5 replies to this topic

[leox001]

Hello everyone this is my first topic in these wonderful boards.

I got NiGHTS into Dreams the japan remake for playstation 2 (modchips for the win!)
I was completely amazed by the quality of the game, I was really expecting a good experience but I never tought it would be so special for me.

So yeah I started playing and I found on the internet that the game features this very interesting "A-Life" system.
I notice it since the music is different now than in my first playtrough; but I can't seem to understand what it is all about!!

I've read about it in general, it's supposed to be about the small characters that appear in each level, they change the music in their own way. But I can't seem to understand how I am supposed to interact with this, I don't even know what I did to make the music change the way it did!!!
In these forums I've seen an A-Life thread but I only got more confused, people are talking about breeding and raising mepians pians and bapians or something like that, sounds very interesting!! but I have no idea where to start or how it works.

Could you (the forum) explain me more about this feature? I swear I could not find anything about it anywere else!

Thanks in advance!

[infractus]

The 'small characters' are Nightopians (or just 'pians' for short).

You can change the way the music sounds throughout your gameplay based on how you treat the Pians.

If you paraloop as many as you can, not only will the music turn sadder -- you may end up with a "Night Over" screen that has a bunch of them protesting not to kill them.
If you do not paraloop the 'Pians, and if you hatch their eggs (which if you're skimming the bottom of a level, come across an egg, latch onto it then let go ~ it'll hatch and a new 'Pian appears), the music either stays upbeat, or gets more upbeat. I think, if not mistaken and someone feel free to correct me, but if you've paralooped or destroyed Pians before, left the level and come back, and then were nice to the little guys, the music might go from sad to happier.

The A-Life system goes on, you can breed the Nightopians -- they will breed on their own, or you can merge them with some of the Nightmarens in the level. That's not my angle of expertise.. let me see if I can't dig up some of the threads on breeding for you.

[leox001]

Thanks for the information!! I'll check it out as soon as I snatch the TV

So basically you have two ways of playing NiGHTS, one is getting the best score within the time limit and the other is breeding the Nightopians within the time limit, though is very dissapointing to see the game giving me an F+ after I finish the level

[infractus]

You can also hatch eggs on foot as the kids. Saves a little bit of the time, if you don't mind running from the alarm-egg

[Nemoide]

Even though I understand the basics, I sometimes wish there was an A-Life FAQ or something to explain the specifics of how it works. But I don't think anyone really has seriously deep knowledge of the system.

[charlie]

You can also check out Malan's website for more info. He has a pretty good idea for the A-Life and breeding mepians.

Here is Malan's page on A-Life
Here is the google translated version