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Posts Tagged ‘SEGA’

 

Spark up your Ideya dreamers – It's epic competition time here at NiGHTSintodreams.Com with amazing prizes of brand new official merch from SEGA!
With tons of prize packs up for grabs everyone has a good chance of winning something really special in time to celebrate the HD release of NiGHTS into dreams… this October.
After our successful fan campaign supporting a rerelease of the original game and NiGHTS hitting the track for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, it's time for even more fan love from the company.

What can you win in this competition?

The main prize up for grabs are these wonderful official NiGHTS pillow cases created for this competition and promo use. You can't buy these anywhere! This is the variant version of the black pillow case that SEGA held a competition for recently. The new white case features one of my favorite bits of artwork taken from the Japanese Saturn game's cover. It was also used a lot for our NiD15 campaign, so this one should mean a lot to you community guys out there especially. It fits a regular bed sized pillow and is made from a super soft fleece fabric.

But that's not all!

These lovely badges were created as promotional items for the recent PAX event in America. Seriously limited edition each set of 4 come in a little sealed baggie with a pretty backing card featuring NiGHTS. Each badge set includes NiGHTS, The game logo, Wizeman, Claris and Elliot.

 

We have lots of these to give away as prizes, so the top 20 winners will each receive a pillow case AND a set of 4 badges.
30 runners up will receive a set of 4 badges each.

We want you all to get creative with this one. Dreams are an amazing source of magic and inspiration, we all dream, even if we don't remember it – dreams are something we all have in common. For this competition I want to see you design yourself a dream persona. An alter ego. Over the years many of us have encountered our own personal dream creatures and personalities when we slept at night. NiGHTS into dreams… encouraged self interpretation and exploration of real dreams. So what would you look like when you dream? Draw a picture of your dream self, your alter ego in the world of Nightopia. Designs can take influence from Nightmarens, Nightopians and Dreamers. A wild reflection of yourself within the world of dreams.

This competition will be judged on imaginative and inventive designs – not artistic skill. If you want to you can also write a short paragraph about your creation to accompany your entry.

If you'd like some reference materials or inspiration for design you can check out our official character art archive [ here ].

* Entries can be digital or traditional. Traditional artwork can be sent to us by scanning it or taking a photograph if you don't own a scanner.
* Your image can be either full color or black and white.
* Any character description to accompany your design must be included in the same email entry you send us.

So when you've got your entry good and ready email it to us at [nidsubz@googlemail.com]

- The design concept must be done by you. It must not be a direct copy of someone elses fan character.
- Do not trace another artists work to create your own.
- ONE ENTRY PER PERSON.
- Entries are welcome from anywhere in the world :) I'll post prizes anywhere there is a NiGHTS fan!
- Nothing offensive please. Questionable entries will be rejected outright.
- By entering this competition you are agreeing to provide me with your name and an address to mail a prize to if you win. This information will be deleted straight after I've used it for the sole purpose of mailing prizes.
- If no response is received from a winner after 2 weeks their prize will be given to another suitable entrant.
- Winners will be notified by email after the closing date. The winning entries will be up for display on this website afterwards. Prizes will be sent out as soon as possible.
- Prizes are as stated. No cash equivalent or replacements are available for items lost in the post.

The closing date for this competition is the 5th of October 12pm GMT. No entries will be accepted after this date.
Winners will be announced on the 6th of October via this website.

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Calling all dreamers! Need help sleeping at night? Want NiGHTS' face in your FACE!? Then listen up!

SEGA today have unveiled a brand new bit of NiGHTS merchandise in the form of a pillowcase and it's up for grabs in their latest competition!

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win this snazzy bit of merch is tell SEGA about your dreams. They could be a dream that you have experienced while asleep or they could be a life long goal of yours. Whichever dream it may be, telling SEGA what that dream is could net you this prize.

For all the rules and details be sure to hit up the SEGA blogs over here -
http://blogs.sega.com/2012/08/13/share-your-dreams-and-win-a-nights-into-dreams%E2%80%A6-pillowcase/

Don't wait around! The closing date for this competition is – August 26th

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Taken from the original SEGA Facebook message:

"To our wonderful NiGHTS fans – we haven't forgotten that today is the 15th anniversary of NiGHTS, so happy 15th anniversary to NiGHTS and huge thank you! to everyone for supporting the character and game for all these years! How would you feel about seeing the original "NiGHTS into dreams…" being re-released? Also, if you think this is a good idea… which platform do you think NiGHTS should be released in? We'd love to hear your thoughts!"

 

Like I said. Nothing is impossible. SEGA themselves are now asking. And look at those numbers *lol* we hit over 6000 port votes today and Facebook is currently going crazy over NiGHTS.

Today is a good day to be a fan…

Get to it people : FACEBOOK. GO THERE. NOW

 

Happy birthday NiGHTS.

