OHR Dream Diary Contest 2019

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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ChalkFlower
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OHR Dream Diary Contest 2019

Post by ChalkFlower »

Hello everyone! So there goes, I hope, new contest of spiffy OHRRPGCE community:

OHR Dream Diary Contest

About:

Why is is called so? Sure, that is dedication to one of classic surreal "horror RPG" games, Yume Nikki ("Dream Diary" in Japanese), which was released in 2004 by Kikiyama in RPGMaker 2003 and gathered one of largest fandom communities among videogames, then through all 15 years gave birth to new game genre, YNFG or Yume Nikki fangame, from where derived well-known and less well-known excellent titles(you can name, for example, Yume Nisshi, .flow, Lcd Dem, Yume 2kki, The Looking Glass and ton others), opening path to author's subconsciousness described in countless fantasy worlds, characters and events of incredible irrational manner.

Objective:

Make a game related to Yume Nikki or either any of it's fangames or game mechanics in a kind.

Rules&Dates:

* Should be a game, sure.

* Entries should be submitted in period between May 8th 2019 and June 30th 2019.

* OHRRPGCE is strongly recommended for creating your game, although other engines are welcome!

* If you're going for traditional fangame, (so be it just like Yume Nikki, but with your own main character, worlds and maybe some other mechanics) it would be very appreciated having at least playable demo(as YNFGs mainly known being eternal beta versions) with few worlds and effects.

* If you're going to have any of content which may occasionaly be disturbing for certain part of audithory(be it seizure risk flashes, horror-gore-blood-drug-etc. references, 18+ content and such), make sure you have warned everyone who's going to download your game, please!

Judging and Rewards:

Though guess there wouldn't be actual judgement in terms, however it would be great looking at anyone's votes and reviews(if there would be any) and so, immeh myself, Chalk, will award most spiffy entries with little dedication marks:

* 1st place: small comic about your fangame!

* 2nd place: colorful fanart of your character-of-choice from game!

* 3nd place: set of 4 "pixel pins" about your game!

Supra-special Chalk Flower award - remix of all in-game sounds and music!

Notes:

If you have any questions or just want to share your progress, feel free to post here or message me on SS Discord server!

Important mention:
This contest could be considered as OHR-community mirror for Dream Diary Jam on itch.io which is being held by great Pinkuboa and Ebeth last three years, so you may like to check them here:

https://itch.io/jam/dream-diary-jam-3

https://pinkuboa.tumblr.com/

https://ebeth.itch.io/

Anyway, have fun if you'd like to join!
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TMC
Metal King Slime
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Post by TMC »

Cool! Who knows what will happen...

Note that if you want to submit your game to the Dream Diary Jam 3 (even though it doesn't have any prizes, unlike this parallel contest, visibility is always good) then you should start working on your game no earlier than May 17th. And it tries to define what games count as Yume Nikki fangames and can be submitted, but that seems really flexible.
ChalkFlower
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Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:30 am

How to YNFG - short review by Chalk

Post by ChalkFlower »

In case of organizing stuff I have no other choice but give some idea to developers who are not familiar with Yume Nikki that much. So what really may be a fangame?

Here's little list of features almost every respectful YNFG often offers to player:

* Main character
So there goes protagonist, in most cases it be girl-in-her-xx-ages (of unknown amount, omnious opinion suspects being her young, sure) - so let me refer to them as "girl". As most fangames are made in RPGMaker 2003 game engine, they use pretty similar in style sprites, paying homage to original graphics. Also main character's eyes are almost always closed, conveying presence of sleep/dream/so-like.
* Room
First location where the game takes start is girl's room, usually with one door to balcony and one door outside, so balcony is explorable area, but the door is locked and trying to interact with it would return
showing girl's refuse to go outside in some way, like waving her head and/or saying "No", for example.
Sometimes a door to bathroom or else environment included. Other objects is room could be:
1. Table with chair and a diary on it - anything which may look like a way to record/represent stuff, be it journal, computer, mirror, magnitophone and forth - that is the save point which opens save menu, from original borrowing concept of writing down dreams(about it - a little later).
2. TV or computer, game console a kind - allows you playing a minigame, sometimes multiple of them
3. Bed - the place of main gameplay flow - interacting with it lets girl entering the world of dreams - surreal surrounding where major part of plot takes action.
* Dreaming
So when interacted with bed, short animation of character falling asleep shows up, with "3,2,1" counter by original and we're teleported to balcony, but it looks like different from it's "day"/"real" state, then when entering the room you find that always closed door is open now, to go forth and explore(also you can't save now).
* Nexus
Is a kind of "place" to where you're getting from room's door - huge hall containing doors/windows/objects about which you can say they're portals by appearance, or at least attached to something by meaning. Yume Nikki itself offers 12 doors to choose from and explore the
* Dream Worlds
Locations, sometimes wrapping around, sometimes not, filled with all kind of irrational subconsciousness - everything goes there, usually repetitive objects, forming "environment" of a style, thus giving some sense to find interactable NPCs and doors to other worlds by marking them being unsetting, not fitting the world.
* Effects - the most-known and unique game mechanics - by communicating with NPCs you may obtain "effect" option in game's item menu, enabling whose transforming players sprite and may give abilities while "using" them with special key(Shift/1/else) :
> Murder/weapon effect("knife") - talking to NPC will hurt/kill them
> Speed effect("bicycle") - increasing/decreasing your speed
> Nexus effect("medamaude" - a palm with eye on it) - on use teleports you back to Nexuse, blurring out the screen
> Attraction effect("cat") - draws NPCs near to you
> Weather effect("umbrella", "yuki-onna" - snow maiden) - starts the ambient rain/snow/else
> Shrink effect("midget") - changes your size, allowing enter small entrances
> Musical instrument effect("flute") - plays some sound piece
> Light effect("lamp") - switches brighter and darker look of some areas
> Invisibility effect("ghost") - makes you invisible to NPCs
> Stop effect("traffic light") - makes all NPCs freeze all movement

