Editorials
Why RPGMaker Title ‘Yume Nikki’ Terrifies Me More Than Any Modern Horror Game
I’ve always had trouble really getting into many modern horror games and films. Many of them trade in legitimate terror for jump scares and gratuitous gore, neither of which appeal to me. A general sense of anxiety melts away when you’ve predicted the jump scares or seen one too many mutilated bodies, after all. I’ve always gravitated towards more psychological horrors, but of course, they terrify me to the point that I rarely play them. That being said, one of the most terrifying games I’ve played is a free RPGMaker title that released over a decade ago.
Yume Nikki originally released to relative obscurity in 2004. However, the game was eventually translated into English and a popular Internet community got a hold of the title, bringing attention to the title first on Western shores, then in Japan itself. Even then, though, the game maintained a relative niche status, although its re-release on Steam earlier this year promises to get the more eyes on the title.
Don’t let the game engine that helped to create Yume Nikki fool you though–this is no RPG. In Yume Nikki, you explore the dream world of Madotsuki, a shut-in that doesn’t leave her apartment. The player never once leaves the girl’s apartment, as Madotsuki refuses to leave. There’s not much to do in the room–the only things worthwhile to do are save the game and sleep, a telling sign of the character’s mental state.
Once Madotsuki goes to sleep, you can freely leave the room, and explore the girl’s dreamscape. The goal of the game is to visit the various worlds of Madotsuki’s dreams and collect various objects, eventually leading to the game’s conclusion in the waking world. However, Madotsuki’s dreams aren’t happy or bright–they’re downright nightmares.
At first glance, Yume Nikki’s art style is very similar to Earthbound. It’s unusual and trippy, but still has a basis in reality. While Earthbound mostly stays on the lighthearted side of things, Yume Nikki is dark and unsettling. You’ll guide Madotsuki through twelve different, yet interlinked worlds, each with their own visual hooks. It’s never explained if these worlds are somehow related to the character’s psyche or just a terrifying jumble of nonsensical imagery; much like our own dreams, that is up to the dreamer (and in this case, the player) to decide.
But what makes Yume Nikki’s dream worlds so frightening are how lonely and oppressive they feel. While there are occasional NPCs to interact with, they aren’t exactly Madotsuki’s friends, and some are out to harm her. For the most part, though, you spend the time in Yume Nikki navigating paths, halls, and landscapes alone, with no one to accompany you besides the game’s haunting soundtrack.
It’s this intense, oppressive loneliness that really made Yume Nikki stick in my mind, more than a decade after playing it. The feeling that there’s no one to get you out of your own head, the life that Madotsuki lives every day, is one that hits too close to home for many people. There are many interpretations to Yume Nikki’s events, thanks to how vague the storytelling is, but I take it as a girl who wants to escape the troubles of the real world of her dreams but cannot even do that as nightmares plague her.
This is all made obvious with the “danger” Madotsuki is in. Some of the creatures within this dream world will attempt to harm her, but the consequences aren’t as expected. In most cases, Madotsuki will simply be transported back to the hub that lets you pick which world to explore, making you walk through the world again. In a few scenarios, the monster will force Madotsuki to wake up completely.
None of these consequences are particularly disastrous from a gameplay standpoint; the dream worlds aren’t particularly large nor is it difficult to just go back to sleep. But it’s very indicative of Madotski’s mental state that waking up is the worst thing that can happen to her.
What’s so terrifying is how close to home some of the game’s vague themes can feel. Feeling alone, wanting to do nothing but just sleep, even though sleep itself is no respite from the difficult real world… these are things felt by many people with mental health issues, and is relatable in a way many horror games are not.
Yume Nikki is an incredibly terrifying game. It’s been over a decade since I played the free, niche title, and it left a lasting impression on me. The game is available on Steam and can be run on a toaster, and I highly recommend any horror fan give it a try. The dream world of Madotski may terrify you in ways you wouldn’t expect.
Books
Despite Treading Familiar Territory, ‘Ravenloft: The Horrors Within’ Provides a Wealth of Gameplay [Tabletop Terror]
I’ve been running tabletop RPGs for several years now, but I’ve never actually run the most iconic of them all, Dungeons & Dragons. Sure, I’ve played it more than any other game, but the setting and genre aren’t something that makes me want to pick up the GM guide and set up my own campaign to run players through. Any time I run games, I stick to horror or sci-fi games that align more with my interests, both mechanically and thematically.
The closest I ever got to wanting to run D&D was after my party played the Curse of Strahd campaign in fifth edition. The Ravenloft setting was perfect for me, forcing our intrepid band of heroes to face down all sorts of vampires, werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night. One of my all-time favorite moments as a player was entering someone’s home, slowly realizing she was a witch, and pushing her into an oven “Hansel and Gretel” style before she could spring her trap. Leaning into the horror got my mind racing with the possibilities for a campaign, but nothing ever came of it.
Recently, Wizards of the Coast released Ravenloft: The Horrors Within for the latest edition of D&D, revamping the legendary setting for the updated ruleset. While I still have plenty of games I would turn to first for spooky roleplaying games, after flipping through the book, I was impressed with the wide range of horror that the new setting manual allows for. To be clear, this isn’t a beat-by-beat campaign book with full prep for a long-running adventure, but rather a series of settings, creatures, villains, and character creation options that can be added to the world, allowing you to explore the darker side of D&D.
Character Options With a Horror Twist
The introduction of The Horrors Within outlines the main narrative concept of the book, the Domains of Dread. These are isolated areas that can be accessed by traversing through mysterious mists. Each domain has a Darklord, who is both a ruler and prisoner in the land. Their domain acts as a dark reflection of their past in a way that makes for a cohesive space that’s backed up by interesting character drama.
