Infinity Nikki is a literally brilliant example of what video game graphics can be.
The fifth in a series of fancy dress titles from Infold Games, Infinity Nikki is also the first to embrace elements of RPG action-adventure. But instead of tracking down weapons and fighting bad guys, this wide-eyed heroine solves puzzles by collecting enchanted outfits found in a series of wondrous lands.
Infinity Nikki
- Available on: iPhone, iPad
- Located in: Singapore
- Awards: Winner of the Apple Design Award for Visuals and Graphics (2025), Finalist for App Store Awards Game of the Year (2025), App Store Editors’ Choice
Download Infinity Nikki from the App Store >
The fashion-forward gameplay of course remains. Nikki’s dress sways and sways with every step, while capes shimmer and float in the wind. Different outfits are imbued with different abilities that allow players to guide Nikki – and her feline companion Momo – through clever puzzles. And from quaint cobblestone towns to distant mountains, every corner of Miraland in the game – brought to life with cutting-edge visuals – is awash with beautifully realized lighting and effects from advanced shadow techniques such as Global Illumination. (Executive producer Kentaro Tominaga previously worked on several episodes of the Legend of Zelda series.)
It’s a wonderland of texture, light and animation – and the Winner of the 2025 Apple Design Award for images and graphics. For more information, we spoke to Douhu, Infinity Nikkis lead designer of outfit gameplay systems; Ade, lead programmer; and Dodie, art director.
Why did you decide to make this fifth installment an open-world RPG?
Douhu: When we thought about this six years ago, we already knew it would be an open world game. So we asked ourselves, how are we going to bring Nikki into that space? And how do we differentiate it from other open world games on the market?
To make these worlds as immersive as possible, we constantly monitor all the details.
Douhu, lead designer of outfit gameplay systems
This is the first Nikki game to include action-adventure elements and light combat.
Douhu: Yes, but we knew combat wouldn’t be part of the core of the game. The Nikki series has such a defined style. We’ve thought a lot about how we can maintain that.
How many people worked on the visuals for this?
Douhu: Oh, it’s a huge team – about 800 people. It’s a fun but complicated job. We have a lot of visual pipelines all working at once: cutscenes, the NPC ecosystem, lighting, achievements. The production complexity is so high.
The reward for that work seems to be everywhere: the game is full of fabrics, glitter, environments and natural elements.
Douhu: And we think of them all. For example, when Nikki runs up a flight of stairs in a video, we don’t want her to stomp her feet on the ground. We want her to move lightly and elegantly. All the sounds you hear are based on real-world sounds, although we added some imagination during post-production. To make these worlds as immersive as possible, we constantly monitor all the details.
Nikki’s double jump is particularly elegant; it’s almost like a glider coming in for the softest of landings.
Douhu: That’s because we want players to have enough time to experience the world. Our core gameplay is based on jumping, but it’s not a very fast movement. It is slow, like a micro response to that specific floating movement. And that’s because we want players to breathe and appreciate all the details of Miraland.
What does day 1 look like in the footage for something like this?
Douhu: Since this is our fifth game with Nikki, we’ve already built out the character and philosophy, so those first days are more about sketching out the new world and the different maps.
Ade: To start, we reconstruct the structure and physical performance of the substances in the engine, largely based on reality. Then we do extreme evolutions on the fabrics. We have so many categories of material in our library, and many of them are from previous titles. But we make all kinds of adjustments and add all kinds of effects to make the game feel like it’s beyond reality.
Douhu: We have a large closet in our office! But we would like to emphasize that we are not just exporting real fabrics or trying to imitate reality. We add layers of fantasy. We add intricate embroideries, more patterns and glittering special effects to depict a more whimsical, fantastical version of reality. That’s why Nikki’s outfits look better than they would in real life. Hopefully!
Can you select an element from the game and tell us a little about how it was brought to life?
Dodie: Color has always been central to our art creation, so I’ll share two examples from version 2.0: the five-star outfit Behind Prayers and the location called Snail Ranch.
The core design concept of Behind Prayers is ‘a trapped divine girl’, so that meant a maximum design approach. The divine maiden longs for freedom, yet she is wrapped in heavy layers of ornate garments and gemstones. These represent both holy glory and the weight of restraint: dazzling and radiant, yet undeniably burdensome.
We chose gold as the primary color to express sacredness and brilliance, and we introduced green accents to break potential visual monotony. We’ve further embellished the outfit with a rich array of multi-colored gemstones and enhanced it with prismatic sparkle effects, making it sparkle vibrantly – even at night.
Snail Ranch, meanwhile, is the player’s first destination in Itzaland – the place where Nikki first encounters the Shroomlings and the snails.
The lighting in this area is intentionally bright and inviting. Sunlight filters through huge leaves creating a warm and relaxing atmosphere, while even small puddles along the path reflect the deep blue of the sky. The scene takes on a fairytale character and invites players to believe and lose themselves in the land.
Talk about your approach to creating these fabrics and outfits.
Ade: Infinity Nikki introduces a revolutionary material system. At its core is a redesigned fabric algorithm that retains the benefits of four-layer UV blend textures while requiring only minimal parameter adjustments to accurately simulate a wide range of materials, including the natural coarseness of cotton and linen, the smooth sheen of silk and satin, as well as the delicate tactile properties of various velvets and flannel. The system also provides deep support for custom reflections and various glare responses, making it easy to create distinctive highlights and dreamy shimmers, such as the unique interplay of mesh and silk in the Fairytale Swan outfit.
Visual richness in Infinity Nikki extends far beyond dust. We have developed a specialized jewelry material system using advanced algorithms to simulate the brilliance of gemstones, including complex refraction, 3S light transmission and highly variable specular highlights, as seen in the pearls and diamonds of the Fairytale Swan outfit. Dynamic presentation has also broken through previous limitations. To support animated patterns in high-end outfits like Threads of Reunion, the team developed an innovative solution to reduce Unreal Engine 5’s interference from engine-native motion blur on UV animations. This enables sharp and vivid celestial motion effects: three independent orbits allow full customization of planetary shapes, angular velocities and trajectories, layered with smooth asteroid belts and moon phase changes.
And how do you approach physical simulation?
Ade: We flexibly use skeletal physics and Chaos Cloth to achieve natural, expressive movements. Through proprietary skeleton chain algorithms and improved canvas solvers, the team replaces costly and unstable traditional collision-based algorithms with more stable and controllable constraint-based algorithms. Let’s take Nikki as an example running in a loose dress. We have introduced a flexible and gentle coercion phase during pre-processing, which ensures that even with dramatic movements, the original garment does not stick to the body.
While the system strives for physical realism, the system also maintains the intended artistic silhouette of garments, especially structured garments with petticoat. These outfits should flow naturally, like fabric, while keeping their behavior consistent with their physical construction. Our custom algorithms include collision handling between different clothing types and multiple clothing layers, allowing free outfit combinations without sacrificing stability. By carefully balancing visual effects and performance, we achieve consistent results across multiple platforms.
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