Thats all for now, immeh being very sorry not being able to write down all at once, though hope I'd release the second part of this review soon~
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

I humbly submit This Emptiness. It's probably not that good now, but I think I knew that going in. I plan on making it better after the contest.
ChalkFlower
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How to YNFG Ch.2/Voting scheme~

Post by ChalkFlower »

Hello everyone again, I'm quite sorry outwashing this thread completely, though, I'm here to say that timeframe of our contest finally went out and if we're not mistaken, there are even two submissions to that, so sure could be considered as a kind of progress!
Anyway, let's first sum up the short review about YNFGs promoted in previous post to not abandon things so badly:
Last about Effects - so, as you can see, there could be anything based on that, including complex puzzles with area access and NPC triggers, some games have ability to "mix"/"combine" effects like Me.
*NPCs
Either "environmental" or "outstanding" figures you can meet in dream worlds, interaction with them could lead to teleporting to other world/area, recieving effect, playing idle sound or just nothing at all. Killing NPCs is sometimes rewarded with dream "money" you can spend in vending machines(which seems being common feature among YNFGs also). Special class of NPCs are "chasers" trying to reach player and send them to inescapable location, forcing them to leave dream via waking up.
*Events
Events are special occasions, "cutscenes" of a kind, triggered by usage of a certain effect in special area or interacting with NPC and such. Common types are "showing animated picture with sound", "appear of NPCs", "chase scene", "transfer to special place" and alike.
*BGMs
Tradition assumes usage of short drone/ambient/alternative tracks for every area, often several versions of one track with different speeds.
*Graphics
Concept supposes vast variety in style with graphic design in YNFGs, usually very contrast, from pixel art to photoedits, sometimes involving gore imagery.
*User Interface
Majority of cases offers to player standard RPGMaker menu with dream effects equippable as items. Almost all YNFGs have no dialogue aside UI elements.
*Waking up
Special mechanic, complementing the "dreaming", on use of certain key(like 9 key in YN)/menu option lets player force teleporting to "real world", to protagonist's room.
*Game goal/Ending
As most of games are in "eternal beta" state, starting from original, often there's no clear ending(or opposite, plenty of them like in Yume 2kki), but idea proposes obtaining one after collecting all effects/items in dream worlds and/if bringing them to Nexus to "drop" there (in YN with 5 key).

At this point, guess I'd better end it hoping it was any helpful to anybody, let's move towards contest voting~
Counting number of entries this year I strongly think about not using any of scoring systems, but much more about categorized impressions like we can spectate with other community events like Ridiculous Game Contest , for example.
So, I did it through This Emptiness , didn't find any ending, though, but it's sure, a kind of more exploration-dedicated content rather. I'll try to express my thoughts in following statements:

Graphics/Visuals: simple enough, maaybe too much of squarish sometimes, though sometimes delievering nice occasions like blue moving mouths or pixel-wise compositions.
Worlds/Gameplay: very cryptic, very messy, very... umm, yes, empty it is, for sure. It forcibly takes you to 60's mind-verse or something, with sci-fi social drama dialogue setting...
Audio/Sound: there is not much of any sound usage, making currently presenting features even more sudden and outstanding. MIDI will always fit any OHR game, perhabs, huh. Again, old school vibes.
Fangaming: yes, it is an approved fangame~
Overall: I can't lie, it was a kind of intimidating for me to navigate through and achieve playing experience, even with forbidden cheats I dared using being OHR developer myself, so, I hope there would be an improvement later or sooner, sure~ But I liked how exactly the game is about it's title!

Make sure anybody who wants add something, their personal review of any of two games, know that you're very welcome!

So the 1st place is taken by This Emptiness by incredible MorpheusKitami ( as I can't and don't want to prize myself) so it wins "small comic about your fangame!" reward, I'm working on it. Also it's a shame as I didn't actually post the entry (Motherland) on SlimeSalad(it was on itch.io so far), only reason letting me icluding it is that I'm the host, muahahaha~
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Last edited by ChalkFlower on Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ChalkFlower
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Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:30 am

1st place award!!!

Post by ChalkFlower »

So here goes the prize! Big thanks to everybody who was watching us, maybe even tried participating, you're all welcome the next year, sure, have fun~
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