Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends

June update! Game intro preview and a peek into the tech of the game
8 months ago – Tue, Jul 01, 2025 at 08:39:07 AM

Hello dear Dreamers!

It's been a busy few months. We've just about fully assembled the first draft and skeleton of the main gameplay and different levels, but a big effort beyond that has been bringing it all together via the game's story. For this update, we wanted to share the intro to the game, which we will release to backers soon (first the higher-tier playtest backers then more generally) so you can experience it for yourselves. 

Our goal above all else is to make it feel like a playable Winsor McCay comic, so we tried to bring together familiar story bits (it's all about the walking bed!), along with the tone and characterization for our heroes. Here's the preview of everything up through the beginning of the Night Sky level: 

While it's 6 or so minutes of gameplay, this is the result of months of work, so we wanted to give you a peek into the different tools and systems making this run.

We've talked a little about this before, but to help drive the cutscenes and interaction in the game we put together a mini scripting language.  You can can see these exact lines in the video above and can see the actors we refer to in these sequences.  

The animated sequences have been a combination of setting an actor's state (walking, jumping, etc) and driven by timeline animation.

The process of stitching all of this together is incredibly time consuming.  Max in particular has been combining these in some pretty awesome ways, and really hitting it out of the park with these cinema sequences.

We've been working on the game into pretty late in development for a couple of key reasons: as a teaching experience (this part of the game teaches you how to play the rest), we need to figure out what we should teach players by setting up and playing all of the later levels. It's also where the resources used to make the cool stuff in the rest of the game come together to create a great experience in the first few minutes.

All of this is to say that a lot of the systems we're using to string together the beginning are also being used to connect scenes throughout the game, such as this example of how players will come and go from the challenge levels in Befuddle Hall: 

That's it for now! We'll be reaching out soon with more info on those demos. 

Cheers,

Chris and Team Nemo

May Update - Setting up the Story
9 months ago – Tue, May 27, 2025 at 01:00:25 PM

Hey Dreamers! Adrian here.

May was a busy month for us over at Team Nemo! We've been toiling away at story sequences in our pre-existing levels, building more Befuddle Hall challenge levels that we mentioned in our previous update, adding new play mechanics and decorations to our Slumberland level, beginning to polish up the game's user interface, and so much more!

But over the past couple of weeks, we've been putting together a very important part of our game; the opening cutscenes. This is part of our push to start polishing up the beginning of the game for our next backer release which we'll have more information on soon!

Starting the Game

Part of our goal with the introduction is to build a sense of mystery and intrigue for Nemo's latest adventure, and we start our story set up with a conversation with two celestial figures, our homage to the introduction to the classic film 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Speaking of influences, if other elements of our interpretation of Little Nemo's outer space looks familiar, there's a good reason for that! We also took some visual inspiration from Georges Méliès' 1902 film 'A Trip to the Moon' and John Craig's illustrations for the Smashing Pumpkins 1995 album 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'.

After asserting the increased number of nightmares children are having as being a threat, we then cut to our hero Nemo, caught in his own nightmare. We wanted to make sure our intro got players into the game relatively quickly, so this sequence will be entirely playable.

We've shown pieces of this Nightmare sequence in previous updates, but with Chris' awesome background art and assistance from designer Max Kunze, the sequence is now in a playable state!

There's still some additional polish to add, as well as a bit of dialogue and context for the sequence, and other surprises as well. Before we move on to the next section, however, let's highlight some of the background elements that we're put together by Chris!

A Quick Slumberland Update

While we're patching together the opening to the game, we still want to make sure we're working on new areas of the game as well. Which is why Max has been hard at work on new mechanics, hazards and biomes that you'll see in Slumberland toward the end of act 1 of our game as well!

At one point, Nemo and his party will have to explore the Barracks, a dangerous part of Slumberland where that is well defended by the (perhaps overzealous) Slumberland guard. This early look showcases a work in progress where Nemo must contend with said guards dropping heavy weights on all who try to slip past them!

Max has also spent some time reworking the overall map of Slumberland, adding new twists and variety to each biome. Here's a look at the new layout for Slumberland's Kitchen area, which will also feature its own unique mechanics and hazards!

