Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends

October Update - Slumberland, GDEX, and more!
about 15 hours ago – Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 06:59:11 PM

Hello Dreamers! Adrian here.

We've been slower to respond this month, but that's because it's been a big month at Team Nemo, Inc., as we push toward finishing Slumberland's level layout, design new bosses, win awards, and a lot more that we're excited to tell you about (including pushing towards the big Early Access release!)

Title Screen

But first and foremost, check out our new title screen!

There are still some elements we're working on with the opening of the game, but just this new title with the illustration makes it feel much more professional, don't you think?

Speaking of the illustration, it was provided by our artist Grace McCormack, who most recently assisted on promotional art for the upcoming Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee rerelease! Grace has been helping us out with some of the more illustrative artwork you'll find in the game. This includes a new feature we'll be sharing more about in the near future, but here's a sneak peek at what she's been working on:

Effects! 

Not much to say here, other than Chris was possessed by the spirit of "game feel" one Sunday and produced a ton of hit effects to "juice" the game. We're working on getting them in so the game can feel as good as it can, but here's a preview. See if you can see which effect pairs with which character! 

Slumberland

Chris has been beautifying many of the environments and other areas in the last of the game's four major biomes, Slumberland, while Max has been working on the overall design flow of each part for the level itself.

Meanwhile, Ben's hard at work bringing one of Winsor McCay's monstrosities to life. The full illustration of the boss will be coming soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy my lovely mock-up I made to illustrate the boss' overall design and attack patterns:

GDEX 2026 and the Games as Art Festival

One of our usual stops every year is at the GDEX conference in Columbus, Ohio. This was a smaller event this year, having moved to a new site to create a developer-focused retreat of sorts, but with the usual expo floor where folks can try out upcoming indie games. The quieter setting gave lots of opportunities for the team to build new content together. Chris even busted out the Wacom tablet on the show floor to do a "live animation demo", resulting in the art for 2 bosses, the "Pie Faced Sciatica" (the prototype of which can be found above), and the "Mom Rath", which is a giant version of our regular Mome Rath enemy. 

The game was also accepted for the Games as Art Festival at the University of Tampere in Finland. This is a HUGE honor and shows how the game is progressing to not just succeed at the usual local-or-regional-to-us shows, but also increasingly at national and international venues. It all helps us know we're delivering the best game we possibly can! 

Conclusion

That's all for this update. We're pushing toward an early access release in the very near future - currently targeting mid-December or January - so we'll have lots more to share on Slumberland, our upcoming early access release trailer (!), and many other things soon. It's exciting times, everyone!

Please also enjoy some of these random shots taken on the GDEX floor of story scenes you haven't seen yet from Nemo's arrival in Slumberland, and the big Slumberland parade sequence! 

We'll be back soon with additional gameplay info and videos as we approach that Early Access date. Quick update on rewards - we've the first wave of things packed up and ready to ship - more on that soon as well. The end is in sight! Until next time, Dreamers,

~ Adrian

August Update
about 2 months ago – Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 07:02:38 AM

Hi Dreamers!

It's been a super busy August, and there's light at the end of the tunnel!  We're well into building Slumberland now, and pretty much have all of the rooms in place for each of our levels.

We had a big team meeting, and walked though every detail of the game, making sure we weren't missing anything.

We've been working on a lot of detail to get things as polished as possible.  I'm starting to pull out all of our debug UI elements, and working on effects, transitions, and just general polish.  I've been particularly focused on the Bosco traveling.

We've got new enemies, bosses, and level design done this month, including Flip's uncle, the Dawn Guard (who gets nightmareized, and isn't too impressed with Flip's antics).

Lastly, we have an update on all the physical goods!  We're starting to put together the packages (and I'll be happy to have this stuff out of my basement!).  We locked the addresses on BackerKit, and we're getting ready to start sending the first wave of stuff out very soon.

It's been a long road to Slumberland, but we're getting closer and we can finally see the end in sight!  If you haven't signed up for the playtest on Steam you should!

Talk to you again soon!
- Ben and Team Nemo!

July Update
3 months ago – Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 12:32:06 PM

Hi Dreamers!
We've had a super busy summer so far, and wanted to share progress we've made.

The biggest news, is that we finally have a parade featuring our friends Kyle and Mega Ran.  We just got the music track, and the level is really coming together. 

We're also well into getting Slumberland proper out the door, and working on an art pass.
 

We've been tweaking the game intro based on feedback and also have a new music track for the opening rooftop section of the game.  I played saxophone on this one (and found a few seconds of footage on my phone).

