This article is the first in a series that we hope may bring new light to a question everyone is asking about the eerie-yet-endearing Japanese RPG Maker game, Yume Nikki.

“What is Yume Nikki trying to tell us?”

Our All-encompassing Theory Explained

To begin, a few important things should be addressed: 1) This series obviously contains major spoilers about the plot of Yume Nikki. It is best to finish the game completely before reading this, or to watch one of the many walk-throughs available on YouTube or NicoNico Douga. 2) Since the true nature of the game can only be speculated upon, this has been titled as a theory, rather than an explanation. These ideas are merely the observations and connections made by the staff here at maserbeam dot com and should only be taken as such, regardless of how chillingly-correct and insightful they may be. 3) If you subscribe to the theory that the game is just weird for the sake of weirditude, then you have no imagination and should not be playing Yume Nikki.

Open the diary?

-Koda-P

In the image above, there’s a trap. It’s the left most character in the light green sports bra. Why else would I use a header like “There’s a trap in my soup”?

In the past few years, there been an emerging population of trap characters almost every season. A large population will watch these series and fall into this trap. A typical reaction: “Wow, what a feminine character. She’s so cute, I’d fap to her. What you say! Oh god no.” Reminds me of my first experience with it. But first, there are some people who haven’t encountered a trap and don’t know what it is.

No, really. What did you say?

-maserbeam

I recently had an epiphany regarding how to gauge the amount of moe an animu series will emit at varying points in time, and what the effects are on the afflicted.

Would you like to know more?

-maserbeam

I think most people would understand that the post title of this entry is referring to Final Fantasy 13.  It’s been lambasted for being a linear experience. But why is it suddenly reasonable to judge a game on it’s linearity? I think about the games that were purposely linear, and those that simply end up as being linear. There isn’t much of a difference between the two ideas. One is done on purpose and the other one is accidental.

So which one is FF13?

Let’s find out. A one, a two, a three…

-maserbeam

This category of games is rather filled to the brim if you know where to look. Many of these games are just like Yume Nikki, where an easy and simple platform of content generation is the main drive behind it. Yume Nikki was made with RPGMaker. It didn’t even use most of the functions that RPGMaker is for. Yume Nikki is mostly ignoring the functionality of the software it was made on, bearing no resemblance to an RPG. But the more interesting aspect of these types of games is that they are made by a very small group, if not a single person. One example today is Eskil Steenburg, the creator and sole person working on Love. Doesn’t need massive amounts of people behind it; talking to gamers about this concept would be preaching to the choir. All modern day gamers that grew up on the 8-bit era would like to think that a game only needs to be fun.

The way I use experimental might be a misnomer. But I’ll be damned if the games I mention here didn’t correctly execute some strange aspect or function that is either still not working in other games, or no one really hasn’t done it in the same scope. Here’s an old one for you all.
Wait for it.

-maserbeam