Thank you very much! I really put some soul into this story, so it's wonderful to hear that that effort showed. And nice to hear I can draw well enough to make something charming.

http://thornbush.ath.cx/nights.html <-- this is the tidy little page where you can find most of my (finished) work so far. I have four pictures of the NiD characters in MLP:FiM style (still at least have to do Wizemare), and a short story.

http://thornbush.ath...php?f=25&t=1230 <-- Take Two, another (finished) story. It isn't mature or anything, but it is a bit sad.

I shall update as I stop my laziness.

Thank you, sir. *tips hat*

Definitely one of the best Adventure games ever made.

I found MareWare on the old site. Pretty nifty. Unfortunately, the Mareloot site is down/dead. I searched the internet, new site and these forums to no avail. Because it was mentioned that an update was intended on April 30, 2007 or similar, I'm 99.9% sure that it was updated at least once from the version hosted on the old site. If so, does anyone have the update? Is Taihaku still updating it or has s/he passed the torch to someone else?

I started my Ask Jackle blog partly to RP as Jackle if I were so inclined. Though I'm spotty with being on, I'm game.

(How are they treating their users? ...It's the first I've heard of that...)

About when I was 11 or 12, I found NiGHTS through the Sonic Stadium and some fansites thereof linked from there.

Thanks for the welcomes, guys! I'll be sure to help keep this place lively.

And my name sure does come from Jazz Jackrabbit now! (I added it after I realized "Jackalope" wasn't an uncommon name...)

These are some ideas I've been sitting on for a while. Since this is specifically about the dreams/levels in NiD, I figured it should go here.

I was inspired to examine the dreams by the In-Depth Analysis found at Sonic CulT. While I've only begun to learn about Jungian psychology, I feel the guy who wrote this didn't have access to the whole picture, since there's some pretty important info in the Japanese story et all that was just thrown away for the U.S. version. So, here are my theories, drawing only from what we learn from this info, so I don't make any silly mistakes about the psychology.


Soft Museum
The song name "Suburban Museum" and the obvious connection between artists and museums seem to point to this dream being a reflection of Claris' home life. It's superficially beautiful and refined, but there is more to it than meets the eye, not-so-subtle problems that don't appear unless you experience it. This could point to problems with her home life. The subtitle, "The Confusion", doesn't weaken but only supports this theory. She could have self-worth problems and/or be torn between loving her parents and hating them for what they do to her. Also, I see a very clear connection to insane asylums with padded walls.
(Because of the line "Since Claris was born and grew up in an artist's home, being creatively gifted was something expected of her", I can't shake the notion Claris may have some emotional abuse in her past. I get caught on the "expected of" part. But I know that could just be the wording the translator chose, and there are no such implications in the original text.)

Mystic Forest
It could be that the darkness and closed-offness of the forest expresses Claris' shyness, or, instead, a dark side to her being. In fact, there's no reason it couldn't be both; that cave that crushes you is pretty malevolent. The subtitle "The Possibility" could be one of two things. Matched to her shyness, it means what could be if she only came out of her shell. Matched to a dark soul, it takes on an equally dark tone; the possibility of the evil lurking in her mind and expressing itself. I wonder how the National Highway Corporation figures into Claris' life.

Unfortunately, I have no discrete ideas about Spring Valley. I know that Paternal Horn has no sexual connotations, and the Swissness could just be a reference to Jung. But I cannot dig any deeper than that somehow.


Elliot's dreams are way harder for me to interpret... With Frozen Bell, I have a few different ideas. Snow is associated with romance, at least in Japan, but it can also point to harshness and vulnerability. It can also point to stoicness, a frosty heart, or, more accurately here, hiding one's emotions. There's also depression. The Consciousness goes with one needing to stay awake in cold areas so one doesn't die. But none of these seem to go anywhere as far as uncovering the meaning.

Meanwhile, with Stick Canyon, I can't get beyond the obvious: the construction site, Under Construction, and The Revival all pointing towards growing up, seeing oneself as a work in progress. The desert no doubt means something, but I can't seem to figure out what it is.

As for Splash Garden, I do have some ideas, which I found some eerie support for and was gobsmacked because I wasn't exactly serious about the ideas to begin with. But they are rather Freudian and point to a certain kind of abuse, so I'm not certain if they're appropriate to talk about.


I nearly forgot about how the bossmaren tie in with the kids. Seeing as Puffy is apparently connected to Elliot's mother (which indeed is some of the support for my ideas about Splash Garden), I thought about it and found it makes perfect sense for Elliot to face Reala, not Claris. Reala is obviously more connected to NiGHTS than Elliot, but Reala is also to NiGHTS as Roger is to Elliot: the rival. As NiGHTS defeats Reala, she shows Elliot it's possible to win against his own rival.

I'm still at square one with everyone else.


I was surprised as I looked around and searched that there wasn't a topic about this already (although with my luck, it'll be somewhere super obvious). I'd love to hear what everybody thinks the dreams mean about Claris and Elliot's lives, minds and selves and how the bossmaren tie in. No detail is too small!

It's one of the best Adventure games ever, isn't it?

I gotta look into Skullmonkeys, too.

Uhm... Hello!

Me Jackie.

Me Jackalope!

I am not from the Neverhood.

Although I've only recently found this place, I've been a NiGHTS fan since, what was it... about 2002. Even before I ever got a chance to play the game, it stuck in my head so much, my very nickname came from Jackle originally (it's evolved over time), and I even attempted to write fanfiction for it (which was kind of a bad idea, seeing as I didn't know it too well).

Here's to the start of what I hope will be a jolly good time with my fellow NiGHTS fans!