Finally, we're working on locked doors that can only be unlocked by hitting switches and solving puzzles with one of the four playable characters in our game, starting with the Princess, who players will get access to for the first time in Slumberland. Here are some concepts drawn up by Chris of some of the switches you may come across:

Conclusion

This is only a small showcase of all of the progress we made this month! Our goal for June is to continue to polish up the game's introduction, adding new mechanics such as the game's shop for buying abilities, upgrades and collectables, polishing our cutscene UI and getting every story sequence from the beginning through to our game's second level. From there, we plan to have a fully featured release for backers very soon, and to have regular updates to those playable builds on a consistent basis from that point. So stay tuned to this space for all this and more in the coming weeks!

Until next time, Dreamers!

~ Adrian

April update - intro levels and some befuddling challenges!
10 months ago – Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 09:30:36 AM

Hello dear backers!

It's been a hectic but productive April at Team Nemo HQ. It's seen us shoring up the beginning areas of the game to prepare for an Early Access release (distinct from the full Act I release, so even a bit sooner!) This update is going to share some output from those efforts, alongside some previews and eye-candy. 

First of all, that city intro level. To give you some context, this is going to happen RIGHT AFTER Nemo wakes up from a nightmare and finds Peony waiting to sweep him off to Slumberland. Nemo and Peony hop on Nemo's bed, which grows legs just like the classic July 27, 1908 comic:

Our version will see Nemo's bed get spooked by a nightmare creature, which causes it to run through the town, and eventually dump Nemo and Peony on the rooftops, after which Nemo must chase the bed so it can take him up into the Night Sky. The result is a zany action sequence where Nemo leaps from roof to roof and fights some dream monsters (to teach the player the basic jump and attack commands), while the other floating beds of the town act like platforms for Nemo to jump on. 

This is still a work-in-progress, so you'll notice some of our developer notes still in the level as we animate the bed encounters that you'll have throughout the level (please also pardon some of the background chatter in the audio - for whatever reason it recorded ambient stuff.) Here are some sketches of what we have in mind: 

You may notice a few fun Easter Eggs in this video, like Nemo's new ability to throw candy to cause small amounts of damage to enemies (something we thought our retro gaming fans would like!), as well as a view of the New York Herald building in one of the backgrounds - the newspaper where Little Nemo in Slumberland was originally published! Since a lot of the team is based in Cleveland though, we may have put in a few of our own local touches (check out those statues on the clock tower!) 

Here are some other shots of this area: 

Befuddle Hall!

We've also had a ton of level design happen in some of the aforementioned challenge levels. Level Designer Max Kunze has done an awesome job mixing and matching different game mechanics to create challenge levels. You'll enter these levels by talking to different NPCs in the game - some who like to arrange fights, some who like to build obstacle courses, and some that dream of design! Some of these are playable by any character, but some are challenges for individual characters, or even combinations of characters (so players can see how their powers might work together.) 

(All of these video previews are works in progress and subject to change - unless you really like the moonwalking enemies in the one video...) 

These have gotten enough of their own identity (and became quite surreal in some cases), that we decided to theme them after Befuddle Hall - a section of Slumberland that Nemo and friends explore in the original comics and which feature different optical illusions. We thought it would be fun to not only use McCay's art, but create some inspired by later surreal artists like M.C. Escher and Rene Magritte. 

Here's some of what we have so far (again, all rough/in-progress and subject to change/have further refinement): 

Here's a taste of these designs and some of this artwork working together (with a little inspiration from Castlevania IV's rotating room!):

That's about it for the stuff we can show you from this month's work, but there's plenty more where this all came from. Once again, we appreciate the patience with the work - it's taken longer and been bumpier than we thought it would be in the context of the games industry from just a few years ago, but we're able to keep moving forward with this game when a lot of studios haven't been. For those who've never done it, video games take a long time to make, and the past few years have made them take even longer! We're really happy with the results so far (including on stuff we can't show quite yet!) and are looking forward to having it in your hands soon! 

Cheers and many thanks,

Chris and Team Nemo

March Update
11 months ago – Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 11:51:11 AM

Hi Dreamers,
March just flew by!  We've been hard at work polishing what we're calling our Act 1, and fleshing out all the final details. As we told you last month, we're building our intro scenes, which includes a trip though the rooftops of Nemo's neighborhood, and an initial nightmarescape level to give you a preview of what's to come. We've also been hard at work on some upgrades to the characters that we will put throughout the game, including some that are Easter Eggs for Little Nemo fans.

