I've known for a little bit that there is an NPC in Yume 2kki that very strongly resembles Hatsune Miku, but one week ago I decided to finally go and visit her. I was under the impression that 2kki was one of those fangames that needs a japanese locale to play (not sure) and I was already familiar with the Yume Nikki Online Project (YNO), so that's where I decided to play it. it.
After a long and arduous journey, me and my boyfriend (who was with me in spirit since he couldn't get past FC Caverns C) met her.
And I've been playing YNO on the daily since then! At first I just looked up interesting events on the wiki and went there, but after deciding to make an account on the site my focus shifted on getting badges and doing daily expeditions — a sort of quest system that gives you experience points for going to certain places in certain games.
It wasn't until I was explaining the game to another partner that I finally realized: hey, isn't it kind of bizarre that there are dailies, badges and seasonal experience linked to Yume Nikki in any context whatsoever?
The Unluckiest Person In The World
As shameful as it is to admit, I had never made any meaningful progress into the original Yume Nikki until last year. Most of my knowledge came from youtube videos and cultural osmosis. I think my use of "making progress" here kind of illustrates my issues actually playing the game playing the game, but I'll still give an overview of what my usual play session looked like:
- Go to the nexus
- Pick a world I haven't been to yet
- Walk around blindly, somehow managing to miss every single connections or point of interest
- Get frustrated and turn the game off
This experience had a very slight improvement once I decided to look up a minimal amount of information on the wiki, but I still managed to get really unlucky and not really see anything interesrting. I knew there were interesting things in this game, and sometimes I even knew in what world they resided. But actually finding them — or even getting there if it wasn't a nexus world? I just never did.
It wasn't until I played YNO Yume 2kki, where I was pretty much forced to consult the wiki at every turn since this game has over 1000 unique rooms, that I enjoy this kind of game more if I am being guided through it.
But isn't that the wrong way to play?
The Wrong Way To Play
The popular opinion has always been that you should play Yume Nikki without a guide. Nowadays there's some more leeway on what you're "allowed" to do, such as using a guide exclusively to get the bicycle and medamaude effects, but it is largely recommended that any new players go in blind for as long as they can stomach because that is the "true" way to play the game.
People don't go out of their way to be dicks for the most part. A somewhat common response to someone asking if it's okay to play the game with a map is "whatever helps you actually experience the game". Which actually is pretty good advice! But I am that kind of petty and I hate the way that it's often worded.
There's this kind of attitude that looms above these kinds of discussion. That Yume Nikki is more of an "experience" that a game and that interacting with it in the same way you would a traditional game — trying to experience everything, "make progresss" — is morally wrong and an insult to the genre. I get where this attitude comes from, I also think that immediately glueing yourself to a walkthrough is detrimental to your experience, but this almost catholic level of "you only get to experience joy after you've put in enough suffering" is ridiculous.
And it works on me! I feel bad telling people I play these games with a map! I feel like I am lesser when I'm talking to other fans of Yume Nikki even though this is just a fun toy!
And I'm not even the one getting the worst out of it. One of the things I found while looking up people's opinions on the use of maps was this Steam community post:
My first instinct was to make fun of this person, but then I realized — that's me! I also am not good at games like this even though I love them a lot! If I was playing this game for the first time and I didn't know about its contents nor its larger cultural impact, I'd hate it!
There's a handful of reviews like this and they all either get mocked or told that Yume Nikki is "abstract art, not a game" so not making progress isn't a bad thing. And I think that sucks! If this game is like an art gallery, then this is the equivalent of saying you won't have the true experience unless you go to the museum. Which, sure, you'll obviously have a different experience if you just look at images of the works on your phone, but going there is very inaccessible for some people.
OK but can we finally talk about the Battle Pass?
I have a love/hate relationship with gamification, I think it can be ghoulish when applied to certain things but the use of it on YNO is beneficial in my opinion.
First of all, it doesn't really do anything. Like, having a high level and more badges puts you farther in the leaderboard, but that doesn't really do anything other than give you bragging rights I guess. There is no actual Yume Nikki Battle Pass, sorry, it was a joke to make more people read this.
Having more badges does do something, it lets you save more screenshots in your personal gallery — and I like that! You can still download screenshots even if your gallery is full so it's not like that feature is locked away if you don't put in the effort. It motivates you to both look out for things you've never thought of doing before, and in 2kki's case it encourages you to explore in general since you'll get a reasonable number of badges just by finding new areas.
Traditionally, this would be the part of the blog post where I would argue that:
- Looking at the wiki mixes well with the concept of expeditions and creates a unique playstyle that was perhaps not intended but still allows people who don't enjoy the traditional aimless wandering gameplay
- The sheer size of 2kki and the obscurity of some points of interest in smaller games make it impossible to naturally stumble your way onto them
- Wanting to see all of the content in the video game you are playing isn't evil? Like sure, you're not "entitled to experience it all" or whatever those kinds of 2kki devs say, but acting like the only true form of gameplay is miraculously triggering a convoluted event after lucking your way through a 10 wourld journey in an act of God is insane
But I have no energy to do so even though I hold these opinions strongly, and I know in my heart that reading a random Neocities blog post does not exert enough force to remove someone's head out of their ass.
It's my website and I get to be as self indulgent and petty as I want. I can end the post here if I want. And I do.
Go my Fume Knight.