Yume Nikki (Literally translated as "Dream Diary") is a horror(horror may be kind've stretching it, but creepy didn't sound right)/surrealist game, made by an enigamtic japanese person that goes by the internet handle Kikiyama, (That is literally about all anyone knows about him) that follows the life and more prominently, dreams, of a girl named Madotsuki (Translated as "Window", but not in the glass window sense. Think like, the aperture in a camera, or the little slot in an envelop where you can see the reciever.), who has, by and large become entirely socially detatched from the outside world, to the point where she refuses to leave her room/apartment/whatever it is. So, instead, she dreams.
Unfortunatly saying much else would be detracting from the game itself. I will say, the game is primarily about EXPLORATION. There's only one "enemy" and it can't kill you so much as just set you back a little bit. So don't play this game if you're not big on exploration. The game has a magnificent ambient soundtrack, so I reccomend leaving the volume up. On top of this, try to play it in it's default fullscreen mode. It'll help. The game should work fine on modern windows OSes, I can't speak for mac or linux.
There are some screnshots on the
screenshot page of the homepage. Don't try to leave that page, due to how I linked it the frame on the left is gone and you can't. Besides, an english translation of the game will be posted later in the post.
Namely here.
Use the mediafire link, the fansite's link for the translation is no longer working. It's at the bottom of the article.SO YOU WANT MORE DO YA?! You finished yume nikki and want more games similar to it? Well you're in luck.
Here is a list of fangames based on or around the concept of Yume Nikki. This thing is basically it's own genre. You may not nessacerily find english translations of all of them. Two of them that come highly reccomended are
.flow and
Yume 2kki. No LP's that I know of of these games. If you do find an LP of them, (make sure it's a good one, please, pretty much anything with people talking over the sound is out) please let me know and I will be happy to post it.
Incidentally if you aren't willing to buzz around the wiki for forever for new bizzare things, take a look at the last page. This thread isn't terribly active and I'm most of the posts in it, but if I post after a long period of inactivity it's because I've found a new trippy, potentially horrifying thing.
Sooo yeah. Have a look around,
NEW SPOILER RULES: Discussing the backgrounds/trippy shit is fine. Discussing minor NPCs is fine. Discussing interactions with minor NPCs is fine. Names of major NPCs are also fine, as they're typically not terribly descriptive. Interactions with major NPCs are spoiler material. Generally if it is a shock/scary thing/crazy thing, spoiler it. If you're not sure, spoiler it. Bizzare/interesting interactions with minor NPCs are also spoiler material. I highly reccomend trying the game out on your own before you consult the wiki. A large part of this game is discovering all the crazy crap in it, and looking at a wiki really really spoils it.
As a side note, most of the fan content of this game should at least be considered mildly NSFW, usually mild gore, but as always with the internet, creepers have come out of the woodwork too (Although that facet of the internet hasn't hit Yume Nikki terribly hard, comparatively.). If you look for fan stuff be ready for that sorta thing! Although there is some good perfectly SFW fanart, by and large it does not seem to be the majority.
Also, fangames are free to discuss, but again
PLEASE LABEL AND TAG THE SPOILERS FOR THEM. PUT THEM IN SEPERATE SPOILER TAGS, , AS AN EXAMPLE. This helps keep people from accidentally stumbling on spoilers for a game they didn't want to spoil. All of the rules from the above spoiler rule are in effect.
However, if you just can't stomach the gameplay and are still interested,
here is a wonderful LP of it.So with all that said, go nuts.