Last updated on January 3rd, 2026 at 02:20 pm
Yume Nikki – Roleplaying Game Review
Yume Nikki is a Roleplaying/Simulation game from caerux.co.ltd, first launched in 25th February 2019.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 78+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Yume Nikki Stand Out
A masterpiece remained in the history of RPG Tool "ゆめにっき".
This is the smartphone application version.
· This is a game that walking around the world in the dreams of a hikikomori named Madotsuki with a very dark atmosphere.
· There is no particular story or purpose. It is just a walking game.
· If you interact with a specific character in a dream world, you can collect "effect".
· The appearance of the main character changes with "effect".
· If you use the same "effect" again, you return normally.
· You can collect "effects" only in a room of 12 doors.
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Yume Nikki is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 4th March 2019
Recent improvements include:
Effect's name changed: "Whistle" to "Flute".
minor text fixes
Download & Availability
Yume Nikki is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Yknow, a lot of people talk about Yume Nikki as a weird game. A game that makes no sense. And we thought that too. A game without purpose, where you walk through dreams. Until, something dawned on us. The meaning of Yume Nikki. What is it? Why was it made? Who is Madotsuki, and why is she so traumatized? What happened to her? Thats the wrong questions. You see, Madotsuki isnt a name. Its a word, in Japanese. It means, window. And the moment we learned that, we got flooded with a wave of emotions Ive never felt before. Yume Nikki is about YOU. You might not realize it, but humans think very similarly. And this game is the combination of not every humans fears, but YOURS. What makes a game scary may be up to you, but this world, these dreams, are all based on thoughts youve had. We may seem delusional, but trust us. Play this game with the sole purpose as looking into a game-ified version of your thoughts. Your inner fears, dreams, and monologues. We want to say the same for Yume 2kki. But it defeats the purpose. It creates peoples whole lives into one game, giving so much lore into it. And yet, at the same time, there are scenes in which we truly felt ourselves. So its not a bad game. It just loses the message sometimes. So, what is Yume Nikki? Why and how is it about you? Well, play it. If you dont understand, then play it. The meaning of life, at least to us, was explained through this game. What does it mean to be alive? What is considered bad and good? What is the meaning of dreams? Why are we sentient? Questions answered in Yume Nikki that people look over, refusing to accept them as messages and instead pass them off as weird areas and events. The effects all tell a story, and dropping them off is even more meaningful. The ending seems sad, but when you look at it long enough and hard enough, it will all become clear. Its hard to explain, but, remember that Madotsuki is a window. Whatever happens to her isnt necessarily what happens to you. You control her, and she resembles you. She uses both men and womens restrooms because its impossible to tell what gender you are. From behind the screen, the ending isnt the end. At least, not for you. Its Madotsuki telling you the meaning of life from behind that screen, and her leaving is her telling you to use what youve learned in reality rather than stick around to keep playing. Ive learned many lessons from Yume Nikki, and we didnt even realize it at first. This game seems just like a fever dream filled with strange people and odd events, but you dont have to stare hard to realize what they mean. You just have to accept that all these things, these feelings, these people and events; are a part of you. And what happens at the ending isnt bad, its an awakening. A calling to understand what it means to be alive. What lessons you take from this game are up to how you interpret the world, but theres one thing that all people who look at the game in this light should learn: Those who choose to learn about pain and grief, to journey their own fears and thoughts without much notice, are the ones who kill NPCs. Its the people who accept this world as their own, their sandbox, who choose to keep them alive. Those who journey into the deepest part of the game, and find out that Kikiyama means machine mountain, will eventually find a mountain filled with machines. That mountain is your house, only accessible with what you learned from your dreams and traumas. The machines are the device you play on, and the creature in that place, is Kikiyama themself. You are Kikiyama. The game is yours. It is your world, and what you choose to do determines who you are. Your own psyche is written with what the game shows you on your first play through, whether you like it or not. You wont understand what this means, what any of this means, until you play it with one thought and one only: Yume Nikki is about ourselves. The port is okay. The controls are odd. But it works. We recommend playing it for free on Steam, though. Most people already know the ending, but if you dont know how to get it, drop all 24 effects in the Nexus with the 5 Key. Then, wake up and walk to the balcony. We dont recommend using the Bike Effect most of the game. It ruins the atmosphere of slowly walking around, unless youve already been there several times. This game is designed to get you lost. Understand that, and youll have fun looking for secrets.
Ive been waiting a very long time to try Yume Nikki, and when we discovered it was on the app store we immediately downloaded it! We got to the ending, and WOW. Dont listen to some of these reviews, we havent recieved ANY bugs, other then that if you go to another app and leave the game open, and then go back into the game, the sound shuts off. Not horrible, because it fixes when you restart the game. Anyway, Yume Nikki is a really fun game for Undertale, EarthBound, and Omori lovers! You NEED to download it.
This is our favorite game but sometimes the sound drops out and theres no music and sound effects we wonder if Im doing it wrong.
