Let's make a Yume Nikki fangame!, This may be a terrible idea.

So, I'm assuming pretty much everyone here is familiar with Yume Nikki (though if anyone isn't, you can find out more about it at Wikipedia or at the Yume Nikki wiki).

While I'd heard of it a long time ago, I played it for the first time only a couple weeks ago. And after playing it, in the obsessive way I have of looking for more information about things, I discovered something else I hadn't previously heard of: Yume Nikki fangames, which are apparently now pretty much a genre of their own. There's a Yume Nikki fangames wiki with more information about some of the best known ones, and there are more complete lists here and here. These games take their inspiration from Yume Nikki, but some follow it more faithfully than others; some of them ape the original's gameplay almost exactly, while others put their own twists on it in various ways.

I figured it would be fun to make a Yume Nikki fangame, though with everything else I have going on it would take a long time to finish it, but then I had another thought: given the high level of creativity and, er, somewhat twisted tastes of most of the Bogleech forumites, I figured it could be fun to bring up the idea here and see if anyone's interested in sort of collaborating on it.

I have RPG Maker XP (a legally purchased, non-pirated version, for what it's worth), and would be willing to do the coding and put things together, but if anyone wants to contribute tilesets, characters, or ideas (especially ideas for "effects" and for twists to put on the formula so it's not just a direct copy of Yume Nikki), this is the place for it. It doesn't matter if multiple people contribute graphics with widely different styles; the original Yume Nikki included graphics with very different styles too.

If you don't know what format the graphics should be in, you can see some sample RPG Maker XP character graphics here and tileset graphics here. If you're not comfortable making graphics in those formats, though, if you just want to contribute other random graphics, that's fine too; there can certainly be places to fit them in (e.g. as backgrounds, or like the pictures that show up in the sewers in Yume Nikki when you look at the "windows"). Or if you can't or don't want to make graphics but just want to contribute ideas, that is also fine. Naturally, everyone who contributes will be suitably credited.

There is no hurry, and I do not anticipate this being finished any time soon. This will probably be a very gradual project, with progress being made slowly but hopefully more or less steadily.

Anyway, don't know if anyone would be interested in contributing to this, and if you're not, that's perfectly fine. Just thought it could be fun, and thought I might as well bring it up.

I hope this is not a terrible idea.

I'd be happy to help in any way I can.

Same here, I think this could turn out very neat

Is this surreal enough for Yume Nikki? On top is the parts of the thing and on the bottom is a float/eye shine animation.

I'd love to see this idea move foward! I have some ideas, based on dreams of mine (I figure a game about dreams could use a basis in dreams):

• A Four-headed Dog. One head is vicious and snarling, while the others look sad and forlorn.
• A man with a boombox for a head
• A crimson shoggoth with a train for one arm
• Changelings, bubbling green piles of goop
• An area based on a high school
• Floating, spherical robots with gear-shaped satellites that can control fire
• An area you can only access by going overboard on a ship
• A parking garage where a fat, tattooed killer waits
• A snowy forest with hourglasses in the ground
• An impossibly tall room with an equally enormous Jack-in-the-Box in it.
• A people with no faces, but some have card symbols, especially spades, where it should be.

I hope some of these help.

Pyro, that sprite's pretty cool, I can see it as an effect-giver (if we're doing that) for some reason. And Jester, same for your stuff...especially the one with the tattooed guy

I know these are terribly fuzzy and not especially well thought out, but I doodled some npcs since I know next to nothing about spriting. If any of them seem usable I can draw them again, but better this time
About halfway through I started naming them after figures in Greek mythology

These are really cool, I don't see what you mean about them not being well thought-out. I especially like the first two.

I kind of scribbled them out in five minutes but thank you, glad you like. I'm not sure if they lend themselves to spriting so well.... If not I can tweak to your heart's desire.

Scribblings would actually fit the style quite well. I really like these, especially the monument-headed snake.

I just picked colors based on what I thought fit the character. Sorry the sprite's so small and hard to see.

That's pretty darn awesome.

Would anyone happen to know where to download a copy of RPGMXP that works? The torrents I've tried have been cop outs, and I wouldn't feel right working on a game without knowing the capabilities of the tools involved.

RPG Maker XP does have a 30 day trial:

http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/product/rpg-maker-xp

At $30, it's also pretty cheap at the moment (and it is superior to some of the newer makers in various ways).

Also, please, nobody post any torrent links on these boards!

Also, also, I love the designs so far.

Tried downloading the trial version, says my days are already up.