While much of the book is dedicated to GM-facing tools for creating a horror campaign within the Domains of Dread, the first chapter is all about new subclasses for players to use as their characters level up. There’s not a new one for every class, only seven of them, but they do add some supernatural flavor to the traditional character archetypes, along with smartly thought-out mechanical additions. None of them are terribly game-changing in my opinion, but they do help you create characters that feel like they are becoming monsters themselves. My favorite of these is the Reanimator subclass for the artificer, who assembles corpses into undead companions that can help you out.
The book also has a bard that summons ghosts, a cleric who worships the forces of death, a ranger who communes with dark creatures, a rogue who gets trinkets from the dead, a sorcerer who draws power from the shadows, and a warlock who made a pact with an undead patron.
To round out character creation, there’s a new set of horror-tinged backgrounds and species to layer on top of your character. Variants of werewolves, vampires, and zombies are now available to you, in addition to some fun concepts like paranormal investigator and spirit medium. While none of these excite me a ton on their own, I can see the possibilities forming in my mind as I come up with different ways to mix and match the classes, backgrounds, and species, making it enticing for players who are looking for creepier ways to build their new character. It doesn’t elevate the class creativity to something along the lines of Heart: The City Beneath or Mork Borg, but it’s definitely more flavorful than the standard D&D archetypes I’ve been using for years.
Darklords, Domains, and Dark Gifts
As you level up, you’re given access to a new set of feats called Dark Gifts. These can be bestowed on you from the GM at narratively interesting points, or can be selected any time you would gain a feat from the origin category. These are once again very thematic, combining mechanics and fiction in clever ways, but importantly, they come with a price to be paid when you roll a critical failure.
For example, the Gathered Whispers feat allows you to not only cast Message, but also to use a reaction to summon spirits to defend you when you would be hit by an attack. As a cost, if you roll a one, the haunting voices get so loud that you need to make a saving throw or take the condition deafened. I’m always in favor of a tabletop RPG making failure more interesting, so this is a step in the right direction for me personally, and I would love to see the concept pushed even further, especially with the focus on horror.
The bulk of the book, about half of the page count, is spent outlining the various domains of Ravenloft and their associated Darklords. This chapter is extremely thorough, highlighting the various horror subgenres and hallmarks that each domain explores so you can find one that aligns with the story you are trying to tell. Want to do something about gothic horror and political intrigue? Send your party to Borco and have them caught in the battle between the two Darklords, Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya. Looking for a dark fantasy adventure about doomed quests and cursed items? Then you’ll want to use the Shadowlands, where the sentient sword Ebonbane torments would-be heroes.
Is your group begging for cosmic horror? Well, among the Domains of Dread in this book is Innsmouth itself, giving you the tools to put your players against the ultimate Lovecraftian evil, Cthulhu. There are sixteen fully-realized domains in here, as well as about two dozen others with brief, but still intriguing descriptions. I wouldn’t say any of them are mind-blowingly creative, but they certainly push the limits of what I’m used to seeing in D&D, with lots of options to explore your subgenre of choice.
While they don’t lay out full, beat-by-beat campaigns for each of the locations, there’s definitely enough information here to get the gears turning on hooks to draw the player in. There are several points of interest laid out for each domain, as well as a full history of the area and the associated Darklord. Each Darklord also has a full stat block, preparing you to craft that epic boss fight when the time comes. My favorite part of each entry is the suggested campaign overview, which outlines ideas for what characters should be doing during specific level ranges.
These are only about a page long, but they also come with plans for a full mini-adventure within that overview, complete with NPCs, plot twists, and often a map for you to use at the table. I’m a big proponent of the GMing philosophy of “draw maps, but leave blank spaces,” so while some may be disappointed that there’s not more detailed prep contained in this chapter, this is just the right amount of info for me to start creating my own campaign.
A Worthy Collection of Horrors
The following two chapters are focused on giving you the tools to start writing your own campaigns within the Ravenloft setting, providing solid advice for how to think about how you want the horror to manifest at your table. Given how goofy players can get at the table, it can be hard to maintain an atmosphere of menace between friends, but the tips and tricks in these chapters are a great start. Ravenloft: The Horrors Within also gives you the framework to build your own domains and darklords to tell the story that you want to tell, including tables to roll on to help you generate ideas.
To round out the book, the final chapter is a bestiary full of horrors to throw at adventurers. They all still end up getting broken down into D&D mechanics, so they aren’t anything extremely wild and out there, but there are some gnarly creatures rendered in compellingly moody artwork. My personal favorites were the Boneless, an animated skin of a flayed corpse, the cleverly named Carrionette, a doll animated by sinister magic, and the Relentless Killers, a series of supernatural murderers that take inspiration from slashers. Included among the monsters are some good NPCs that can be worked into your campaigns, either as friend or foe. It’s not as clever as the surreal monsters in Mothership or as truly horrific as the terrors outlined in Mork Borg, but these are definitely some of D&D’s darkest creations, allowing you to weave horror into your standard encounters.
There are definitely games better equipped to do horror in tabletop RPG form, but if you’ve got a group of players who love D&D and don’t want to try a new system, this setting book is the best way to inject the horror you’re looking for into the classic game. Not only does it lay out a wealth of options for you to pull from, between the domains, darklords, and monsters, it also provides you the tools to come up with your own ideas to prepare compellingly terrifying campaigns of your own.
Even if it sticks to well-worn genre tropes, any horror-loving GM will get a kick out of flipping through this book and seeing how their favorite subgenres have been translated into the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is available now from D&D Beyond in Digital and Physical versions.
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