The first door Madotsuki opens leads her to a sprawling forest. It's quiet. Ghost-like figures stand in place, scattered around the brush; they don't respond to her when she comes close. On the ground, the shape of a huge insect flows from one edge of Madotsuki's vision to another, like a moving mural. She wanders for what feels like hours. Eventually, she finds another door.
Yume Nikki tells the story of Madotsuki's dreams. When the player first boots up the game, the young Japanese girl is in a small room. There's a television, a game console, a bookshelf, a desk, and a bed. A glass door leads to a balcony outside, and another leads out of the room; if the player guides Madotsuki to the bedroom door, though, she'll refuse to open it. Eventually, the player will guide her to bed, and she'll lie down and fall asleep. Then the dreaming begins, and that's where Yume Nikki (the title translates to "dream diary") begins as well.
The PC game has been shrouded in mystery since it was first released on June 26, 2004—though “released” may not be the correct word. It surfaced, shared by a developer known only as Kikiyama, on the forum 2channel, Japan’s rough equivalent to 4chan. The game was made in RPG Maker 2003, a publicly available free software suite for creating 2D role-playing games, meaning the developer, who has never revealed their identity, could be just about anyone. They're likely Japanese, and their choice of release method suggests a young man. That's about all that's known.
Following the game's initial emergence, it was translated into English and began to garner a cult following in both Japan and the West. Kikiyama updated it incrementally and repeatedly, until, in 2007, build 0.10 released—and Kikiyama disappeared. No more builds followed, and Kikiyama, who never interfaced substantially with his fans, became entirely unavailable. The last known email the creator responded to was reportedly in 2011, shortly before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
Until, that is, about two weeks ago, when, with no fanfare at all, Yume Nikki appeared on the Steam distribution platform. A publisher was attached—Kadokawa Games, who created the RPG Maker software on which the game was built—and a countdown appeared, ostensibly teasing a new Yume Nikki project.
The dream diary is back.
Night into DreamsMadotsuki's next dream takes her into a black void full of hands. She finds a hat that, when donned, turns her head into a hand with a single unblinking eye. Another door takes her to a desert devoid of color or sound. Another, a series of stairwells—always, impossibly, going up. When she gets bored, or scared, she pinches herself to wake up. But she returns to the same dreams again the next night, and the one after that as well.
Yume Nikki is rich in atmospheric dream worlds, but almost entirely devoid of what you'd traditionally call "gameplay." There's no dialogue, no plot, no combat. It's impossible to reach a “game over” screen, and no indication given in the game what your goals are. There are twenty-five objects scattered in the world, called "Effects"; each effect, like the hand described above, causes a change in Madotsuki's appearance or immediate environment. Some of these are useful, some are nonsensical. One is a bicycle. Another is a knife, which lets Madotsuki kill any being she meets in the dream. None appear to have any broader effect on the game world.
