The Invisible Smoke Factory (2024): A Point-and-Click Reimagination of Yume Nikki
The Invisible Smoke Factory (2024): A Point-and-Click Reimagination of Yume Nikki
The Invisible Smoke Factory (2024) is a fangame created by Kanderwund, reimagining the concept of Yume Nikki (2004) created by Kikiyama. While Yume Nikki focused more on player movement through arrow keys, The Invisible Smoke Factory utilises a point-and-click system to navigate the game. Both games revolve around the surrealism of dreamscapes and the horrors scattered throughout these liminal spaces.After playing Yume Nikki first, I was less than satisfied with the playstyle of the game. While I appreciated the concept and stylistic choices Kikiyama generated, the game itself fell flat when my personal entertainment was on the line. I felt that there was no true objective (which is generally the idea) and shortly became bored of exploring for this reason. The Invisible Smoke Factory, however, made me feel a sense of adventure that Yume Nikki wasn’t able to provide. Perhaps the usage of point-and-click navigation aided this engagement, as I felt I had more control over what I was seeing with fewer steps. I could easily explore each room with the click of my mouse rather than constantly circling the same area with my arrow keys, becoming bored with no driving narrative.Though Yume Nikki does have one objective (two if you count the player’s sense of exploration), The Invisible Smoke Factory develops this same ‘scavenger hunt’ process, though in a much more effective way. Yume Nikki allows players to find hidden cosmetic items for the character Madotsuki to wear. However, this is not generally an encouraging aspect of the game; instead, it is something that is discovered while playing. The Invisible Smoke Factory makes the objective clear from the beginning: there are 11 pages to find during your journey exploring the dream realm. Each collected page sends the player back to the opening room, where the process of searching for pages begins again.Each room has a horror-esque vibe, with body horror as the main theme. The game itself is not scary, and I can compare the uncanniness of the scenery built to Yume Nikki, each generating eerie and somewhat familiar spaces and places. I found that The Invisible Smoke Factory had more lore surrounding the game universe, with the pages showing images and stories that linked to the main plot.One outstanding storyline was the ‘Boss’, which was found deep within one of the rooms. His motive is to encourage you to continue finding pages, in turn, bringing the game to a close. This feature added more of a sense of accomplishment to the game than Yume Nikki. I felt that I was truly playing a game and completing tasks instead of just exploring.With my personal gameplay insights aside, The Invisible Smoke Factory is a brilliant recreation of Yume Nikki, though it proves to be its own game. I would say that while both games follow a similar structure, The Invisible Smoke Factory has a way of enveloping horror in a slightly more controlled and narrative-driven environment.
References
Kanderwund. (2024). The Invisible Smoke Factory [Video game]. Self-published.Kikiyama. (2004). Yume Nikki [Video game]. Japan: Kikiyama.