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Today I'm very happy to report that our NiGHTS digital port campaign has reached 3000 fans. Thank you for all your support in spreading the word and getting people talking about NiGHTS again. When we started this campaign we weren't expecting so many of you to sign up. So a major thanks is due to each and every one of you who told a friend, posted a topic online, linked back or just simply clicked once on the button.

This number may seem like a lot but we need a lot more than this if we are to convince SEGA that a digital port of of NiGHTS into Dreams is worth their time and money. So keep all that NiGHTS attention coming our way and pass the link around your gaming friends. You don't have to have been around in 1996 to vote for this – if you have a genuine interest in the NiGHTS franchise and want to see it get more recognition then add your click to our page :)

Http://www.NiD15.com

Great work guys!

And in SEGA related news – I got the job at SEGA Europe as a games tester. To say today is a good day would be an understatement. So happy I could explode in raging-fangirl glitter lol. So I guess now I work for SEGA. How long did that take me? XD 17 years of my life! Never give up on your dreams kids ;)

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     Every Friday SEGA Europe and SEGA America host a big prize giveaway on Twitter. You can win all sorts of assorted gaming merch, games and very rare collectable things. THINGS! I know you all can't get enough of things.

So anyhoo, today a nice bit of NiGHTS Journey of Dreams merch has gone up for grabs. A signed CD music sampler from JoD. These CD's were made in a very limited quantity for SEGA Europe as a promotional item, so to own one of these SIGNED by TAKASHI IIZUKA is something you should be interested in :) It's been signed this year too ( so you also get the amusing knowledge that (probably AAUK) hounds the guy to specificaly sign NiGHTS merch for us XD ). Iizuka-san you can never escape the NiGHTS fans! lol :D

If you'd like to be in with a chance to win this, along with some other spectacular prizes like Amigo ASR concept art prints, just go to Twitter.com and follow the official @SEGA account and wait for further instructions. Remember that you have to be following them and they have to be following you in return. Direct messages only when taking part as regular replies don't count.

Best of luck!

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Summer of Sonic 2010 - London. It's been well over a week now but I've been having a hard time trying to pinpoint everything good that happened on the day. I don't mean that in a generic way in the slightest, really, it was THAT good. I wish you'd all been able to attend, but to those of you who I did get the chance to meet and put in all that hard work – thanks for giving DiGi and I a perfect day :)

So where do i start exactly? Humm, well two days prior to the convention we had a lovely (stealthy- since him coming to SoS was a secret) evening meal in China Town with SEGA America's Ruby Eclipse. I've known Ruby for a good few years now since he used to frequent our forums long before he became a community manager at SEGA, long before any journeying of dreams, owls or other assorted bat-tights. Remember those days? Well Ruby's always been a big NiGHTS fan so it was great to finally just sit down and have a bit of chill-time. It's pretty interesting chatting to Aaron because he's like the SOA version of our AAUK (just without the hilarious Owl impressions). Perspectives make me smile. It makes me happy too that my own community members really follow their dreams. I'm a proud old admin ;-;

Reading the dinner menu was fun, we found you could actually order an ENTIRE roast pig (booked 24hours in advance mind!), but we settled for our regular fare, followed up by almost criminaly delicious deep fried icecream. Afterwards we took him on a bit of latenight sightseeing for photos. There exists a video of Big Ben bonging with DiGi cursing his head off in the background. All in all a great night out with good company.

The next day consisted of me running around doing everything I'd failed to do 3 days beforehand. This year we didn't want to be selling any Studio Imagni stuff at the con since last year was great but we were kinda stuck behind a table most of the time (well poor Jof was!) so this year we wanted to just mingle and enjoy the show. And boy what a show it was!

A few days prior to the convention DiGi and I had travelled down to AAUK's new house. You see, not only was Kevin doing his regular duties as community manager and running a huge fan convention – he was also in the middle of moving home! I'm not entirely sure how he managed to stay sane with all that going on at the same time, but a large box of plastic crabs may suggest otherwise. Kev, Becky and Blake were pretty much juggling home unpacking with Summer of Sonic delivery boxes. That takes some kinda madskills. So we just made it worse for them by handing them a stack of 600 NiGHTS campaign flyers, haha. Yeah the SoS crew were good sports and let us advertise our campaign by putting a flyer into every Summer of Sonic goodie bag this year. If you want to see my art up close you can check out my upload here:

Well after about 5 days of not sleeping due to some random insomnia I was suffering from… SUMMER OF SONIC – HAD ARRIVED!

Up at 6am we were determined to get to The Pavillion early enough to grab us some free swag, which included an amazing Metal Sonic figurine. We love collecting game and anime action figures and stuff so we had to get one of these. Actually we ended up with 2 of everything since we got a bag each. A funky exclusive Sonic print bag made especialy for the convention. If I'm feeling generous enough I might hold a mini competition later on where you can win my bag.

