Inb4 tranny jokes.
A couple months ago I played Yume Nikki for the first time. It’s a good game, free on Steam. It’s about a young Hikikomori girl named Madotsuki who never leaves her room. If you try and go out the apartment door she just shakes her head. The main point of the game is that when she goes to sleep, she enters the world of her dreams, where the player is free to explore.
Major spoilers ahead, for anyone who cares.
Within the dream world there are many distinct locations, each with their own theme. They are all creepy in their own way and most are downright surreal (one world, for example, is full of brightly coloured neon creatures while another is made of weird blocks). The music, for the most part, is also very unsettling.
There are many moments that are downright scary, such as there being a sewer full of creepy paintings, and there’s a house with an innocent-looking girl, and if you turn the light off in her house, there’s a small chance that she will turn into this horrifying shadow-like creature who traps you in the house and if you interact with it, it takes you to this inescapable world where the background is a very creepy image of a few hills being groped by a giant bloody monster.
There is also a hidden area with a staircase with a giant smiling phallus-shaped monster, which has led some to believe Madotsuki has been raped or sexually assaulted in her past. Whether you believe she was raped or not, it is clear by the content of her dreams that she is deeply traumatized, and most likely has some form of PTSD.
One of the sadder parts of the game to me is very obscure, something you have to go out of your way to find: in one area of a desert world, if you go a certain direction, you will begin hearing some very upbeat music, contrary to the scary or dreary music that makes up most of the game’s soundtrack. Continue in the same direction and you will come across some people partying and dancing, but you cannot enter the party yourself because it’s blocked by vegetation. I find this really sad because maybe it represents her being left out and socially isolated. I was the same way, there were huge parties every week when I was in high school and I was never invited.
The main object of the game is to collect all the different “effects” around the dream world. Some are functional - for example, one that gives Madotsuki a bicycle so she can move faster - while others are purely cosmetic, like turning her into a cat or changing the color of her hair.
After collecting all 24 effects and depositing them in the “hub room” of the dream world, the ending is unlocked. A set of stairs appears on Madotsuki’s balcony, and if you go on the stairs, she jumps off the balcony, plummeting to her death. Nothing is left of her but a bloody stain, and sad music plays as the credits roll.
That’s it. There’s no happy ending. She just kills herself, and it’s so sudden and unexpected. After the credits, you’re taken back to the main menu, and you can reload the game as if nothing happened.
I can draw numerous parallels between her life and my own, even if she is a woman. The fact that we are both traumatized, both shut-ins (me being nowhere near the extent she is, but still an introvert), both unaccepted by society and forced to be an outcast, and both having suicidal tendencies.
I only wish I could save her... if I met her in real life I'm sure we'd be great friends or maybe something more.
A couple months ago I played Yume Nikki for the first time. It’s a good game, free on Steam. It’s about a young Hikikomori girl named Madotsuki who never leaves her room. If you try and go out the apartment door she just shakes her head. The main point of the game is that when she goes to sleep, she enters the world of her dreams, where the player is free to explore.
Major spoilers ahead, for anyone who cares.
Within the dream world there are many distinct locations, each with their own theme. They are all creepy in their own way and most are downright surreal (one world, for example, is full of brightly coloured neon creatures while another is made of weird blocks). The music, for the most part, is also very unsettling.
There are many moments that are downright scary, such as there being a sewer full of creepy paintings, and there’s a house with an innocent-looking girl, and if you turn the light off in her house, there’s a small chance that she will turn into this horrifying shadow-like creature who traps you in the house and if you interact with it, it takes you to this inescapable world where the background is a very creepy image of a few hills being groped by a giant bloody monster.
There is also a hidden area with a staircase with a giant smiling phallus-shaped monster, which has led some to believe Madotsuki has been raped or sexually assaulted in her past. Whether you believe she was raped or not, it is clear by the content of her dreams that she is deeply traumatized, and most likely has some form of PTSD.
One of the sadder parts of the game to me is very obscure, something you have to go out of your way to find: in one area of a desert world, if you go a certain direction, you will begin hearing some very upbeat music, contrary to the scary or dreary music that makes up most of the game’s soundtrack. Continue in the same direction and you will come across some people partying and dancing, but you cannot enter the party yourself because it’s blocked by vegetation. I find this really sad because maybe it represents her being left out and socially isolated. I was the same way, there were huge parties every week when I was in high school and I was never invited.
The main object of the game is to collect all the different “effects” around the dream world. Some are functional - for example, one that gives Madotsuki a bicycle so she can move faster - while others are purely cosmetic, like turning her into a cat or changing the color of her hair.
After collecting all 24 effects and depositing them in the “hub room” of the dream world, the ending is unlocked. A set of stairs appears on Madotsuki’s balcony, and if you go on the stairs, she jumps off the balcony, plummeting to her death. Nothing is left of her but a bloody stain, and sad music plays as the credits roll.
That’s it. There’s no happy ending. She just kills herself, and it’s so sudden and unexpected. After the credits, you’re taken back to the main menu, and you can reload the game as if nothing happened.
I can draw numerous parallels between her life and my own, even if she is a woman. The fact that we are both traumatized, both shut-ins (me being nowhere near the extent she is, but still an introvert), both unaccepted by society and forced to be an outcast, and both having suicidal tendencies.
I only wish I could save her... if I met her in real life I'm sure we'd be great friends or maybe something more.
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