itch.io

Hi, I first started playing this game a few days ago. It's really charming and well made, I very much enjoyed it all the way through. I'm glad this game is still getting updated too, even if it's small stuff here and there. I've never actually played Yume Nikki, so this was my first exposure to this specific kind of RPG Maker game. It was hard to stay engaged at first (especially during the first hour and a half I went without the skateboard), but as soon as I unlocked the dedicated "running" ability, the game really picked up. Overall, a very charming experience and I loved all the different world designs and characters. I also liked the cameos of other characters from your universe, whether it be as NPCs, forms, or even background elements (Bliss, Jel-e, Mimi). Nice touches. Aside from the sluggish movement before you get the skateboard (which could take hours depending on the player), my only real criticisms I can give is that it wasn't always clear where/how certain forms could be used. Mainly Balloon and Eye, in my case. For Balloon, at first I was convinced it was cosmetic because there's no indication as to which gaps are crossable and which aren't. Several times I would pull it out to cross what I perceived as a crossable gap only for it to do nothing because it wasn't, even though it looked perfectly crossable. And other times, a gap would be crossable but I wouldn't even attempt it because it wasn't immediately clear enough and I had already decided the Balloon form was purely cosmetic like Chubby and Bunny. It's not too big of a deal, though. The Balloon is never required to progress anyway. Now about the Eye, I feel like the game doesn't make it clear enough how the Eye is supposed to be used. If there's no eye door in the room you're in, pressing A doesn't give you any visible feedback that the eye even does anything. Maybe giving the screen a slight momentary red hue and a sound effect denoting negative feedback to show that there's no door in the room you're currently in when you press A would help, functioning as a parallel to the yellow screen effect and sound effect when there is a door in the room. That's just my suggestion though. Last thing about the Eye, I feel like most eye doors are in completely random places like the one by the sandy statues or the one in the lantern world. There is zero indication or hint that there is a door there. So instead of thinking, "Hmm, this area feels suspicious, I better pull out the Eye form," I more often than not just find myself just switching to the Eye and spamming A in every room that I walk in. Again, not a huge deal. Just a minor annoyance. And I suppose I should mention a couple bugs I noticed. In the underhalls, there is one small pocket on the edge of a platform that is missing collisions so you can just hover one tile over the void. Not a big deal though, most people will never even find this pocket. Another thing I noticed is that when you're playing as regular Nat, if you sit with A and then pause and switch to a different form in the middle of the animation, it will disable any other form's action command until you switch back to regular Nat and sit down and stand up again. I only really found this happening to me when I was in a hurry to pull out the skateboard and I accidentally switched to regular Nat and pressed A to pull out the skateboard, then pressing X to switch back to the skateboard in the middle of the animation once I had realized I was regular Nat. That's all I have to say in terms of bugs and criticisms, really. Again, it's a very interesting and charming game. I enjoyed my experience with it for sure. I got all 15 forms and all but one drawing. Small side note, I cannot for the life of me find the red world/red room. It is the one thing in this game I haven't done. I looked on the wiki and all I could ascertain is that you need the Goop/Jel-e form and that it's drawing 47. If you could let me know, I'd appreciate it. I really like this game and want to complete it and see the ending. Also, who is Melys? They're on the wiki in the drawing section under drawing 15 (the same drawing number as the halls?) but they're nowhere I can find in the game. Maybe they're the new NPC in 0.2.1, I haven't played it yet. But if that's the case, I don't know why it was on the wiki before its release. That is all I have to say about the game for now, though. Thank you for making this game, and sorry for posting such a huge wall of text! I suppose I had a lot to say. But I'm sure you won't mind such detailed feedback, regardless.