We're also settling in on the puzzles that populate Nemo's house, and that act as the gates between the different dream worlds.  It's all coming together and is going to feel super adventure game-ish: we're super excited to get you playing soon.

The game is more or less broken down into two Acts.  The first act being the more traditional Metroidvania style of exploring the world and unlocking skills and characters as you make your way to Slumberland, and the second act more exploratory and quest-focused as you track down the Nightmare Fiends.  As you complete missions you'll gather Figments which will eventually open new pathways to the hideouts of the Nightmare Fiends.  The story we want to tell has a natural break at the end of Act 1, after a rather shocking reveal.

There have also been lots of updates in Slumberland. This area has been a big project since it includes so many different unique biomes, but the work is very much paying off! Here are some editor shots from one of our favorite areas, the garden, and a hint at some environment art for other areas: 

We'll have more info about timing on everything soon, including backer rewards.  Thanks so much for sticking with us as we chip away at the game. 

Since we're getting close on our Act 1, we've made a decision to launch this into Steam Early Access as soon as possible so everyone can start playing while we work on the Act 2 content (which we plan on continually adding). We've put a ton of effort into this project and think we have something really special that we can't wait to share. As we said during the campaign, backers will all get access to this regardless of chosen platform. If you read game industry news, you know that it's not the same industry it was when we started the project. But where other studios have had to close up shop, we've been able to pivot and keep the project going by keeping a steady pace. We know it seems like a long time to the folks eagerly awaiting the game, but we've been able to make a lot of progress that we think you all will be very happy with. 

Cheers and many thanks,

Ben and Team Nemo

February update - a big month of progress!
12 months ago – Fri, Feb 28, 2025 at 02:43:29 PM

Happy February Dreamers,

This has been a big month for us, moving towards some major milestones that we hope we can tell you about soon. With some of this in mind, we're going to quickly run down some of the major developments that we're able to share. 

Fleshing out the game intro

A big lift this month has been fleshing out the beginning of the game, where Nemo is going to have a nightmare then be awoken by Peony, who will guide him to Slumberland before his bed runs away and starts stomping through his hometown. Some of this is very work-in-progress, but our goal is to be able to walk front to back through the entire Act 1 edition of the game and have all the game spaces laid out, over having everything with polished art (again, more info on this mindset soon). 

Without giving away too many details, here's a sample of some of what we've been working on (again, these have some art but are still a work in progress and do not reflect the absolutely final look or design):

Challenge levels

Another lift has been creating challenge levels akin to the void levels in Astro Bot or the rifts in Kirby and the Forgotten Land - short, sweet, and focused on mastery of one or a few game mechanics. These will be used in some of the game's side quests. Right now, we've mostly focused on single-character levels, but we are going to continue expanding these to include multi-character challenges. 

These are all currently in the "graybox" stage of design, meaning that they do not feature their final artwork - they will get appropriate set dressing when they are fully playtested and finished. We're also in the process of making triggers for things like making doors unlock when enemies are killed, etc, but this should give you an idea of how these areas will look from a design perspective. 

CANDY!

Some of you may be looking at this headline like, "Wait...you already collect candy...what's the big deal here?" We decided to put in a fun Easter Egg by giving Nemo a candy attack if you press the attack button and up on the control stick or directional buttons. This won't cause a ton of damage to enemies and does eat up your candy supply, but it can be an option for players looking for a challenge. 

Beyond this fun callback to the NES game though, candy is the game's currency, and we're also in the process of adding in Doctor Pill's shop to the game. Here's some of the art for it below:

Monsters!

Are are also a few new monsters for the game, colored and ready for implementation: 

That should be all for now - we're looking forward to sharing what we have in the coming weeks as we continue sprinting towards our next milestones!

Again - we know the game is taking longer than folks wanted, but we want to make sure we can make this the Little Nemo game that Nemo and friends deserve, so thank you for your continued patience. We promise that it will pay off soon! 

Cheers,

Chris and Team Nemo