Veins by UminoAoi is a Yume Nikki fangame. This one sentence is probably enough for some people to end this review here, so – see you next time! If you like Yume Nikki and it’s fangames, though, or are just interested in this game in particular – feel free to stay.

Personally – I like Yume Nikki. Not a big fan or anything – but I can appreciate it’s gameplay. You can say I’m a casual YN-type games player... At least - I like this ”genre” enough to play some of it’s fangames and have beaten or at least spend a few hours with the more popular/interesting ones. The question is – how does Veins hold up next to them?

It speaks to me!

The biggest feature that differentiates Veins from the typical YN fangame is that it has a plot. Not scraps of one, like in most fangames that try to mimic Yume Nikki’s wordless presentation, but an actual plot – with dialogues and everything...

You play as a nameless girl who, for some reason, has decided to, quite literally, lock herself in her room. While trying to get to the balcony, our heroine finds herself in a dream world, accompanied by a mysterious boy named Daniel, who claims to be her childhood friend. She doesn’t remember him, but it doesn’t stop them from becoming best buds forever literally a few seconds later... Anyway, after this introduction the story goes to it’s mostly wordless, Yume Nikki mode with some snippets of dialogue scattered around here and there. Even so – these snippets are quite a breath of fresh air and help with breaking the monotony of long exploration sections.


Obligatory „cutesy” world

Lovely Sweet Dream

I think the best way to start talking about this type of a game is with visuals and atmosphere. I’m happy to say that this aspect has been realized rather well. The game runs on the VX Ace version of the RPG Maker, as opposed to the 2k3 version most fangames(and the original) tend to be made in. Of course – there are YN-like games that run on other versions, but a lot of them tend to look ”off” in the process, and I know that I’m not the only one who have noticed it. Thankfully, this is not a problem in case of Veins. Yume Nikki style has been emulated with a pretty nice result. They tend to be some areas or sprites that don’t look as good, but these are in minority. Along with the sprites, there is also some full-screen art and character portraits for our main cast(with multiple expressions, too!). All of these are really good and nice to look at(especially full-screen images), although the style may not be for everybody... Oh, and the main menu is animated. That’s a nice detail, I guess...

One of the most important aspect of a Yume Nikki fangame, at least for me, is an atmosphere and Veins has (mostly) nothing to be ashamed of in that matter. It takes one look at the game’s page to see that it’s on the ”deep dark” side of the fangame spectrum. The game’s main theme, just like in .flow, is connected with medicine, so it’s full of hospital imagery, gore and body horror. Even this fangame’s equivalent of YN’s doors are drips with weirdly coloured substances that our heroine has to inject into her... Veins. Even the pathways of an obligatory big maze is, this time, composed entirely of discarded syringes... I’ve mentioned .flow a few sentences before and if you’ve liked that game – you may be interested in this one. One of the worlds looks practically like something straight out of that other fangame...


Hmm... I wonder what this location reminds me of...

The atmosphere is enhanced by the music, which I believe is an original soundtrack for this game. It’s okay. It consists mostly of a few seconds loops, like in the original YN and will probably make you crazy if you happen to be stuck in one location for too long, but it fits the overall mood. Other than that – it’s nothing really to write home about.

Filling up the Dream Journal

If you have no idea how Yume Nikki and it’s fangames work – they’re basically exploration games, where the player moves around various locations and picks up ”power-ups” called Effects, which may or may not affect the game’s world or a character in some way. The goal of these games is to find all of the Effects and maybe do some additional objective. Veins is no exception. To complete the game, although with a bad ending, you need to find all of the 10 Effects. To get a better ending – you’ll need to also find 7 clones of our main character. How to achieve such a feat, you ask? Simple – by exploring all of the dream worlds.

There are six worlds available to us from the main hub(Nexus), all of which also connect to further locations and sometimes even between themselves. The games has around 25 locations, which is a decent amount, but a lot of them are rather small and pale in comparison to Yume Nikki’s 36(probably) gigantic locations. That being said – there is not as much pitch-black, endlessly looping locations which filled up original YN, so that’s good. Thematically, they are your typical YN fangame course. There is, for example, a Hospital world, a cute world, a variation of Famicom world(this time – it’s an RTP world!) and an obligatory huge maze, which every fangame has to probably include by law(and which is as annoying to get through, as in the original Yume Nikki and it’s fangames). There are some highlights, though. One of the worlds available to the player from the start is an art gallery filled with “people” with trees instead of heads or mysterious men with rat masks. Kind of reminded me of Pathologic’s Dogheads... Another cool location is something that a walkthrough calls “Hell”, but let’s be real here – there are demons rocking out, 666s everywhere and heavy metal music playing in the background. It’s a DOOM world! The only thing lacking there is a Chainsaw Effect... All right – back to the review...

A cool thing about this game is that the exploration is not an only thing to do. As I’ve mentioned before – the game is not “mute” and uses written word for its advantage, although still rather sparingly. There are, for example, rabbit cages scattered around where our heroes can sit down and have a conversation(more on that later) that will try to flesh out their relationship. The most important usage of it, though, is during the exploration. Sometimes, the game will stop us, informing us about having to use a certain effect to pass through. Or other times – it will be used for puzzles(yes, they are puzzles - although only a few of them and very simple). It will also be used for a rather lengthy section in the Hospital world that we will have to go through, before it opens up, providing a nice change of pace. All of these sections are very nice to experience, although they are very few and far between, which makes them feel underutilized.