To cut a long story short, long queue was long and it started raining. We were also heckled by some drunken Kiwi's, Rugby fans, which DiGi took great skill in giving chatback to and banishing. Just standing in the line I had a lot of requests for photographs mostly from the general public (probably confused by my slightly mad hair, lol). The event was late in opening but from experience I've never attended any sort of convention where the thing opens on time, I didn't really mind waiting anyway since I knew it would be worth it. A few of the staff came up and talked to us personaly, letting us know something of the setup nightmare the crew were having to deal with inside. Problems with expensive computer equipment being stolen, excess furniture, capacity rules thrown in at the last minute and unhelpful venue staff were really pushing the team to the limit. But amazingly, despite all this, they took it in their stride and continued to give their personal best. I know the Sonic fanbase gets a lot of stick sometimes but when the staff work together to get stuff done they really pull a bit of a Sonic Heroes 'Team work' thing. It's all rather magical, lol. But I'll get into that more later. Standing in the queue we were approached by two lovely chaps from a website I follow on Twitter called Sonicitalia.net they recognized me because of the hair (yeah I get that a lot lol XD). It was at this point that I was told that a lot of attendees rather than wearing name badges have their forum/twitter/facebook avatars printed onto their T-shirts. Great stuff. Suddenly it was a lot easier to recognise folk I knew online!

Then like reaching some kinda spiritual (slightly more blue tinted) Mecca – we were IN. Just narrowly avoiding what became dubbed 'The Pidegon Panic Zone' we were handed two dayglow orange SoS goodie bags by the TROOPER OF A MAN ~ Urtheart. With our heads half in the bags and half remembering how to walk forwards we entered into the main hall which was something of a spectacle of Sonic goodness. My inner NiGHTS fangirl felt both a sudden twinge of jealousy and pride, haha. Nah, I'm just glad that our fanbase is always welcomed so warmly in the Sonic one. I guess we're like the really campy annoying spandexy cousins that only come around once a year to 'borrow' the lawn mower and never return it. But it's all good.

My memory fails me a bit here but i think the first person we bumped into was Dreadknux, telling us that we did indeed HAVE a Studio Imagni table (set up right next to STC's lovely Nigel D none the less), whoops, so if I wanted to use it to sell quick sketches or whatever I was free to do so. I considered making DiGi stand on the table and busk rap style for our lunch but I figured he wouldn't be too into that. So we left the table idea alone (for this year anyway!) and trotted off like ungrateful gits to enjoy the full awesome of the con itself :D

Something I will say straight away is that I was definately less shy with approaching people than I was last year. I've gotten to know a lot of the Sonic community better since then, especialy the staff, since we all went to Alton Towers and Expo together this year. Great bunch of guys and girls. This year we had tons of people come up and ask us for photos with them, knowing who we were. I guess hassling SEGA so much and being generaly irritating makes you some kinda fandom D listers, lol. We had a good few jokes about burning Sonic merch and campaigning for our own convention. It felt really nice to fit in and share in the laughs. After attending the hideously huge Expo this year I felt a lot more connected to the atmosphere of Summer of Sonic. I mean I might draw anime styled stuff but to be honest I don't really know a lot of anime things, I watch the odd DVD now and then but I wouldn't exactly say I'm a Otaku. Summer of Sonic was different, probably because everyone was there because they were fans of one universal thing – Sonic. Sure they might all have clashing opinons on what makes the series good or have website rivalries online, but for one day everyone just chills the hell out and gets on. It's nice. Very full of nostalgia too. When I was a kid I'd always wanted to go to the comic conventions down in England to meet the Fleetway bunch, but the distance made it impossible. Now I live in London this has been my chance to catch up on everything I missed as a Sonic obsessed teenager.

So many fans turned up! Something like well over 800 I think? After a while I lost count of the people I hugged to death and yelled hello at. We walked around taking in all the sights, eager to see what was to be seen this year. Firstly there was an ASR tournie happening on the second floor which DiGi took part in, good sportsmanship, even if some people were using the Tails boost glitch >___>;  ahem. The amazing rare merch cabinet made a welcome return, this year it had the actual Pixel Palace Sonic sketches on show from That Guy With The Glasses. Also the NiGHTS chao plushie and some amazing little Sonic plushies I'd never seen before. There was a crab in the cabinet… but somebody stole Kevins crabs! D: *lol* (that sounds so crazy but it really did happen). It's kinda sad how people will go to a convention and lift stuff like it belongs to them. I hope whoever was kind enough to steal things was jumped on the way home :]

Also two of the main events this year was the presence of both playable Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours. We stood in the line at one point to play Sonic Colours but after seeing how slow the line was moving we felt it best to give up our spaces to the hardcore Sonic fans and wandered on our merry way. From what we seen of other people playing Sonic 4 it looks great! I'm really looking forward to both games coming out. It's odd to say it but for once I'm actually properly excited. You should be too ;) This is Sonic Cycle combo breaking.

