Wandering Through Dreams and Stories: A Reflection on Yume Nikki and Ihatovo Monogatari
So, when I first kind of stumbled onto Yume Nikki, I wasn’t really sure what was happening or what I was looking at. I was at that specific age where time feels infinite, y'know? It's when you don’t even think to value your free time because it feels like a resource you can never run out of. It was back then where time felt like something you could waste without a second thought. And in a way, that is exactly what Yume Nikki seemed to want. It wanted me to get totally lost in it.
There were no glowing arrows or tutorials telling me where to go. Instead, it gave me this small room and one choice. I had to step out into what felt like the raw interior of someone else’s dreams. But here is the thing, it wasn’t the kind of dream where you are flying; this shit was weird and unsettling and sometimes it was just empty.
At first, I was just wandering around and pacing back and forth pressing random buttons like I was waiting for the "real" game to start. But after a while, and I don’t even know when it happened, I stopped doing that. I just started walking just to see what was around the corner.
The Structure of a Stranger's Mind
Every new space felt like peeling back layers of someone’s brain. It felt like their consciousness had been splattered into different rooms. It was just fun seeing what was there, maybe even letting it freak me out a little. There were those neon-filled areas that looked almost alive and eerie shadow figures that just stared at you. I found stuff that didn’t make sense but felt like they were significant in a way you couldn’t explain. It was like wandering through fragmented memories but with the logic of nightmares.
And now that I’m thinking about it, Yume Nikki felt so opposite to how most games are set up. It didn’t care if I "got it" or if I felt like I was making progress. In fact, it almost seemed to thrive on me feeling unsure. That is kind of rare, right? We're so used to needing answers or rewards, but this game didn’t even pretend to have a point.
Rejecting the Win State
It is funny because now that I’m older, I can see how Yume Nikki was rejecting the whole structure of what we think games should be. It didn’t ask you to solve anything or achieve a big moment of triumph. Instead, it just said "take this weird world and figure out how you feel about it." That's something I didn’t realize I needed at the time. Looking back, it felt like permission to just be. No pressure and no expectations. Just wandering, failing, and letting it all sit with me.
While the game thrives in its vagueness, there is something really deliberate about it. It almost feels structured to make you think about how much of life is framed by instructions. Go here and do this to win that. Yume Nikki feels like a critique of all that shit. It asked if you would still move forward if none of it mattered. And yeah it is unsettling, but it's also freeing in a way I didn’t know a game could be.
A Nicer Kind of Aimlessness
Then a few years later I got into Ihatovo Monogatari. Honestly, it was such a different vibe but it still hit me in a way that felt the same. This one wasn’t about creepy dream spaces. It was like stepping into this peaceful old storybook where everything felt like it had a little bit of magic in it.
It's based on Kenji Miyazawa’s stories, but you don't have to be read up on him to enjoy it. The game invites you to walk around this small world. You talk to people and let the stories unfold however they wanted to. It wasn’t like Yume Nikki where everything felt disjointed. This was more grounded but still had this groundedness that felt really personal and heartwarming.
Finding Magic in the Mundane
What really stuck out to me was how it felt like the game was telling me not to rush. It's not like there were any puzzles to solve or huge moments of action; there were just moments that felt like they asked you to pause and notice them.
There's this one scene where you are just sitting with characters and talking about things that don't really seem important. You talk about the weather or a memory; but those moments stick with you. It's like the game was less interested in telling you a story and more interested in creating a feeling, and that feeling has stayed with me way longer than any cutscene-heavy game ever has.
It's so interesting how both games pushed back against the idea of having clear instructions or rewards. Neither of them cared about being "fun" in the way we are so used to. They're about creating spaces where you could exist and make your own meaning. In Ihatovo Monogatari, it felt more like you were being gently guided by the world itself. In Yume Nikki, it felt like you were just thrown into the deep end to figure it out.
But maybe that is what I have come to appreciate about both of them. They trust you. They don’t spoon-feed you answers or try to impress you with flashy mechanics, they're just there waiting for you to meet them halfway.
The Value of Lost Time
What is wild is how both games go against everything we are used to in games and in life. It's always about getting somewhere or doing something productive. But these games were just there. They trusted you to show up and figure it out for yourself. That is a lot harder than it sounds but it's really freeing too.
I think these games taught me a lot about how to sit with things that don’t make sense right away, and not everything needs a clear answer or an endpoint. Sometimes just walking around and letting yourself feel lost can be enough.
We're always told to spend our time wisely and make every moment count. Yume Nikki and Ihatovo Monogatari almost laughed at that idea. They ask "What if you just spent time for the sake of it?" That's kind of a scary thought but it's also beautiful, no?
When I think about those hours I spent wandering through those dreamscapes, it is not the destinations I remember, but the in-between moments where I didn’t know what was going to happen next but decided to take another step anyway. And in a way, isn’t that what life feels like most of the time? Not knowing where you are going but moving forward anyway?
