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Welcome rookies and veterans to the annual Dream Diary Jam. An event where we celebrate the birthday of cult classic game 'Yume Nikki' by devoting some of our time to making a fangame for it. (Yume Nikki turns 19 this year!)

The goal is to create a Yume Nikki fangame, a demo of one, or to even update one of your previous entries. You’ll be given 6 weeks to work on your fangame, starting on May 15th and ending on June 26th — Yume Nikki’s anniversary.

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Submission types:

     Traditional Yume Nikki Fangame:

• The most common type of fangame. Typically follows the same formula/style as the original Yume Nikki, but with an original cast of characters and environments, and sometimes new mechanics. You can get as experimental as you want! Examples of this type include: .flow, Yume 2kki, Lcd Dem, Answered Prayers

     A Fangame of the Yume Nikki setting:

• A fangame that uses the characters/settings of the original Yume Nikki, rather than a new original cast. Think something along the lines of fanfiction. This can be any kind of genre, JRPG, dating sim, clicker, etc. You can even make a fangame of YUME NIKKI -DREAM DIARY- if you want to. Examples of this type include: NASU Plus, Memories of Replica, Dream Kombat, Yume Nikki Hazard

     An update to a previous submission:

• Didn’t get to make as much as you wanted in a previous jam? Need an excuse to work on your fangame? Don’t want to start anew? This is for you! If you can provide a substantial update to one of your previous entries, then it’s also an acceptable submission, even if you’ve been chipping away at it outside of the jams.

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Rules and Regulations:

• Jam runs from May 15th, 12:00a.m. EST until June 26th, 11:59p.m.
• You can plan all you like before the jam, but refrain from working on any assets/coding until it actually begins. Concept art and code/script experimenting/practice is okay. (See this post)
• Late entries are accepted up to 7 days after the jam, however, you must contact one of the jam admins so that they can add it to the page.
• You can work by yourself, or on a team, and you can make as many entries as you want. Commissioning assets from others is also acceptable.
• Your fangame can be any genre you want; it doesn’t have to be horror. You can also make it in any engine you want, just do what's comfortable for you.
• Stealing assets from other Yume Nikki Fangames is unacceptable and will result in being banned from the jam. Looking at how others have scripted things is fine, but please do not use any assets that aren't yours.
• Avoid using or recolouring or assets from Yume Nikki, using Madotsuki's sprite as a base isn't the worst offender, but taking from KIKIYAMA devalues the originality of your own fangame. This moreso applies to traditional fangames with original casts/worlds.
• Please do not use assets from YUME NIKKI -DREAM DIARY-. It’s a commercial game and we don’t want your work taken down for copyright violation.
• Mods of other games are not acceptable submissions; this jam is about creating your own.
• Please keep explicit content out of your game for the jam, stick to under AO+ rating.
• Be nice, and have fun!

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Optional Themes:

This year we have a selection of three different optional themes, as decided by the community:

Analog horror
Brutalism
Lost objects

You can incorporate any of these themes into an effect, use them as a world motif, part of a narrative, or even focus your entire fangame around them. It's up to you entirely! Of course, they're entirely optional, you don't have to use them if you don't want!

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Completion Goals:

   Traditional Yume Nikki Fangame:

• If you want a good idea of what makes a Yume Nikki Fangame, check out this post. You can be as experimental as you want, so long as you keep within the boundaries of a traditional Yume Nikki Fangame. (For example, the latest version of Fleshchild would not be accepted here.)
• There’s no definite measurement for a v0.00 release/demo, but you should aim for at least 2-4 main dream worlds (Nexus worlds), 5-6 other worlds, 3-4 effects, and 2-3 events. You can aim for as many worlds as you want of course; this is just a minimum standard.

   A Fangame of the Yume Nikki setting:

• Since you can go for any kind of genre for this type of entry, it’s a bit more malleable. You should be aiming for at least one playable level, chapter, route, etc. at the very least. There’s less of a minimum requirement compared to traditional fangames, make as short or as long of a game as you want, but make sure there’s at least a few minutes of gameplay.

   An update to a previous submission:

•  If you’re planning to update a previous entry, there’ll be slightly higher expectations, but don’t feel intimidated! Your goals can be malleable too. Under the assumption that you already have the framework of your game, you should aim for similar requirements as a new fangame (6-8 new worlds, 2-3 new effects, 2-4 new events), but with an additional amount of worlds and events on top of it. But again, we’ll show lenience if it’s deserved.

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"The completion goals are asking too much! I'll never be able to finish in time!"

We receive comments like this every jam, so hopefully this helps. The Completion Goals are mainly there to stop people from submitting entries of minimal effort (e.g. one world, one effect, spent a day working on it). While we understand the numbers may be intimidating to reach for some, they're not so strict that submissions will instantly be removed for not meeting them. Fangames come in all different shapes and sizes. You may put more effort into effects than worlds, or have fewer but larger and more detailed worlds. Our standards are malleable, and above all else, we simply want to encourage you to give it a shot and try your best.

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That’s the gist of it, if you need some inspiration, check out the older Dream Diary Jam entries! (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) They’ll give you a good idea of what submissions are acceptable. You can also check out the Yume Nikki Fangame Wiki, or drop by our Discord server if you want to talk or get help. Don’t forget to check out this post on what makes a Traditional Yume Nikki Fangame, and have a look at the old Resources/Tutorials collection on our Tumblr.

Stay tuned, dreamers!