Wandering around the hall more we found the crazy mr Elson Wong selling his comics and art (DiGi's evil twin i think!), the STC online crew, Nigel being SWAMPED by adoring fans snapping up more of his original painted art that he was selling last year (I managed to get a quick wave in there), and a big area for people to chill and draw. That's one thing i definately liked this year, the amount of chairs and sitting spaces available. Very comfy sofas. Because it's all well and good walking about but with that many people in one place things get a little hot. Well actually quite a -lot- hot since there was no air conditioning, but to be honest i think it added to the experience haha. What's a real convention without sweaty fellow geeks? XD Other things I got to see was the AMAZING pixel/hama bead comic that Becky and Kev had created by hand. Dot by dot! I was so impressed they finally got it finished considering how massive it was. There was also a table with some neat Sonic customised dolls, backissues on sale and a mystical shop that i didn't get to even breathe on because it was so busy! There was a lot to see and do. This year we mostly hung out at the stage since last year we missed everything. At the stage we were treated to some hilarious animations, flat out comedy moments (come on Vger being forced to Caramel Dansen), Never Mind the Buzz Bombers – with the cutest littlest Sonic fan ever. I swear he knew more facts about Sonic than some of us older people. Which reminds me, DiGi and I had a few mumsy 'aww' moments upon seeing various little kids enjoying themselves on the day. It was a real reminder that Sonic spans real generations, from us kids in the early 90's to todays little guys. I really hope him and NiGHTS continue to be heroes for a new wave of youngsters discovering gaming. In a world full of grey and brown FPS games with not much but death and realism I'm glad that people can still appreciate the colorful imaginative fun games.

There was also a Kareoke singing competition Wrecks Factor Live! The guy who really stole the show was T-Bird's little brother who did a hilariously GREAT performance of the Sonic Underground themesong. Cosplayers were also out in force this year with the chance to win a trophy for best costume on stage. People kept asking if I was cosplaying as Knuckles…. what? XD I think it was my red hair and the goggles. My underlying Knuckles fanboyisms must still be apparent after over a decade, gosh! I kinda wanted to be cosplaying as NiGHTS but I'd have to remake my cosplay. Maybe next year. On my travels around the hall I came aross a BIG THE CAT COSPLAYER – who I promptly attacked for a photo. Just to prove the NiGHTS fanbase has no hard feelings at all towards the feline, even if he did get into ASR and NiGHTS didn't :p

Like I said I bumped into too many cool people to mention but an honorable mention goes out to Syaming-Li who not only is just badass but created the most spectacular Sonic custom converse shoes ever. So we stood there taking photos of his feet – because yes we're weird like that. No, really, look at his shoes:

Dude.

Another honorable mention, actually scratch that, HUGE GLITTERY SLOBBERING THANKYOU, goes to Nemain. She gave us one of the nicest moments of the con. We're just standing there chatting away to people and this girl of clearlyinsanemadness comes up to us brandishing a Christmas NiGHTS plushie. It turns out she won the recent Elliot/NiGHTS ebay lot and wanted to just GIVE us Christmas NiGHTS to keep. For nothing. What the hellllll! XD DiGi nearly cried, seriously. It was so sweet of her to come up and thank us for our campaign and stuff, never mind give us a damn rare as hell Christmas NiGHTS plush. Needless to say she is like my favourite person of the entire convention now and I can't ever thank her enough for the happiness she gave us :) It's stuff like that that reminds me why I'm a fan in the first place, no not because people sometimes give me free stuff lol, the fact that people love NiGHTS enough to do nice things for other fans. It just reminds you it's all worth it you know? If you can get reactions like that. Christmas NiGHTS was later seen gleefuly downing Baileys and Ice in a drunken binge that shall never see the light of day. As long as Kevin never uploads his photos haha.

Then convention ended on something of an insanely spectacular high with the famous Crush 40 doing a live show for us. Proper mosh pit. I could go on and on about how great it was but all you have to do is watch this video to see how electric the atmosphere was. Singing along with so many Sonic fans was just… wow!  Epic stuff. Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli.

 

After the crowds had left and things had closed for the night we got a chance to talk to Jun Senoue personaly. At the time I didn't realise he'd actually done some work on Journey of Dreams… gah! But he's such a cool guy ;_; So polite and insanely talented. Knowing that we were talking to the guy responsible for so many great melodies over the years just made me infinately happy. He stopped us as we were walking off to tell us that us fans are the reason he is here doing what he loves and DiGi and I kinda fangeeked in unison haha. We love ya Jun!