We got in a bunch of physical items, including the art book and t-shirts and are getting ready to start shipping these.  We need one more music track for the game, and then we'll be ready to manufacture the records too!  (I'm thinking we do a poll about the colors.)

Finally, we had a great showing at Too Many Games!  We were nominated for Best Platformer, and had some great traffic and feedback on the game.

We're getting close to having everything in Act 1 ready and will have some announcements pretty soon.  Until then you can request access on Steam and I'm letting folks in when we push new builds.  Join the Discord if you haven't and say hi!  https://bit.ly/discordnemo

Talk to you all soon!
- Ben

Little Nemo @ TooManyGames '26!
5 months ago – Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 08:31:18 AM

Hi Dreamers! Adrian here.

This will be a short update this month because, as the subject says, we're hard at work getting ready for TooManyGames in Oaks, PA at the end of the month! We're planning to have a special version of Little Nemo & the Nightmare Fiends that will let players explore the current content in our latest build a bit more easily for the public demo compared to the intended gameplay experience. This will also include the current progress on Jack Frost's Palace, which will let players see Flip the Clown and his grappling antics for the first time! If you'll be in Oaks, PA from June 26-28th, come to TooManyGames, play our game and chat with us!

Even if you can't be at the show, we'll also be letting in a new batch of playtesters soon for our Steam Playtest. If you'd like to join in on the fun, head to our Steam page and click the button to join (and don't forget the ever-important 'Add to your wishlist' button, while you're at it!). We've been focusing on cleaning up the gameplay experience for TooManyGames, and your feedback really helps! Beyond bug fixes and a cleaner gameplay experience, we will also be adding character portraits for dialogue in a future update very soon!

We'll also have new updates for Slumberland, which is currently in development, along with new monsters, bosses, cutscenes, and are super-special guest stars, Mega Ran and Kyle Murdock, very soon! Keep a look out for our next update, and hope to see you at TooManyGames!

Until next time Dreamers,

~ Adrian

May Update - We're Back @ TooManyGames!
6 months ago – Mon, May 11, 2026 at 06:59:56 PM

Happy May, Dreamers! Adrian here.

We've been making good progress on Jack Frost's Palace that will be pushing to the public playtest soon for everyone to check out, so look forward to hearing more on that soon! And on that note, we've gotten so much great feedback from our community on the game, and we're directly using the feedback to make Little Nemo & the Nightmare Fiends an even better experience. We're going to have more about how your contributions have directly helped us with the game, so stay tuned for more of that as well! For now, let's jump into our update for the month.

TooManyGames 2026

We're happy to announce that we're coming back to the TooManyGames Indie Showcase in the greater Philadelphia area at the end of June! TooManyGames is one of our favorite shows, and with tickets selling fast, its shaping up to be a great show this year. The whole team will be there with the latest version of the game, so come out, chat with us, play the game, and check out all of the other awesome panels, vendors and games at the show. Games! There's just too many of them! Get tickets and see for yourself June 26th-28th. More information at the link below!

http://www.toomanygames.com

Jack Frost & Dawnguard Updates

We're doing a lot to get the Ice Palace environment ready for you. For those who have peeked in that area, there's a decent amount of space and platforming gameplay, but we had not put in all the story content. This is going to be an important environment, as it features the introductions of several major characters, including everyone's favorite green clown/Nemo's best friend, Flip! The Nightmare Fiends might also be escalating their attack as Nemo and crew move through that environment, including possessing a character that can melt all of Slumberland - the Dawn Guard! Check out what we have for you here (warning, some spoilers!) 

Here's a work-in-progress for when the Nightmare wisp that has been chasing Nemo and gang through the game finally reveals his identity! 

And here's a very work-in-progress version of the intro to our Dawn Guard fight (featuring a moonwalking horse - see it now before we fix it!) Doesn't that train look...familiar?

Conclusion

That's all for this update. If you haven't yet, please jump over to the Steam Page and join the public playtest (and also add the game to your wishlist!) so you can see the current progress on the game yourself. We'll be letting a new batch of playtesters in shortly as we continue to add content to the next section of the game for people to check out. And of course come chat with us over on Discord, the invitation link is on our website at http://www.littlenemogame.com

Also, we got a few questions regarding Steam game codes - the game is available for Steam Playtest, but codes have not gone out yet. We will be sending those out when Act I is available as an Early Access release. Basically, we'll take the playtest down at that point and non-backers will have to purchase the game, while backers (you all!) will get your codes! For those who have been checking out what we have so far and helping us hunt down various bugs, we appreciate you! 

Until next time Dreamers,

~ Adrian