Shining Nikki

Shining Nikki (闪耀暖暖) is a mobile game developed by Paper Studio (previously named SuZhou Nikki Co., Ltd). It is the fourth game in the Nikki Up2U series.

Plot
Being the successor of Love Nikki, Shining Nikki acts as its sequel as well. In order to prevent a future where Miraland is destroyed by the Sea of Memories, Nikki travels back in time to Year 280 in a structure called "the Ark". Her mission is to stop Lierlide, the legendary designer who she believes is responsible for Miraland's destruction.

Gameplay
Similarly to Love Nikki-Dress Up Queen!, Shining Nikki is a dress-up game with RPG elements. The players play as themselves who were summoned by Nikki to her inner world through the power of the Gate of Heart. The player uses Nikki as a model through various styling battles while wearing a variety of clothing obtained through gameplay and with the aid of "The Shadow of Designer". The Shadow of Designers are basically cards of the designers of the suit. The player could upgrade, star up and "awake" them to strengthen the cards' power in styling battles and unlock dyed clothes, personal information of the designers and stories of them when they designed that certain suit.

There are four types of stages: Main, Challenge, Maze of Hearts and Corridor of Memories. The Main stages tell the main storyline. The Challenge stages tell stories about the side characters that were not usually involved in the main storyline. The Maze of Hearts stages explore the history and backstories of the main characters. Every chapter of the Main stages come with an R suit recipe and Maze of Hearts stages with an SR/SSR suit that the players can complete for free. The players can also obtain free suits from the Apple Federation Apparel Group shop and by participating in the "Battle of the Sea of Memories" and investigating various designers for the magazine from the "Designers' Intelligence Divison".

There are in total of three permanent pavilions. Apart from the Pavilion of Mystery and Pavilion of Fantasy, there is also a Pavilion of Fantasy~Flowing Light. In this Pavilion, every 7 to 10 days, the chance of getting one super rare suit and one rare suit from the Pavilion of Fantasy is increased. Every so often, new suits that are not included in the Pavilion of Fantasy may also be added for a limited amount of time.

Terminology
The Sea of Memory: a place where all of the human emotions and memories across the universe were stored.

The Ark: a structure which sails on the Sea of Memory and connects it with all human worlds. It holds all the archives of the designers and the inspirations of the designs. Zhou and Hai live there and are the managers.

The Shadow of Designer: the memories of the designers. It could evolve into an independent entity and controlled human's mental world if it is powerful enough.

The Mirror of Character: where the Shadows of Designer were stored.

Impression:

Taiwan/Hong Kong
There are two separate servers for this version. Players with a UID beginning in 1 will play in the first server (一區), while players with a UID beginning in 2 will play in the second server (二區). Players can choose which server to play in when they start their game. The servers are also named after locations in Shining Nikki, with the first server being named after Lodden City (洛登城) and the second server named after Qingyun City (傾雲城).

Mainland China
There are in total of seven servers for Mainland China: two for iOS, five for Android. It had been ranked as the top 10 most profitable mobile games in Mainland China since its release. It had sales promotion collaboration with KFC, ASUS Laptop, Lux and Urban Revivo.

South Korea
The social accounts of the Korean version of Shining Nikki went live on 3rd September 2020. The game's beta ran from September 24th to September 30th, 2020.

On November 5th, 2020, the game was announced to be closing due to controversy. Players were unable to pay after November 6th, 2020, and the last day of service was announced to be December 9th, 2020.

Japan
The social accounts of the Japanese version of Shining Nikki went live on 6th January 2021. The game's beta ran from January 21st to January 27th, 2021.

Global
The social accounts of the Global version of Shining Nikki went live on 16th April 2021.

Trivia

 * Shining Nikki bears a strong resemblance to Mr Love: Queen's Choice in terms of design and gameplay:
 * Music, art and UI design
 * The prevalence of the card (karma) system for artwork, story and scoring
 * Social media posts
 * Voice actors
 * The maps of Shining Nikki and Nikki's house were drawn by the environmental artist Arseniy Chebynkin.
 * Shining Nikki was featured in the Taiwanese edition of mina magazine, both on the cover and in a spread. The spread listed Nikki's favourite foods and snacks. For pictures of the magazine, see Shining Nikki/Gallery.

Official Sites
China =
 * Official Mainland Chinese server website
 * Official Mainland Chinese weibo
 * -|Taiwan =
 * Official Taiwanese server website
 * Official Taiwanese Facebook page
 * Official Taiwanese Youtube
 * -|Korea =
 * Official Korean server website (Archived)
 * Official Naver Cafe
 * Official Korean Twitter
 * Official Korean Instagram
 * Official Korean Youtube
 * -|Japan =
 * Official Japanese server website
 * Official Japanese Twitter
 * Official Japanese Facebook page
 * Official Japanese Youtube
 * -|Global =
 * Official Global server website
 * Official Global Twitter
 * Official Global Instagram
 * Official Global Facebook page
 * Official Global Youtube
 * Official Global Discord Server
 * Official Global Subreddit

Other

 * Shining Nikki's Chinese wikipedia page