Infinity Nikki is a literally shining example of what video game graphics can be.
The fifth in a series of costume titles from Infold Games, Infinity Nikki It is also the first to adopt action-adventure RPG elements. But instead of searching for weapons and fighting bad guys, this installment finds its wide-eyed heroine solving puzzles by collecting enchanted costumes found in a series of wondrous lands.
Infinity Nikki
- Available in: iPhone, iPad
- Based in: Singapore
- Awards: Apple Design Award Winner for Visuals and Graphics (2025), App Store Awards Game of the Year Finalist (2025), App Store Editors’ Choice
Download Infinity Nikki from the App Store >
Of course, the cutting-edge gameplay still remains. Nikki’s dress sways and flutters every step of the way, while the capes sparkle and float in the wind. Different outfits are equipped with different abilities that allow players to guide Nikki (and her cat companion, Momo) through clever puzzles. And from quaint cobblestone villages to distant mountains, every corner of the game’s Miraland, brought to life with cutting-edge visuals, is awash with beautifully realized lighting and effects from advanced shading techniques like Global Illumination. (Executive producer Kentaro Tominaga previously worked on several installments of the legend of zelda series.)
It’s a wonderland of texture, light and animation, and winner of the 2025 Apple Design Award in Images and Graphics. To find out more, we caught up with Douhu, Infinity Nikki lead game systems designer for outfits; Ade, lead programmer; and Dodie, art director.
Why did you decide to make this fifth installment an open world role-playing game?
Douhu: When we started thinking about this six years ago, we already knew it would be an open world game. So we asked ourselves: How do we get 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 pay attention to every detail, all the time.
Douhu, Lead Game System Designer for Suits.
This is Nikki’s first game to include action-adventure and light combat elements.
Douhu: Yes, but we knew that combat wouldn’t be part of the core of the game. The Nikki series has a very defined style. We thought a lot about how to maintain that.
How many people worked on the images for this?
Douhu: Oh, it’s a huge team: about 800 people. It’s a fun but complicated job. We have many visual channels running at the same time: scenes, the NPC ecosystem, lighting, performance. The complexity of production is very high.
The reward for that work seems to be everywhere: the game is full of fabrics, sparkles, environments, and natural elements.
Douhu: And we think of all of them. For example, when Nikki runs up a flight of stairs in one scene, we don’t want her to stomp her foot. We want you to move with lightness and elegance. All the sounds you hear are based on real-world sounds, although we’ve added some imagination to them in post-production editing. To make these worlds as immersive as possible, we pay attention to every detail, all the time.
Nikki’s double jump is especially elegant; It’s almost like a glider about to make the softest landing.
Douhu: This is because we want players to have plenty of time to experience the world. Our main gameplay is based on jumping, but it is not a very fast movement. It’s 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 images for something like this?
Douhu: Because this is our fifth game with Nikki, we already have the character and philosophy developed, so those first few days are more about outlining the new world and its different maps.
Ade: To begin with, we reconstruct the structure and physical behavior of the motor tissues, based mostly on reality. Then we will make extreme evolutions in the fabrics. We have many fabric categories in our library and many of them are carried over from previous titles. But we make all kinds of adjustments and add all kinds of effects to make the game seem beyond reality.
Douhu: We have a large closet in our office! But we want to emphasize that we don’t just export real fabrics or try to recreate reality. We’re adding layers of fantasy. We added intricate embroidery, more patterns and brilliant special effects to represent a more whimsical and fantastical version of reality. That’s why Nikki’s outfits look more beautiful than in real life. With a little luck!
Could you select an element from the game and share a little about how it was brought to life?
Dodie: Color has always been central to our art-making, so I’ll share two examples from Version 2.0: the five-star group Behind Prayers and the place called Snail Ranch.
The core design concept of Behind Prayers is “a divine maiden confined,” so that meant maximum design focus. The divine maiden longs for freedom, but is cloaked in heavy layers of ornate garments and precious stones. These represent both sacred glory and the weight of restraint: dazzling and radiant, but undeniably burdensome.
We chose gold as the primary color to express holiness and brilliance, and introduced touches of green to break the possible visual monotony. Additionally, we embellished the set with a rich variety of multi-colored gemstones and enhanced it with prismatic glitter effects, allowing it to shine vividly, even at night.
Meanwhile, Snail Ranch is the player’s first destination in Itzaland, the place where Nikki first encounters the Shroomlings and 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 fairy tale feel, inviting players to believe and get lost in the land.
Talk about your approach to creating these fabrics and sets.
Ade: Infinity Nikki introduces a revolutionary material system. At its core is a redesigned fabric algorithm that preserves 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 roughness of cotton and linen, the soft sheen of silk and satin, as well as the delicate tactile qualities of various velvets and flannels. The system also provides deep support for custom highlights and diverse shine responses, making it easy to create distinctive highlights and dreamy sparkles, like the unique interplay of chiffon and silk in the Fairytale Swan suit.
Visual richness in Infinity Nikki It extends far beyond the fabric. We 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 reflections, as seen in the pearls and diamonds of the Fairytale Swan costume. The dynamic presentation has also overcome the previous limitations. To support animated patterns in high-end sets like Threads of Reunion, the team developed an innovative solution to mitigate Unreal Engine 5 interference caused by the engine’s native motion blur in UV animations. This allows for sharp and vivid celestial motion effects: three independent orbits allow for complete customization of planetary shapes, angular velocities and trajectories, overlaid with fluid asteroid belts and lunar phase changes.
And how do you approach physics simulation?
Ade: We make flexible use of skeletal physics and Chaos Cloth to achieve natural and expressive movement. Through proprietary skeletal chain algorithms and improved cloth solvers, the team replaces expensive and unstable traditional collision-based algorithms with more stable and controllable constraint-based algorithms. Take Nikki running in a baggy dress for example. We introduced a soft, flexible constraint stage during pre-processing, ensuring that even under dramatic movements, the initial garment avoids clipping the body.
While pursuing physical realism, the system also preserves the intended artistic silhouette of garments, particularly structured garments with petticoats. These outfits should flow naturally like fabric, maintaining a behavior consistent with their physical build. Our custom algorithms incorporate collision handling between different types of clothing and multiple layers of clothing, allowing free combinations of clothing without sacrificing stability. By carefully balancing visuals and performance, we achieved consistent results across multiple platforms.
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