre | Tags: Kikiyama

Lez

Damn it rapid share, your in the way of an awesome sounding game D:
tim

http://www.willhostforfood.com/users/weetim/yumenikki0%5B1%5D.10eng.rar
Vitaet

It runs if I change Unicode options, but doesn’t work with applocale, which is sad, because I already changed Unicode options back =|
Richard

I really like the music in this game! Still trying to find my way around it all though… I /think/ I found a flute in a train station, but I can’t be sure…
Then I couldn’t get out of the minigame.
Vitaet

Oh yes, it works for me after reinstalling RPG2000 runtime. By the way, I didn’t touch system options the second time, and used AppLocale to install it, and it works fine.
Anarkex

Richard, you can get out of the minigame by holding the escape key.
Sergio

This game is so delightful. I played it instead of sleeping and having real dreams, something I’ll regret this morning.
Joola

I couldnt even downmoad it! Damn rapidshare.
Pragma

The concept reminds me of Nemo the Dream Master (NES), which was a pretty solid platformer. I’ll have to give this one a try.
Klaim

hmmm
Reading the description of the concept it looks like a minimalistic version of Silent Hill 4 : The Room. (that was not a Silent Hill sequel originally)
It was basically the same concept at the core of it’s gameplay.
GreatFox

It’s kinda fail to host in Rapidshare. Why not use Willhostforfood or something similiar and better?
Vitaet

Well, it is actually hosted on WHFF, thanks to Tim from Indiegames: http://www.willhostforfood.com/users/weetim/yumenikki0%5B1%5D.10eng.rar
Shih Tzu

I played some of this a while back. It’s rather, um. Different. I recommend you play with the lights off in a meditative state (however you wish to achieve it).

The one thing is that since the game is mostly a content delivery system for weirdass audiovisuals, it would be better if the map design was more focused. It’s too easy to wind up spending several minutes wandering through a wide-open space, wondering what you need to do to go somewhere else. The game would be much better if the transitions were more accessible, so you could just chill and explore the space without thinking too much and worrying about getting stuck.
BreadCultist

The birds will visit me in my dreams.
http://doomlaser.com Golds

Still can’t get it to run. ApplLocale yelled at me.
MrBig

Okay, haven’t played this yet, BUT, it looks and sounds like a cross between the playstation game Alundra (just the dream idea really) and a bad Tentacle filled Japanese Hentai (the screenshot is that weird)… I’m kidding around but hopefully this game is nothing like I’ve described, because while Alundra was a decent Zelda type clone it became repetitive quickly, and on top of that nobody likes sick Japanese tentacle hentai but freaks of nature (that means you, people who are reading this and wouldn’t dare admit that you love that crap!)

Besides all this it looks like a Cave Story rip-off. :-)
ChrisSketch

Ooh, I can’t wait to play this. I’d been waiting for a game like this to show up.

@MrBig: I consider myself an appreciator (if not always a partaker) of a wide variety perversions. Hentai (which is not all tentacles btw), for all its bad reputation and dubious anatomies, holds a special place in my heart and other blood filled organs. Furthermore, I think a tentacle fantasy (or maybe a Betty Rubble fetish?) is less harmful to society overall than, say, Girls Gone Wild.
Exoduster

@Shih Tzu

My thoughts exactly. I’m enjoying the atmosphere, but I’ve wandered around each of the different areas and have yet to find anything that seems to do anything. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but so far this seems more like a collection of things that make funny noises when you step on them than anything else.

And I had such high hopes. Oh well.
FishyBoy

That hook nosed “villain” lady scares me. It’s interesting, although a bit tricky to get things done and see new stuff.
ChrisSketch

Yes it is a tad frustrating when you obtain a new effect and have no idea what to do with it. The only one I’ve found is Neon. I wandered around being all glowy but I haven’t found a use for it it yet. Doesn’t seem to help me see in the dark from what I’ve seen. :/
MrBig

@ChrisSketch,

Actually, I didn’t knock Hentai (that would be like knocking 55% of Japans Population)… no-no, instead I was just referring to the game and what it looked like from the screenshot, *but*, if you get your kicks from -Cartoon Tentacle Rape scenes- then D’oh well, to each their own. Again, I wasn’t really knocking Hentai as a whole though, that would almost be as insane as knocking Playboy, or porn, or video game development. I don’t know if “tentacle fetish” is less harmful, but you’d probably be correct in assuming that Hentai in general is less harmful than “Girls Gone Wild”. After all, G.G.W. was intended for and targets men (and women) with an I.Q. in the low double digits, who probably don’t get laid very often (if at all) anyway. I wouldn’t even consider G.G.W. good for a laugh, perhaps maybe for patients with Alzheimerâ€™s… but I’d think that even they would subconsciously see beyond that crapola.

Anyway, point is, don’t take my original comment too serious since I was just commenting on the photo and the description (I hadn’t tried it out yet).

Cheers!
Albert Lai

Man, there needs to be a guide or something. I’ve gotten about 14 effects, and I know I’m missing one in the Neon land, but I can’t figure out what.

Very surreal. Gives me the chills at many points.
Shih Tzu

Albert Lai: There are a bunch of guides in Japanese. Here’s a map:

http://www.usamimi.info/~emadotuki/m.html
Anonymous

Wow, this sure spread pretty quickly!

Just wanted to let you guys know that the later versions of the English translation are packaged in an installer and do not require changing system settings or installing the RPG Maker 2003 RTP.

http://rapidshare.com/files/106691872/Yume_Nikki_0.10_English_v3.rar.html

This is the latest version; just finished it today. I fixed all of the problems I was aware of, so this is almost certainly the last version of the translation until the game is updated by the creator.

Glad to see that more people are experiencing Yume Nikki, and I hope you’re all enjoying it as much as I did!
chutup

Wow. My computer can speak Welsh, Kazakh and Zulu, but not Japanese. Fucking incredible.
Anybody know if/how I can fix this?
Anarkex

Chutup, I fixed it by putting in the OS disk and adding Japanese in control panel>Language options.
Anarkex

http://rapidshare.com/files/106691872/Yume_Nikki_0.10_English_v3.rar.html

rapidshares to a .exe installer, so you don’t need to deal with language options and such…just found it. It’s still the same game, just slightly easier to install.
Anarkex

^^^with underscores before and after each italic.^^^ sorry for triple post
Anarkex

oh shoot. it’s already…oh whatever.
chutup

Thanks Anarkex, hopefully I will be able to play it now.
Dusty Spur

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CVneSbBOH9g

The ending, for anyone interested.

Watching it actually makes me want to try the game.
FoxBlitzz

For the peeps who don’t like rapidshare:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ni3ghq

When the download expires I could probably host elsewhere but this’ll do for now.
fruit

Hmm, almost sounds like a dream.
Kouya

what is this cactus game you’re talking about?
Kingfuzius

In the article he talks about a game called cactus. What game is this? Also: is there a morror up and working still/again?
Anonymous

For those here asking about the “cactus” mentioned in the article, running the link through the wayback machine gives that it seems to have been an indie studio rather than a single game. If you follow this link, a few of the games are still possible to download:

https://web.archive.org/web/20081008011559if_/http://www.cactus-soft.co.nr:80/