Play Yume Koujou: Doki-doki Panic Online

Summary

Yume Koujou: Doki‑doki Panic debuted as part of Fuji TV’s 1987 Dream Machine (Yume Koujou ’87) carnival, a cross‑media event that turned the network’s mascots into playable heroes. Nintendo developed the title for the Famicom Disk System, using the Imagine Family characters to promote the festival’s tie‑in merchandise.

The game blends vertical and horizontal scrolling action with a fixed‑screen layout that lets players backtrack at will, a design echoing the screen‑switching of early Zelda titles. Four characters—Imagine, Rina, Papa and Mama—each have distinct jump heights and item‑handling speeds, encouraging players to experiment with who can lift and hurl the quirky vegetables and other objects that litter the stages. There’s no timer or score counter; instead, a simple life system penalises contact with enemies, spikes, explosions or falling pits, and a disk‑based save lets you resume from the first page of the last cleared chapter.

After completing a chapter, the number of collected medals determines how many chances you get at a slot‑machine mini‑game, adding a light‑hearted gamble to the otherwise straightforward platforming. The entire package was later re‑worked and released overseas as Super Mario Bros. 2, giving Western audiences a taste of this uniquely Japanese promotional adventure.

Storyline

Yume Koujou: Doki-doki Panic (often just called Doki-doki Panic) begins inside a magical storybook that tells of the dream realm of Muu. In this world the quality of the citizens' dreams determines the next day's weather, so the Muu people built a Dream Machine to guarantee pleasant dreams. A mischievous creature named Mamu hijacks the machine, turning it into a monster‑making device, but the Muu discover that Mamu’s one weakness is vegetables.

A pet monkey named Rūsa gives the ancient picture book to twin siblings Poki and Piki, who argue and tear out the final page that shows Mamu’s defeat. The torn page releases Mamu, who drags the twins into the book. Their parents, Mama and Papa, along with brother Imajin and his girlfriend Lina, are also sucked in to rescue them. Players control one of the four family members to battle Mamu’s minions, use vegetables against the monster, and ultimately free the twins from the Dream Factory.