Yume Nikki

Original GameYume Nikki -Dream Diary-MangaNovel

Background

Yume Nikki (ゆめにっき) is a freeware game developed by KIKIYAMA using RPG Maker 2003. It is widely considered one of the most unique uses of the software and has influenced a potential new genre of games.

The initial release was on June 26, 2004, as version 0.00, with several updates leading up to version 0.10 on October 1, 2007. The game's distinctive style, including events like the well-known Uboa encounter, gained popularity outside Japan, largely through internet sharing. The first fan translation was hosted on Uboachan and remained widely used until the Steam release.

Yume Nikki was added to Playism on February 10, 2012, as version 0.10a, marking its first official distribution in years. An official English localization followed on July 11, 2012. Version 0.10a, created on October 6, 2007, contained bug fixes for version 0.10 but was never directly hosted on KIKIYAMA’s website, leaving its distribution to AGM Playism.

On January 9, 2018, AGM Playism and Kadokawa released version 0.10a on Steam for free, making the game more accessible without requiring Japanese locale settings.

An officially licensed iOS and Android version was released on August 30, 2018, by CAERUXLab for $2.99 USD. Unlike previous releases, this version was rebuilt using RPG Maker MV, likely to support mobile compatibility.

Plot Summary

The title translates to "Dream Diary" (夢日記) in Japanese, though it is always written in hiragana. The game follows a girl named Madotsuki as she explores her dreams. The main objective is to collect all 24 "effects," but beyond that, there is no defined plot or dialogue, leaving much open to interpretation.

General Information

Official Date: June 26, 2004

Company: Kadokawa Game Studio

Creator: Kikiyama

Genre: RPG Exploration Game, RPG Horror

Cosmology: Within the Dream of Madotsuki (Yume Nikki is entirely a dream, Madotsuki enters this world through going to sleep in her bed)

Number of Series: 2 official games (Yume Nikki & Yume Nikki -Dream Diary-), 1 Manga, & 1 Novel (Yume Nikki: I Am Not in Your Dream)

Status: Potentially Finished (There has not been any official update to the series since 2015)

Sales

• Yume Nikki: Over 736,000 downloads on Steam
• Yume Nikki -Dream Diary-: Over 501,400 sales on Steam

Reception: Positive Critical Reception (Yume Nikki is one of the gams to kickstart the pixel-art style movement of indie horror games like Ao Oni and Ib, being considered a classic of the RPG Maker indie horrors)

Canon

Yume Nikki canon is an interetsing one as the main game itself, it is stated on the website that the game is meant to be an exploring game with a "dark atmosphere"but without plot or purpose, thus everything is left up to interpretation and there is technically no "wrong" way to interpret the events of Yume Nikki.

Due to this, all official media is considered equally canon as they are all interpretations, instead of viewing them as "different canons" as others do, we view them as different interpretations of the same canon work, and thus are all equally applicable and can be put onto one profile.

To try and give an example, as the games is about dreams, imagine you have a lucid dream, and then the next day you have another lucid dream of the same area, these two dreams are all apart of the same conscious mind, however they can be slightly changed or different in aspect or scope or story, though they are both apart of the same conscious mind or "canon" in this case regardless of contradictions or differences.

Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- is even directly noted to be an indie game based on Kikiyama's mysterious universe and was developed under their strict supervision.

Power of the Verse

Majority of Yume Nikki, and possibly even the entirety of it, is within a dream of a young woman.

Knowledgeable Members

• GiverOfThePeace

Characters

Madotsuki Poniko Uboa