Then, bizzarely the strangest thing happened for me. We'd just experienced this amazing convention – but the most real fun I had was helping the staff close it up for the night. DiGi and I stayed behind to help out the Sonic lot and it was just… I can't really explain how I felt but, it felt good. These people who were left at the end were my friends. The people who had given their time and love to this convention and here we all were at the end taking down the posters, pulling sheets off tables and picking up litter together. Singing, joking running about like madmen trying to get everything tidy again. I even helped clean the Loo's! (Best way to spend a Saturday night! haha) It was at this point Elson Wong and DiGi really got time to chat and the pair of them were hilarious to listen to. DiGi and him cussing major profanity at the tables as they tried to pull the cloths off just made me lose it. At one point there was an impromtu sing along of Dreams Dreams that carried quite far up the hall. Kev was tired out his brains and STILL managing to give us orders. Me, Ruby Eclipse and Graham from SEGANerds were taking down all the fanart done by people and little kids and it was seriously one of the most blissed out moments of my fandom. Quiet, nice and prettymuch a joint feeling. Proper Teamwork. Eventually it came to an end and we all posed for a staff photo, I hope it appears online soon because I'm probably grinning ear from ear in it.

And then… well then there was a lot of this. I can't remember getting home very well, but that's the sign of a good night out!

Summer of Sonic 2011. You all have to come. Thank you SO much to AAUK and Becky firstly for putting in insane amounts of patience, stress and hard work, I only ever get to see a fraction of what goes on behind the scenes but I know it's more than an undertaking. Becky sista thanks for keeping our Kev sane and healthy :D Thanks to Dreadknux for being a hardworking cool dood and letting us in the front door (you always make me laugh too much). And to the rest of you ugly lot who put in your beans we love you all (yes even you Rory) and we hope you'll never give up your passion for the fandom. Thanks for the great memories.

[Gallery not found]

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So, you know me.

I try my luck and sometimes I tend to push my luck a little, lol just ask SEGA. But on the rare chance, sometimes it pays off. Like this, for example.

Recently while on the NiD15.com bandwagon drumming up support,  I decided on a whim, to try directly contacting a certain Mr Yuji Naka. Yes, I know how unlikely that is, how famous he is and how rarely he gives interviews so I didn't think he'd have the time to reply to me. But I'd heard rumors about his total love for NiGHTS into Dreams, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a chance and ask.

Guess what? He replied. Very quickly :)

Saying that I was surprised to see the topic "Yuji Naka has sent you a message" waiting in my inbox is an understatement. I had a total surreal moment wash over me. There were language barriers though, with me not being able to write Japanese and him not being able to write much in English. I figured because of that then communication with the man would stop there. Still, I tried my luck further and asked him if I were to get a translator in to help us communicate would he still be down for doing an interview? I had my doubts. Yuji Naka has a lot going on at the minute with PROPE… and here I was asking for an interview about NiGHTS, a game that was released in 1996. I was ready to give up hope when I recieved another message saying that he would indeed love to do an interview on NiGHTS for the fans.

…wait, what? Really? o.O

Yes. Really. Yuji Naka has given NiGHTSintoDreams.com probably one of the best interviews we could have ever hoped to obtain. Aside from our translator, there was no other middle men involved in this interview taking place. It was just me and TRiP asking Naka-san about NiGHTS. You couldn't get any closer to the heart of NiGHTS than this. Direct from the creator to the fans.
True fact, Yuji Naka had sent his reply to our questions on NiGHTS' 14th Birthday but we were not able to have it translated in time. I always say better late than never though and this truly is one of those moments.

If there is one man that NiGHTS fans need to thank then it would be Yuji Naka. I sometimes think that as a fanbase we take for granted the person hugely responsible for us having this cherished game in the first place. True, there were a lot of other people involved in making NiGHTS into Dreams the classic it is today but as far as higher-ups go you couldn't get any higher than Yuji Naka. He envisioned so much and really gave his all to the game. Taking good care of the character while he was still head of Sonic Team. Now, over 14 years on the fans are still here stronger than ever. I'd like to think Yuji Naka succeeded in what he set out to do for us with NiGHTS.

We wanted to ask him questions that general gaming sites and magazines hadn't asked him before. The geeky fan stuff. Less about the technical side of things and more about the heart and purpose of the game. We had 24 hours to think of the things we wanted to know the most. In the end 18 questions were put forward. Things that had been picking our brains for a very long time.

The NiGHTS community is smaller than Sonic's and moments like this come rarely. However, I like to think that makes them all the more sweeter.
I'd like to thank Yuji Naka himself for answering every single one of our questions and I'd also like to thank Kichigai and her mother for translating this interview for us in the first place. Takashi Iizuka and Naofumi Hataya, thank you also for helping out ;)

 


 

Yuji Naka: Thank you very much for loving NiGHTS. Today (5th July 2010) is NiGHTS' 14th birthday.  Happy birthday NiGHTS.

Nidcom: NiGHTS resembles a jester and the Nightmaren are very darkly circus themed. Is there a reason as to why this specific design idea was chosen?
Yuji Naka:
When the idea of the Dream World was imagined, The Jester like character was created rather easily.  Their duality (cheerful and happy as well as, dark, evil and mean spirit) fit well to the theme of the Dream World.

