[POLL] SHOULD YUME NIKKI FAN GAMES BE THEIR OWN GENRE?

Yeah I think the contradiction is that minimalist game design gives the benefits of really feeling like you're aimlessly wandering, but... once you add in actual structure and nuance to make areas feel like puzzles or something to "figure out" along with some difficulty curve you're suddenly losing that casual wandering.

Linear games pretty much encourage you to get the end screen and open world games encourage you to fill out checklists but I think games like YM and LSD dream emulator wanted to stay away from that

author=Liberty
That said, I liked Journey, but you can bet your biscuits it didn't get its gameplay ideas from some small-time RM game.

What a post-retroactive band.

author=DocSaturn
@halibabica & @sooz you two are doing a nice demonstration on the two different kinds of Yume Nikki fangame schools of thought.

Just wanna reiterate that my opinion here only applies to the original game. Fangames can do as much or as little gameplay as they want, depending on what the creator(s) think(s) is cool. I just strongly feel like YN itself is fine how it is and doesn't need "improvement" in the form of making it more a traditional game.

If you want to make "Like Yume Nikki, but with gameplay," do it! It'll probably be more entertaining than the original. Just don't go in saying, "The original guy did it wrong, I know how to make the game better than he did!" It's pretty obviously the product of conscious choices in design.

author=Pancaek

author=Liberty
The thing that annoys me about this question is that Yume Nikki wasn't the first game (by a long shot) that did this kind of non-gameplay. There's a LOT of games that came before it, but somehow they're just ignored and YN becomes this sort of 'trailblazer' of a genre that existed years before it.

That said, I liked Journey, but you can bet your biscuits it didn't get its gameplay ideas from some small-time RM game.

The question in question isn't questioning the lack of gameplay-type-gameplay, but the formula used in YM games, and how so many other games that use this formula are called fan games despite having no connection to the original other than the forumla.

YN didn't create that formula and very likely a lot of games that do use that formula took it from where YN did, not YN. It wasn't the original cookie who used choc-chips. It just took the idea and people went "Oh, hey, look. Choc-chip cookies?! How original!"

:shrug:

I've never heard of them called "Yume Nikki fangames" outside of this thread and I don't know why you're calling them that. They're obviously not fangames. A Yume Nikki fangame would be if someone made a game using the Yume Nikki characters. The games you're talking about like I'm Scared Of Girls and Very Retrouvaille and everything else on Kentona's Yume Scary Playlist are Yume Nikki clones.

Also, to answer Liberty's question, it's pretty obvious to me that the only thing that separates Yume Nikki clones from the rest of the walking simulator game genre is the RPG Maker graphical style. Is a graphical style enough to call them a unique category? Hmm. Maybe, if it affects how they're played. In this case, because there's so little to the game other than how you walk and how you look at the environment, I think it actually does.

from Liberty
Yume Nikki wasn't the first game (by a long shot) that did this kind of non-gameplay.

I have no doubt this is true, but I'd be curious to hear some examples, especially ones made in RPG Maker. It's not as though YN is the first game with this angle; it's just a very prominent example.

Also why do people keep referring to it as YM? It can't be an accident and it's driving me slightly nuts.

I disagree, Sooz. Metroidvanias' structures are what separate them from run and guns or platformers. I think it's fine to take non-linearity as a genre indicator.

Although this topic derailed sligthly into a debate of merit, I think it's pretty clear that it can't be considered its own genre. It's not a Rogue-to-Roguelike situation; it fits into existing genres and has many imitations/clones. And spin-offs, from the looks of that fan game list.

author=Sooz
Just wanna reiterate that my opinion here only applies to the original game. Fangames can do as much or as little gameplay as they want, depending on what the creator(s) think(s) is cool. I just strongly feel like YN itself is fine how it is and doesn't need "improvement" in the form of making it more a traditional game.

If you want to make "Like Yume Nikki, but with gameplay," do it! It'll probably be more entertaining than the original. Just don't go in saying, "The original guy did it wrong, I know how to make the game better than he did!" It's pretty obviously the product of conscious choices in design.

Of course! I was just using the two of you as an example (and I feel Yume Nikki is good as it is as well). :)

author=LockeZ
I've never heard of them called "Yume Nikki fangames" outside of this thread and I don't know why you're calling them that. They're obviously not fangames. A Yume Nikki fangame would be if someone made a game using the Yume Nikki characters. The games you're talking about like I'm Scared Of Girls and Very Retrouvaille and everything else on Kentona's Yume Scary Playlist are Yume Nikki clones.

They're called fangames because the original fangame, Yume 2kki, was meant as a continuation of Yume Nikki but with a different dreamer because Madotsuki was pretty dead the last time we saw her in her game. From there things got weird and now what everyone else would call "Clones" the Yume Nikki community calls "Fangames". I've seen the term Yume Nikki fangames used for them ever since 2009 on Uboachan and other places discussing Yume Nikki Clonefans or what have you. Kinda bites us in the ass when games like Lisa the First come out with a similar structure to a fangame and then you have to say "No, it doesn't call itself a fangame so it's not a fangame."

@Liberty I'd love to know some examples of pre-yume nikki games as well! I'm only familiar with LSD Dream Emulator, I'd love to know more c:

author=Sooz

author=Darken
But a lot of walking simulators are structured differently from YN, for instance Journey is a literally a linear strip, and the interactions such as playing around with items and effects isn't exactly in every walking simulator game. Most walking simulators are first person and really just allow you to walk and the level design resembles a hallway in terms of layout. Even if the structure is roughly the same Gone Home has a system where it tells you to go next to uncover whatevers necessary to proceed. But of course if you know where to go you can go straight to the ending.

This isn't "structure" so much as superficial differences. Like, there's some significant differences between Sonic 3 and Super Mario Galaxy, but they're both still platformers, because they both ultimately boil down to the same general gameplay.

I mean if you're holding the magnifying glass really far away yes. But I'm not arguing for YN's exit out of the walking simulator genre, it's a part of it. I'm just breaking down what the traits are down to a bullet point level and how it differentiates from other walking simulators.

In this case I'm really just talking about how you play the game from a macro level, is it linear, is it open, is there backtracking, is there some significant goal or lack of one?? Whereas the post I responded to was really referring to the micro stuff in "what do you in every individual situation of the game?" But idk I guess it's hard to nail down the frame of reference when we're talking about a mountain or a single pebble.