‘HELL’ YEAH!

Sleep paralysis

So, the picture I’ve drawn of this game so far looks to be of a decent, although rather ordinary Yume Nikki fangame, with some twists of its own. That being said – there are bad spots on this canvas. Some rather major...

The first gripe I have with this game is the general lack of polish to everything. Let’s start with the graphics – although it’s fine for the most part, there are some hiccups here and there. For example – the Rabbit Effect(the one that gives our heroine speed). Although, I can appreciate that it doesn’t completely changes main character’s appearance, which is a gripe I have with some fangames, the ears are not moving with her head, which makes the animation look jerky. What also bothered me, was that you can interact with certain object only from one angle, even though the sprite suggests that it could be done from wherever. Our heroine also tends to retain her direction after going to the next location, which is especially obvious when the room’s perspective changes. To add to that – the typos are plentiful and are practically in every single conversation with Daniel. Thankfully, the game has no major bugs that I know of – I’ve only encountered a very small one and it actually helped me to find a secret room... All of these can be fixed with a single, solid patch, so hopefully there will be a version of the game that will get rid of these problems.


That’s a good question....

Unfortunately, the game also has issues that would be very hard to fix with just a simple patch... The story, for example – it creates the atmosphere of mystery, but fails with its main “selling point” – the characters interaction. As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of this review – our pair of heroes become best friends nearly instantly, which makes no sense considering that the girl has no memories of Daniel whatsoever and instantly trusting a mystery guy one just met in a strange world, without being even a tad suspicious, is just a very bad idea, even on the most basic level. This means that their conversations, instead of making a bond between the characters, are mostly just like a chat of high-schoolers at the school trip about random junk. They do help in providing the background for the characters, but that lack of believability in their relation makes these conversation awkward to read. Especially, when the game tries to be funny... And I know that the humor is a subjective thing, but for me – these moments are just awful. The part when Daniel “raps” or when the game uses a meme(which, like a magic spell, already made the game feel dated, even though it came out just few months ago) made me fell actually embarrassed, which is not something that a lot of games managed to achieve...


Nothing like a high-quality humor, am I right?

The game also has a lot of weird design choices that are just... baffling, to say the least. First of all – there is just one save slot. There are no checkpoints to speak of, the game has to be saved using a dream diary, like in the original Yume Nikki, it doesn’t make the game better in any way and there will always be people that will complain about it(what? I like my multiple save files...), so why it’s like that? No idea.

There are also issues that comes from the game actually breaking established rules of this type of a game, for no good reason. To start off – there is no differentiation between the dream world and the “real world” like in original Yume Nikki, which means no cheek-pinching(or, “resetting the dream”, if you prefer). Therefore, if one doesn’t happen to have a certain Effect, there is no way to come back to the Nexus, except from being caught by a Chaser(which has a problem of its own...). So, if one makes progress, but get lost and won’t be able to find a way back to the start – too bad! This mechanic works wonders in discouraging the player from exploring... in an exploration game! I think that’s a grave sin from the gameplay perspective. If you’ll ever happen to try this game – get the Syringe Effect right away, it’s one of the easier ones to find. It’ll make your experience with the game much more enjoyable...

Another thing wrong with the game is how it handles the Chasers. In the original and most of the fangames(or at least, these I’ve actually played), being caught by a Chaser meant being trapped in a very small room with either using an Effect or resetting the dream as an only way out... But, as mentioned before, Veins doesn’t have a way to reset the dream, which, I guess, is an exact reason for this problem... In this game, every single time we get caught by a Chaser we’ll have to... sit through an unskippable cutscene, before the game throws us back to the Nexus. Every. Single. TIME! It may be only a few seconds, but it gets old fast, especially when the player needs to do something in the location full of Chasers(the maze!). It’s just a waste of time and ultimately - makes the game worse.

Waking up



Veins is a decent game, although ridden with problems. The game creates a nice atmosphere of mystery, the imagery is great most of the time and fits the theme(pictures in the art gallery world are my personal favourite sighting in the game, besides Hell) and has some quirks that make it different from quintillions of other YN fangames. I’ve spent around 5,5 hours in-game, without a walkthrough and found most of this time enjoyable(although, stumbling upon the Syringe effect early in the game helped with this) It definitely has a potential to be something great. Unfortunately – the lack of polish, awkward dialogue and bizarre design decisions keep it from achieving this greatness.

I think that people who enjoy these types of games, have a decent amount of tolerance for various problems and/or need their fix of .flow atmosphere will certainly find something to like here. Others should tread with care... Or just wait for the author’s next project. It’s called Dream of Gluttony and it’s been on Buzzing Games for a few days now. Basing on the pictures and the description – the game looks very promising and after playing Veins – I’m curious what the author will come up with next... As for this one – the decision to play it, I’ll leave to you.