Yume Nikki

Yume Nikki ("Dream Journal") is an independently developed game created in RPGMaker2003 by Kikiyama. Little is known about Kikiyama besides his/her work on Yume Nikki, other than he/she lives in Japan. The game is free to play and can be downloaded.

The game follows a girl named Madotsuki as she travels through her surreal and often disturbing dreams. The game environment consists of Madotsuki's bedroom, balcony, and the dream world. The dream world can be accessed by entering Madotsuki's bed and waiting for her to fall asleep.

The main area of the game (called the "Nexus" or "Hub" by fans) consists of a small room with thirteen doors - one leading back to the dream version of the apartment, and 12 leading to various other areas of the game. Each of these areas has its own themes, but several concepts carry over from one region to another - particularly, they are disorienting and contain either very bright or very dark color schemes.

Game Play
The game starts in Madotsuki's room, with only three interactive elements - the bed, her writing desk, and an old TV with a FamiCom (the Japanese version of the NES). Interacting with the TV itself produces a color block test card, showing that whatever station is on is down. The writing desk allows the player to save their progress by having Madotsuki write in her journal. Getting into the bed lets Madotsuki fall asleep, which takes her into the dream realm.

Within her dreams, Madotsuki can explore and collect Effects, items that can change her appearance and sometimes giver her new or enhanced abilities. However, there are no goals or objectives given by the game. The ending can be unlocked by collecting all 24 of the effects and dropping them off in the Nexus. Once this is done, Madotsuki has to wake up and go to the balcony to find what it unlocks.

The game encourages both exploration and caution. Though Madotsuki can't die, getting captured by Toriningen or Uboa will cause her to end up in a small, inescapable area. It is also easy to get lost in several areas of the game, as there is nothing to tell the player where to go and many of them have repeating or even looping features on their maps. Different Effects and interactive objects can make this less difficult.

Characters
Madotsuki: The player character. Madotsuki is a girl who apparently lives in a studio apartment alone. Attempting to leave this room in the waking world causes her to refuse. Having her get in bed allows the player to navigate through her dream world.

Uboa: An apparition that has a random chance of appearing in Madotsuki's dream. It is found in a house in the Dense Woods, where a girl named Poniko lives. It can be summoned by turning the lights in the room off. Doing so has a 1 in 64 chance of summoning Uboa, who takes Poniko's place in the room. Interacting with it teleports Madotsuki to an area with a large black and red creature hovering in the background. This forces the player to wake Madotsuki up.

KyuuKyuu-Kun: A towering, swirly red and yellow creature that resides in a stairway in the Numbers World. It simply stands in the stairwell, rubbing the banister obsessively. Many theories surround this particular character as the embodiment of some past trauma that Madotsuki suffered.

Seccom Masada-sensei: A piano playing character found at the bottom of the Stairwell of Hands. He lives in a spaceship which can carry Masada and Madotsuki to Mars. He is especially popular among fans, and is thought to tie in with Madotsuki's past somehow.

Mars-san: A martian creature that stands alone crying inside of a volcano on Mars. Stabbing him causes his eye to change color.

Toriningen: Literally "Bird People", they wander in various parts of the dream realm and are one of the few recurring creatures. They appear to be human-like with beaks, and most of them appear to be female. Stabbing them causes them to go crazy and attack Madotsuki, trapping her in a very narrow passage that can only be escaped by waking up. A group of them that can be seen but not reached appears to be having a picnic.

Areas
The Apartment

Madotsuki's apartment consists of a studio living space and a balcony. Her room is very sparse, with only her bed, a writing desk, and an old TV with a FamiCom system. The FamiCom contains a playable mini-game, NASU, which consists of a bird-like creature catching eggplants. The balcony has a wash line and AC unit. There is very little to do here, so the majority of the game is played in Madotsuki's dreams.

The apartment building appears to only contain Madotsuki's apartment. It is only as wide as her bedroom and doesn't appear to extend far from beyond it, meaning the door to the outside could actually lead to open air. The Nexus

The central area of the dream realm is a small room with twelve doors leading to various "worlds" within Madotsuki's dreams. Each of the doors in this area is unique, so that the player can easily learn what leads where. For example, the The Twelve Doors

Numbers World: The walls have arm and leg patterns, as well as what look like zippers with faces. The floor is transparent with a map of the area scrolling slowly in the background, except for where a series of numbers are visible.

Neon World: A very bright area with lots of sharp colors. The area is made up of a main plaza with smaller areas to each side. Going in any direction long enough will take you back to where you started. Glowing Aztec themed creatures roam here.

Shield-Folk World: Very much like the Neon World, but the NPCs here carry shields.

Candle World: A dark area full of candles. The ground is all black and hard to navigate.

Eyeball World: The NPCs in this area are all dismembered body parts, mainly floating eyeballs. Arms, legs, and severed heads also wander about.

Graffiti World: The map of this area is made up of brightly colored tiles that, when zoomed out, form images of Aztec-themed creatures. There are few obstacles and the map looks in both directions. However, due to its consistent markings, it is somewhat easier to move around in.

Mural World: Murals are the primary landmarks here. Monsters with large mouths are the main inhabitants.

Snow World: A snowy area with a constant snowstorm. A few trees dot the landscape, which can be used to navigate the otherwise featureless area. Several igloos can also be seen, including one that appears to be a sleeping copy of Madotsuki.