Nidcom: Is it true that Cirque Du Soleil played a big part in the inspiration of the game design? Was there a show in particular? A NiGHTS Cirque Du Soleil show would be fantastic!
Yuji Naka: It was Cirque du Soleil that contributed the most inspiration for creating NiGHTS. At that time, Mystère was playing at Las Vegas' Treasure Island.  I was so overwhelmed by the imagery of the world of Mystère when I saw it for the first time.  Even to this day, that is one of my favorite shows. I hope that a lot of people will go to see that show. Cirque du Soleil is great.



Nidcom: Is it true that the very few character voices in the game were recorded anonymously by team members who were working late at night in the offices? Can you tell us a little about how the random dream language was created? Is it partially Japanese?

Yuji Naka: Yes, it was true. In every character, a few words from our team members’ voice over were used. We were recording at night because our office had no sound proof studio.
The word for NiGHTS, "Adeema", or the words for Reala, "Beadichnoa NiGHTS" were created by Mr. Iizuka after much reflection. 
Each word actually has a meaning. 
Adeema = abayo (which means good bye in Japanese slang). 
Beadichinoa NiGHTS = come on NiGHTS, Etc.

 

Nidcom: One particular thing NiGHTS into Dreams is always praised for is the music. You captured a lot of genre's of music in one game. Does the music in the game reflect your own personal tastes in music and what are your own preferred types of music?
Yuji Naka: The background music for NiGHTS was a magnificently composed piece. Of all the games I have created, the music of NiGHTS is my favorite. I remember that I had goose bumps when the orchestral recording was played.  Personally I like to listen to everything from pop music to movie soundtracks and stage musical scores.


Nidcom: One of the reasons NiGHTS into Dreams is very popular with female gamers is the character of NiGHTS erases gender stereotypes, which is rare in gaming especially today. Was this idea there from the beginning?

Yuji Naka:
Men or women, we all have dreams, so I thought that the residents in the dream world shouldn’t have a gender, rather, the form of the characters should be determined by the person who is dreaming.

 

Nidcom: Do you ever get tired of people asking what gender NiGHTS is? *lol*
Yuji Naka:
This setting was unique and never seen in any other game. It is understandable that questions about gender would arise, since European languages have gender specific words.


Nidcom: Is there meaning behind the lower case 'i' in the name NiGHTS? Some fans speculate that it may stand for 'imagination' or 'Id'  from Freudian research.

Yuji Naka: The "i" in the logo, was imagined from the gem on NiGHTS' chest. At first, the logo design was created to distinguish the word NiGHTS from Nights. NiGHTS was then used throughout the game.

 

Nidcom: NiGHTS into Dreams has a lot of symbolism, you and Sonic Team did a lot of research into dream studies and Jung's Dream Archetypes. It is speculated that each character in NiGHTS is influenced by a specific Archetype. What Archetype inspired NiGHTS,  if any?
Yuji Naka:
NiGHTS, a hero, originated in “Shadow” which means another side of the self as defined by Jung in his dream definitions. Elliot and Claris, who have strayed from the dream world, originated from Jung’s Animus and Anima. Persona items that appear in the Wii version originate from Jung's dream theory, too.

 

Nidcom: Other than NiGHTS, is there any other character in NiGHTS into Dreams that you really like and why? Jackle seems to have a large following, as does Reala.
Yuji Naka: Of course NiGHTS is my favorite, but Reala and Wizeman are two of my favorite characters because they contribute to constructing the outlook of the dream world.

 

Nidcom: Many years ago I read an interview with Sonic Team where the sources of dream research were discussed. Jung and Freud were mentioned but a third name 'Friedrich Holtz' was said to be central to NiGHTS into Dreams. Can you tell us a bit about this man and how his work influenced the game? We have tried to research Holtz for many years yet we have found little about him.
Yuji Naka: He is one of the psychologists who followed Jung's thoughts. He too defined dream elements as much as Jung, and showed us "another world" which we called the “Dream World.” NiGHTS also reflects the thoughts of scholars who researched these dreams.

 

Nidcom: It is now well known that there was an idea for a boss called Selph. What became of this boss, why did it not make it in to the final game and what did the boss look like?
Yuji Naka: Selph is one of the original types of Jung's theory. This idea was omitted since the production period was short on time. It was thought that it would be introduced as a concealed boss, as the one defined as "Myself I could never be exceeded". Visualization of this character was made to some degree.

 

Nidcom: Is it true that in the 1990's a PC version of NiGHTS into Dreams was planned? There was a rumour that it existed at one point and one of the new levels was called 'Sparkle Attic'? Can you tell us more about this, perhaps?
Yuji Naka: I thought production was completed. Wasn't the PC version put on the market? I actually participated in the release of the PC version of NiGHTS in Akihabara. So I thought it was on the market. But this is for sure, there is no new level.
See: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20030321/sega.htm

Nidcom: (The above is news to us!) This means that non PS2 code exists to create a port!


Nidcom: Is it true that when developing the control pad to make flying experience as immersive as possible a NiGHTS-shaped controller was designed?