We played it today and we went to Ponikos house and turned the light off (tap the screen where the switch is) and UBOA was there and we got teleported to the bloody world after trying to stab it Also the controls are confusing at first but they end up working out (and super helpful for the wilderness) It should be free still bc original was but ehhhhhhhhh.
This is a great game but the white desert b is really glitchy.
We didnt have any issues with any bugs save for one – when the game is backgrounded and foregrounded again the sound is lost. This wasnt a huge deal for us though, since we just chose to restart the app if that happened and the sound would be back. We were able to complete the game with no other issues. Apart from the one sound issue we think the port was great. We used to play Yume Nikki on our computer before trying this port, and its as we remembered it. You can move through on screen controls or by tapping on the screen. We think the tap to move feature really helps make the game more playable on the phone. One reviewer was mentioning black screens, but some of the worlds are meant to be dark. If that is what they were experiencing then that wouldnt be a bug. We didnt have any issues with any of the worlds. All in all really happy this port exists.
We ADORE this game. Its easily our favorite indie (kinda but not really) horror game. But why are the effect names changed? Its a little disorienting. Overall, a solid port of a solid game.
This game was possible one of the best rpgs Ive played so far. The environment, sound track, possibly everything in this game gave us a great time of playing. Yes the English translation our not be the same as the Japanese but its a very great port and we recommend this to yume Nikki fans.
A lot of reviews here say that the game runs slowly and thanks to another review, we found out that this is due low power mode being on, so make sure to charge up before playing! Other than that, at least for ME, everything worked fine; the sound, graphics, and overall mechanics had no problems at all and we were able to enjoy the game on our phone. Paying was worth it for us because it was otherwise incompatible with our Mac because of the new Catalina update we get that it should be free, but this sacrifice was worth it for us to be able to play this incredibly captivating game.
We feel like the other reviews are being rather nitpickish. The game, to us, plays well for what it is on mobile. We own the original PC game, and honestly… We like it either one.
After reading the reviews, we had serious doubts about buying this app. But because we absolutely love this game so much, we decided to bite the bullet and we bought the app. First thing we noticed that that it was half the speed of the original. Many reviews say this, but we quickly discovered that you just have to turn off low power mode to have it run at normal speed. It is just like the original but with some inaccurate names for the effects, but other than that, we would say this is really worth it if you like Yume Nikki. But, there is only one problem. You cant rotate the screen. It is always with the charger pointing to the right side of the phone, and even if you rotate the phone, nothing changes. But its not even that big of a problem, its only an issue if you are charging your phone and it creates an awkward angle. Overall, great app, and the other reviews are making it seem really bad, which its not. We like it a lot.
Havent played through all of it but its a solid port Controls are a bit iffy but not unplayable Only real complaint is the highlight appearing when holding a button down too long which is a bit jarring when playing but other than that Solid.
But it has a minor glitch where the controls will get highlighted if you hold them for too long. This doesnt affect gameplay though but it is kind of visually off putting and with the haptic buzz its a little interrupting. Visually the game is the same with only a major difference of the number keys being on screen which cover up gameplay a little bit. We under stand why its there, we just wish theyd put the actions in the menu so the game could be more visually appealing. These problems wont get fixed though obviously because the game hasnt been updated in years and Im sure Kadokawa is done developing this port. If you want the true Yume Nikki experience we suggest playing it on PC the way Kikiyama intended; plus its free on PC and Steam.
Ive been a fan of Yume Nikki for a long time, so once we learned it was on mobile we immediately downloaded it. Its a little glitchy, but the only time its really bothered us was when we were in the Wilderness B area and the game froze so we had to wake up and lose our progress. Other then that, its a really good port.
So we actually had no problems with bugs and glitches. Actually it works perfectly fine but however the controls for the game are difficult to say but easy to know because when we used the chair on the dreamworld we had to go backwards to get to the desk but we hope the game can get updated sooner or in the future.
We love it and all, and it's almost identical to the original but for some reason the audio isn't working for us overall it's amazing.
Yume Nikki deserves to have a great iOS port. Although this app plays well on our iPhone it does not look as great or run as well on the iPad. On the iPhone it performs flawlessly and feels very similar to the original classic except for a few menu and sound bugs. But for $2.99 this mobile port is a must grab for any huge Yume Nikki fan. To bad there is no controller support. Maybe that could be implemented in a future update.
The game works and it is fun to play.
So Ive never played Yume Nikki before, and after the pain of trying to get it to run on PPSSPP (its a long story) we just decided to get the iOS port. We havent played it much, but after a little bit, we noticed a couple bad issues with the port. It looks, sounds, and runs great (with low power mode OFF) on our iPhone 14, but the touch controls are really bad. We tried connecting our Backbone, but it doesnt work. Theres also clicking in the audio sometimes, and again, the touch controls are just miserable. If you hold on it for too long, it highlights it and does haptic feedback. Other than the awful touch controls and it costing money, its a good port.
Helloo, Im kinda new to this game so we dont really know what the objective is or how to play it much, but we will say its really laggy at some points and we need to refresh it, but its not that bad so far :).