Dark World: As it suggests, this region is nearly impossible to see in without a light.

Puddle World: An area that is mostly marked with small puddles that reflect a tumultuous sky. This is one of the hardest areas to navigate besides following paths marked by lampposts.

Block World: An area made of blocks. This is actually a fairly easy place to move around, other than some narrow, angular paths.

Forest World: A boundless forest with no ground. A large mural of a monkey scrolls in the background.

Other areas
Other areas are accessed by moving through the twelve doors, then finding access within each world. Important areas include the Dense Woods, where a number of Effects and events take place, such as the infamous Uboa sequence. Another is the White Desert, which contains NPCs who walk backwards and a pair of sisters that trigger full-screen shock images. Madotsuki with the Knife effect about to jump off ObliterationoftheSelfAdded by ObliterationoftheSelf

Effects
Effects change Madotsuki's appearance and give her different abilities. The most prominent one is the Knife ability, which allows her to stab objects and NPCs. Many of them are surreal and tie into the theme of the area where they are found. Of note are the Lamp effect, which changes Madotsuki's head into a light, and the Bicycle, allowing for quicker movement. Others, like the Blonde and Fat effects, do nothing other than change Madotsuki's appearance.

Events
Throughout the game are characters and object that, when interacted with, produce events. Events have a random chance of occurring, usually 1 in 64, though it can be as little as 1 in 3. Some of the events are rather mundane and have no effect on game play. Others will produce sudden images with loud, jarring music meant to scare the player.

Crick-in-the-Neck: Madotsuki wakes up with a crick in her neck, making her head face left. This prevents her from writing in her journal or playing NASU.

Uboa: The most well known, turning the lights off in Poniko's room can cause this event. If the event occurs, all of the colors in the room invert (except for Madotsuki) and Uboa appears in Poniko's place. It's unknown if this is meant to represent a transformation, Madotsuki being sent to another place, or something else. Though Uboa normally doesn't move, interacting with it causes Madotsuki to teleport to a disturbing landscape with a large creature looming in the background.

The Witch's Flight: Madotsuki must use the Witch effect in the mall to trigger this. Flying to the right while on the broom may produce a flash, which leads to a vertical scrolling event similar to a shoot-em-up game like the Touhou series. A cat will appear on the roof if the event will occur. Getting off the broom while flying causes Madotsuki to fall out of bed and wake up.

Monoe/Monoko: Two sisters in the White Desert can be accessed by stabbing an NPC outside of a cave with a circular path going through it. Entering one side produces Monoe, and interacting with her causes a picture of her face to take up the screen briefly before she teleports to a different part of the room. Monoko appears if the cave is entered from the other side. Activating the Stoplight Effect causes her to turn grow several extra arms, including one on her head. Talking to her makes a video of her bouncing around the screen with tribal-sounding music play.

FACE: Going up the stairs where KyuuKyuu-kun is located causes a distorted, flashing image similar to a demonic fact to play. Madotsuki wakes up after it ends.

FamiCom Glitch: Not actually a glitch, but talking to a wall in the FC World causes the area to appear corrupted. Talking to it several times will cause more corruption until a loud, piercing buzz is heard. This will wake Madotsuki up.

Other events cause random objects such as severed heads to float in certain areas, characters to appear where previously no one existed, or other full-screen images to appear. The purpose of the events is mainly to reinforce the creepy or disturbing nature of Madotsuki's dreams. Themes

Recurring elements of the game are very large, open-ended maps that scroll in both directions. Many areas serve no purpose to the game's progression, with few NPCs or items. While the game was made in RPGMaker, very little of the game play is RPG-like. Many of the background characters and NPCs appear to be personified or mobile body parts. Others are explicitly tied into the theme of their area. A lack of exposition or plot of any kind also keeps the player guessing as to the meaning behind the events of the game.

Disorienting environments and unsettling music are meant to make the player feel vulnerable. Aztec motifs appear throughout most areas of the game, though their connection to Madotsuki's dreams is unknown. The abstract nature of the game, as well as the confusion caused by unpredictable, disjointed events seemingly unconnected from what causes them, are meant to evoke the player's feeling on their own dreams. Theories

The main purpose of the game appears to be to highlight the surreal and often frightening nature of dreams. Since so little information about the game, its nature, or the meaning behind most of the events is given, there are a number of theories surrounding the game and its characters.

One of the prevailing theories is that Madotsuki is homicidal and locks herself away in her apartment to prevent herself from attacking people. Since most of the dream characters can only be interacted with by stabbing them, her dreams are supposedly an outlet for those feelings.

Another is that she has had some sort of traumatic experience in her past. Typically followers of this theory ascribe the disturbing imagery of the game to a traffic accident, physical assault, or a relationship that led to pregnancy. Miscarriage and attempted murder also come up frequently in these discussions.

Also it's sometimes thought that Madotsuki is never in the real world and that the "real world" she wakes up in is actually another dream. Even though it is possible to "wake up" from one dream into another,this is still just a theory.

However, since the game is still currently in development (version 0.10 since 2007), little can be either confirmed or denied until further developments are made. Kikiyama, the game's creator, indicated that due to scheduling conflicts the game WILL continue its development, but that an update may be a long way off.