Really gorgeous fangame. Basically a Yume 2kki spiritual successor without the years of bloat and building upon worlds upon worlds upon abandoned content from 2007, and without some of the really low quality recent updates. It’s refreshing. The pacing here is a lot more consistent and considerate of the whole: the effects here aren’t clustered around specific classic authors’ easy to access content like in 2kki, for example; they are as deep in the dreamworld as Collective Unconscious gets. I do think maybe a little is lost - you don’t really have the wataru-esq long, isolated, authored pathways in this game, for example - but it’s hard to deny that Collective Unconscious is much less abrasive and that it’s much easier to find high quality areas while playing.

I really do hate that it’s online only, though. You can find an offline build on the internet through unofficial channels, fortunately, but I don’t really think Collective Unconscious does enough to justify its multiplayer exclusivity: sure, you can emote, and the levels and nexus are designed around multiplayer a little bit, but I still spend most of my time alone or almost alone doing the same things as any other fangame. I enjoy Yume Nikki Online and play with friends on it sometimes, but I’ve always found it to have way less atmosphere. Even on immersion mode, without other people, the streamed-from-the-cloud audio quality, framerate, and fullscreen options are just worse than natively run EasyRPG player. Not to mention that the extrinsic motivation driven badge system leaves me distracted and anxious (better hope you don’t miss an event that will give you a badge, else you’ll have to come back here, 15 dream worlds deep, if you ever want 100% completion!) YNO is cool, and has brought a lot of attention to games that deserve it, but I fear that it may start to be seen as the default option for the Yume Nikki community.

Collective Unconscious is an exceptional start and harkens back to first playing 2kki: a seemingly infinite library of interesting worlds to be lost in for hours, chasing stories of picaresque landscapes that you one day hope to discover for yourself. It feels modern, high quality, and satisfying to play; I’ve had fun interactions with randoms and gotten lost in Shrimp World with friends. I know that the devs intend to add more multiplayer specific features…but, until then, if my friends are busy, I’ll stick to playing locally.

Really gorgeous fangame. Basically a Yume 2kki spiritual successor without the years of bloat and building upon worlds upon worlds upon abandoned content from 2007, and without some of the really low quality recent updates. It’s refreshing. The pacing here is a lot more consistent and considerate of the whole: the effects here aren’t clustered around specific classic authors’ easy to access content like in 2kki, for example; they are as deep in the dreamworld as Collective Unconscious gets. I do think maybe a little is lost - you don’t really have the wataru-esq long, isolated, authored pathways in this game, for example - but it’s hard to deny that Collective Unconscious is much less abrasive and that it’s much easier to find high quality areas while playing.

I really do hate that it’s online only, though. You can find an offline build on the internet through unofficial channels, fortunately, but I don’t really think Collective Unconscious does enough to justify its multiplayer exclusivity: sure, you can emote, and the levels and nexus are designed around multiplayer a little bit, but I still spend most of my time alone or almost alone doing the same things as any other fangame. I enjoy Yume Nikki Online and play with friends on it sometimes, but I’ve always found it to have way less atmosphere. Even on immersion mode, without other people, the streamed-from-the-cloud audio quality, framerate, and fullscreen options are just worse than natively run EasyRPG player. Not to mention that the extrinsic motivation driven badge system leaves me distracted and anxious (better hope you don’t miss an event that will give you a badge, else you’ll have to come back here, 15 dream worlds deep, if you ever want 100% completion!) YNO is cool, and has brought a lot of attention to games that deserve it, but I fear that it may start to be seen as the default option for the Yume Nikki community.

Collective Unconscious is an exceptional start and harkens back to first playing 2kki: a seemingly infinite library of interesting worlds to be lost in for hours, chasing stories of picaresque landscapes that you one day hope to discover for yourself. It feels modern, high quality, and satisfying to play; I’ve had fun interactions with randoms and gotten lost in Shrimp World with friends. I know that the devs intend to add more multiplayer specific features…but, until then, if my friends are busy, I’ll stick to playing locally.