We mean, its a good game id say, but the screen is always flashing in the background. Hurts our head after a while. If they still update the game id say to at least fix that part.
Hello, we had this game on IOS for maybe less than a year and somehow the game itself keeps glitching often and idk what to do to get it to stop or change. Ive redownloaded and so on and no matter what it still glitches in the entire game itself and especially in black background maps. Please fix this. We love this game with a passion and was very happy this got to be mobile. We hope this can be resolved so we can go back to playing it again.
The frame rate makes it nearly unplayable. At times it feels like its running at half speed. Im looking forward for a fix, but for now Id be wary of buying this game.
Id prefer that every time we play that our screen doesnt flip upside down.
So we realized this isn't the real version of the game and that things have been removed from the game and that kinda pisses us off because we spent money on this game and we want our money back.
Downloaded this game, and could not get past the first couple of screens before it crashed. Absolutely unplayable until we switched off our wifi and now it plays perfectly fine. Not quite sure why this game keeps attempting to use our wifi/ data though. We turned off cellular on this game after being prompted and it didnt seem to affect anything. The game itself shows its age with an outdated clunky ui. Still, we enjoyed playing the game. Hope this review helps anyone who ends up in a similar situation.
It plays very slow for us, we were excited to play it on mobile and we bought it right away as a yume nikki fan but this port felt a bit lazy to us.
This game is a classic but the publishers dont even update this app. It no longer can run in current iOS. Ive been scammed, waste of money.
Ok while Im happy playing Yume Nikki for the very first time we for some reason cannot for the life of us interact with the walking lamp guy to get our lamp effect!!! Please for the love of god port this amazing game to the Switch or else Ill be very upset with you PLAYISM.
The sound constantly clips, numerous sound effects are distorted (including Madotsuki's footsteps which you hear constantly), the controls are incredibly clumsy with no right to be, screen can't be rotated, and the original PC version is free. Others defending this port don't mention any of these issues and focus on the easily fixable framerate issue. This reeks of a typical dumped-onto-mobile port to pander to the East Asian market and its preference for portability no matter the cost, including having to pay for a free game.
As of November 2020, this port in unplayable with iOS 14. The textures are replaced with a nauseating flickering. Theres a lot of glitches and instances in which the screen starts spinning. It honestly hurts our eyes a lot. Please, please patch this.
Upon starting the game, we just get a flashing white screen. Ive gotten t to start once, but there are so many graphical glitches that its unplayable. It may work if you have a different iPhone but it doesnt work for us at all :(.
Very laggy at times, so laggy it becomes unplayable unless you can find a way to get rid of whatever is causing it. Save yourself the money and dont buy this, it doesnt look like itll ever be fixed.
Love the original game. When we play this on our iPhone all the backgrounds are flashing black and white. Its almost unplayable. Really disappointed. :(.
We love Yume Nikki. It is a great game, and we were very excited to play it on our phone. We were hoping that it was free but we were willing to pay a few dollars for it anyway. However, after we downloaded this game and pressed play, all that we saw was a flashing screen. No matter how many times we closed down the app or reopened it the screen would still just flash wildly. We could hear the games music but nothing appeared on the screen. So if you buy this game just know that this might happen to you. We were hopeful that this would be at least an ok port after seeing some of the reviews, but no, we just got ripped off. The game is great but this is simply unplayable. If you want to play this game please get it on a PC, not on here. We are so disappointed.
Just a heads up to anyone considering buying this port as of oct 2020. The screen flashes severely to the point of the game being unplayable. Pls patch </3.
We have an iPhone 11 running iOS 14 and the game glitches to the point of not working. Needs a patch.
First of all, we never bother with reviews, but Yume Nikki is a game so near and dear to our heart that we cant stand seeing it done so dirty. First of all, the price point. If Im going to /pay/ for a game thats free on PC, it better be good. Especially more than a dollar. A huge issue in the game is the framerate. Going up/down staircases easily takes double the time it would normally, and the bike effect and speed glitch do little to help that. It takes an excessive amount of time. The controls arent intuitive, but we understand porting a game like this onto a device with no keyboard is difficult. Another technical issue is the fact that the music clips almost constantly, making some areas a pain to be in with sound on. Theres also a nitpick with the changing of some names. Medamaude and yuki onna have been changed to eye palm and snow woman, which makes it hard for a die hard fan to locate in the menu. Im excited to have a version we can take anywhere, but there are too many flaws right now for us to be able to excuse having to pay three dollars for an otherwise free game.
This is not running properly, we wanna play this asap. It got us excited, but a simulator lagging like this? Comon.
We were surprised to see Yume Nikki on the App Store. We bought it without hesitation. Loading up the the game, everything looked and sounded as it did with the original PC release, but unfortunately the game ran at a snails pace. It is much, much slower than the original game, making it unplayable. Our only hope at this point is that a future update addresses this issue, but until then, please avoid this port.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.7
- Size: 57.89 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: EN, JA
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
- Developer: [caerux.co.ltd]()
Last updated: 4th March 2019 | Genre: Roleplaying, Simulation | Developer: caerux.co.ltd