Yuji Naka:
Yes, it was true. We developed the control pad with the thought of the game player feeling NiGHTS' flying more realistically. The shape of controller was made the way it was after a lot trial and error. Most importantly the player's grip should be as natural as possible when they play.

 

Nidcom: NiGHTS is considered to be one the most magical, inspiring and mischievous characters Sonic Team ever created, continuing on through dreams long after the game has been won. Has NiGHTS ever appeared in your own dreams?
Yuji Naka: Of course. NiGHTS came from your dreams too. Being so, NiGHTS will keep living for a long time.

 

Nidcom: What do you think is the most important part of creating games?
Yuji Naka: Most importantly how much would customers enjoy playing. Especially in NiGHTS, how much fun the feeling would be when they played the game.

 

Nidcom: NiGHTS really has captured the hearts of many people. It is rare for a game to effect people in the way NiGHTS has been able to. Looking back, you said one thing you hoped NiGHTS would do is help people. Now, 14 years on, do you feel you had achieved that goal?
Yuji Naka: My initial goal has been reached and there may be more wonderful things happening. So many people loved NiGHTS for such a long time. I felt very happy throughout my career as a game creator, that the game influenced and touched the hearts of so many. Thank you so much for loving NiGHTS.

 

Nidcom: There had been talk of a NiGHTS sequel for many years after the Saturn game. The sequel, Journey of Dreams was made however you were no longer part of Sonic Team by that point. If it were somehow possible would you ever consider making another NiGHTS game, if you were asked to?
Yuji Naka:
I have been asked hundreds of times to make the sequel of NiGHTS, but have no desire to create one.
As I feel the same way that my beloved Mr. Steven Spielberg would never make a sequel to ET because it was his first work and such a fantastic film. I feel the same way about NiGHTS.
Oh, the first person to play NiGHTS, other than the SEGA team, was Mr. Spielberg. During the development of the NiGHTS game, he visited SEGA and we asked him to play with an experimental version of the new controller. Since then we called it the Spielberg controller.

Nidcom: We are hoping SEGA will listen to the NiD15.com campaign to have NiGHTS into Dreams ported to this generation of gaming consoles. Would you, the creator of the game, like to see the game ported so that this generation of gamers can experience the game too?
Yuji Naka: Creating an environment to be able to play the game for a long span of time, like a movie, would be very satisfying as a game creator.

Please continue giving your support for PROPE and SEGA.

中 裕司
Yuji Naka


 

So how's that for a trump card then? ;D NiGHTS fans- stirring the pot since 1996. Come talk about this interview in our [ forums ]


AND DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER YOUR VOTE AT NiD15.COM IF YOU WANT TO PLAY A PORT OF NiGHTS INTO DREAMS. Every vote counts.

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How is this for perfect timing? In an interview released today with SEGA's Yosuke Okunari the producer of the upcoming XBLA Dreamcast ports, it was revealed that all hope is not lost for the SEGA Saturn's catalogue of classic games! This makes the possibility of the long overdue western NiGHTS port so much more likely.

From Nowgamer.com via Impress Watch

"Okunari : It's not that we're ignoring Saturn I think you can see this, considering that we ported Nights Into Dreams (PS2) and other titles. What we announced this time is a project where we will have consecutive releases of titles that were debuted on Dreamcast. Separate from this, we're of course thinking about ports of Saturn games. It's the same as how Sega Ages and Virtual Console were separate existences. It's not that we have no intention of porting Saturn titles, so please share your requests."

Read the full article here:

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/3583/sega-considering-saturn-download-titles

Of course a giant flaming fangirl like me is never happy with second-hand information so I approached Okunari-san directly myself with the request for NiGHTS to be ported for download directing him to our NiD15.com campaign website to show him demand for the title. I explained that although the PS2 version is nice it's not convenient for fans (especialy younger fans) to have to import things from Japan. And what do you know, within a few minutes he replied to me :) He acknowleges that the PS2 version never made it overseas BUT he states that he would be interested in challenging himself with a NiGHTS port if the chance came up. So hey, let's make that chance happen~ show your support for www.NiD15.com. Press the button once, leave a comment in the comment section to back up your vote, join our forums and get in on the discussion – share it with your friends.

There are a lot of great titles on the Saturn i grew up with from Burning Rangers to Panzer Dragoon, Guardian Heroes to Fighters Megamix. If all Saturn fans pull together we might actually see this happen. The hardware might not have sold insane amounts back in the day but the games were incredible. Get to it.

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I swear, these SEGA community days just keep outdoing themselves! It's been a couple of weeks now since we got home but I wanted to spend some good time trying to remember all the details of what was a brilliantly fun trip. I mean the SEGA JoD demo in my house thing was epic enough but then this SEGAfest of community love was something I wish happened every other weekend! The whole thing was really quite surreal… and trying to find a place to start from is hard when it was 48 hours of madness. But lets start from the very beginning…


The invites.
Were we excited? Why yes we were! Though… when SEGA threatens to 'take you away' after months of you irritating the hell out of them with NiGHTS DLC emails you get slightly worried. DiGi considered this SEGA's revenge since DiGi and rollercoasters do NOT mix. There were quite a few jokes going around about 'technical difficulties'.

A press release appears what will you do?

Sonic The Hedgehog spins into Alton Towers Resort!

Alton Towers Resort teams up with the world’s most famous hedgehog to revamp classic attraction

This February half term, Alton Towers Resort’s famed attraction Spinball Whizzer will be receiving an exciting makeover. The Resort has teamed up with iconic video gaming character, Sonic The Hedgehog, to be the new face of the ride Sonic Spinball, opening on 13th February 2010.

Since 1991, SEGA has sold more than 60 million copies of computer games featuring Sonic The Hedgehog worldwide. Famous for his incredible speed and spin attack, this gaming icon is the ideal character to re-launch Spinball Whizzer.

Spinball Whizzer was one of Alton Towers Resort’s much loved attractions. Opened in 2004 and with an impressive drop of 54 feet, the coaster gives each rider a unique experience by spinning and dropping in different directions, allowing you to ping and spring your way around this pinball-themed twisted track that is full of surprises!

Alton Towers Resort’s guests will also have the chance to relax in the Sonic The Hedgehog room at the Alton Towers hotel. The rooms will be fully themed around the Sonic universe. Guests can also enjoy playing the latest Sonic games in the dedicated gaming area of the room.

Morwenna Angove, Sales and Marketing Director at the Alton Towers Resort, said: “It’s a great joint venture between the Alton Towers Resort and SEGA. The affiliation of both brands will add to the great family offering at the Resort for kids seeking fabulous family fun and adrenalin addicted adults”.

Escape to the Alton Towers Resort this February Half-Term and enjoy an early preview of Sonic Spinball as well as some of the Resort’s best attractions before the main season even begins!

So we didn't sleep much that night. Mostly due to the fact that DiGi always leaves his packing until the last second. One of the main things we had all been worrying about was the weather since it had been snowing and pouring down with rain on and off in London. As fun as rollercoasting with snow in your teeth would be we weren't really feeling the extreme weather thing. But lo and behold SEGA must have some kind of Weather Control Emeralds because the next morning the rain had almost vanished (almost).

The trip on the underground to the meetup point consisted of DiGi joking about everything that can go wrong with rollercoasters and how I wasn't going to get him to go on ANYTHING even if I got pouty about it. The man was determined, you gotta give him that. But I am a TRiPPY and I gets what I want :P
So we wandered around outside the infamous Ritz in central London trying to find anyone that remotely resembled a Sonic fan. You can usualy find them wearing a lot more blue than usual. NiGHTS fans are easy to spot by their disregard for clashing colors and dayglow hair. Both fanbases have that distant 'I'm an admin online and I lost my soul' look in our eyes. Then from out of the station bops AAUK and Echohawk with their posse, all looking suitably blue. We then proceeded to annoy the general public by all standing in the middle of the pavement chatting about the trip and things that had conspired a few days beforehand. Our little group started to get bigger as more and more familiar faces arrived from both the Sonic community and gaming press. Soon we were a veritable mob of chattering flashy nerds as our private coach pulled up down the street and we all climbed onboard. It was later revealed to me that our awesome driver did infact look a lot like Man of Arms from He-Man (thanks Rory).


I will drive you by the POWER OF GREYSKULL!

When I was first told about this trip I didn't realise that so many people were coming along from the media, which was really fun, even though most of them take ages to get on a bus. There were people from magazines, newspapers, websites all sitting on this big coach with us community guys ready for the journey ahead. Alton Towers is a fair distance from London (around 142 miles) so you can imagine the fun of being stuck in a bus for around 4 hours with all these people. And yes, we had sandwiches, AMAZING sandwiches and flapjacks. Very nice posh lunches by SEGA, though I seemed to inherit about 4 bottles of water and apples in my handbag. DiGi decided on having -another- tuna sandwich which probably wasn't a great idea considering he was on a long distance drive and would then be straight on a rollercoaster…. yeah. But it was all very relaxing as the coach started to drive through drizzly central London and I sat eating my epic flapjack looking out the window at people walking past. In all the time I've lived in London I've never been down Oxford street on a bus, haha. So that was nice for me. Quiet morning mumbles turned into rowdy community banter as we all woke up a bit and started heading proper north. North is an amazing place, it has trees and everything.


*story ACTUALLY continued today thanks to my server letting me upload things again XD; sorry guys*

 

Credit goes to AAUK (SonicWrecks & SEGA Europe), Vger (EmeraldCoast), G (SEGANerds) and Rory (TSS) for the stolen photographs, because i roll like that.

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The campaign forum:
Discuss and read the latest news [ HERE ]

 

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Fanart:
Send us your NiGHTS into ASR related artworks.

Join the Facebook Group:
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Twitter Tag:
What the campaign started from, a simple hashtag.
#DontForgetNiGHTS

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