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 Re spoilers: None. Not for this game (in any capacity) not for VLR, nothing VLR related that even tangentially spoils this one, no wink-wink nudge-nudge "this next bit is AWESOME" stuff. If you're unsure if it counts or not, don't post it!  [Video: Introduction] 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (or 999 for short) is a visual novel/adventure game for the Nintendo DS in late 2009 and 2010. It was published by Aksys and developed by Chunsoft, long before they merged with Spike, which might sound odd, as the other thing you potentially know them for is... Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Considering what happens in the first 40 seconds of this game, that is some amazing mood whiplash. When it comes to the actual game, it's a "visual novel" of sorts so it has lots and lots of words. Some of the talking bits can get incredibly long on their own merit, but there's also occasional breaks in that for some proper gameplay. Namely puzzle solving in a giant room, wherein you find things that help you try and leave it. If that sounds remotely familiar, you've probably played a flash game in the past 12 years or so. Unlike many of those "escape the room!" games, though, this one is actually fun to solve the puzzles for and there's plenty of incidental dialogue to find too. Some of it is boring and not worth looking at, but there's some gems in there that's rather easy to miss if you're not looking for them. It gets likened to an adventure game more than anything else for those segments, but I think that's misleading since the puzzles can be solved by rationally thinking human beings. There is also internal consistency, which is nice. For what is described as a novel, it does have a pretty good degree of replayability in that it has 6 possible endings. Which ones you get are determined by a few clear choices you're presented with throughout the game. I'll also include videos of things that I think might warrant them for one reason or another. There probably won't be too many, but I'll also include screenshot/gif versions for those that can't/don't want to watch the videos. I'd recommend doing it if you can though, since there's small bits and pieces you can miss if you don't (nothing too major; just some minor sound bites that are kinda clever and all that). Oh, and there's a sequel for the 3DS and Playstation Vita called  don't do that! (this also applies to all things spoiler related, even hinting at it or any "oh man this next part is crazy!" nonsense, okay thanks.)                                                                                                   
Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at May 21, 2013 around 16:38 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 03:48 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 14:44 |
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Note that the below information contains huge, plot ruining spoilers! Read at your own discretion! Any reference to names in the Japanese version is creditted to Orenronen, who explained them in the thread.  Possibly the oldest person in the game, he seems to somewhat resemble a lion. His real name is Gentarou Hongou. He has a bracelet with a "1" on it, and thus decided to use Ace for his moniker. Though not explicitly using it as his reasoning, it comes from a deck of cards where an Ace has a single club/heart/diamond/spade on it, and will potentially have a value of 1. Saw Zero when he was captured. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Decided to stay behind at the large hospital room, whilst everyone else went ahead. Used a general anaesthetic to ensure he was left behind. Suspects Zero for Snake's murder, as he believes Zero is still on-board the boat somewhere. Is the president of a pharmaceutical company. That company is Cradle Pharmaceutical. Claims to be developing presbyopia, but Junpei believes he has prosopagnosia. He does have prosopagnosia. He stole the 9th Man's bracelet at some point. Appears to have attempted to kill Snake but accidentally killed someone else instead. Most likely, he opted to stay behind in the large hospital room to prevent people from discovering what he did. Killed Guy X, the 9th Man and Clover. Using the golden gun from the Cargo Room, he took Lotus hostage in order to escape through one of the 9 doors. Planned and executed the first Nonary Game. Ultimately killed by Snake, by being burnt to death in the ship's incinerator. Or did he...? He explained to Junpei about the Cells Alive System of freezing objects. Using this, he put forth the theory that Alice killed The Captain. Engineered the kidnapping of 18 children for the first Nonary Game. Killed Akane Kurashiki during the first Nonary Game. The two people he killed during the second Nonary Game were really related to Cradle Pharmaceutical and part of the Nonary Project. Set up the Nonary Project to test the morphogenetic field theory. His Japanese codename is Ichimiya (一宮). The same Kanji is usually read ichinomiya, and is a shinto term as well as the name of a city in Aichi prefecture.  Dressed rather unusually, he can be said to be something like a prince. His real name is Light Field. He has a bracelet with a "2" on it, and so chose Snake for his name. He picked his name from the expression "snake eyes," which only occurs when you roll a pair of die and both come up with a one. Somewhat ironically, Snake is actually blind. Is Clover's older brother. Saw Zero when they were captured. Appropriately enough, he has exceptional hearing and appears to even have absolute pitch capabilities. Is also confident in his physical skills, claiming to be able to run at least as fast as Junpei and stand a reasonable chance in a fight. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Seems to have disappeared during the search for the electronic parts of the REDs of Room 3, 7 and 8. He was finally found... inside room 3, after having died in the same manner as the 9th Man. His blindness was caused by an accident he had as a child. The accident also caused his left arm to be amputated, and replaced by a prosthetic. Presumed to really still be alive. Has been a participant in the Nonary Game twice, first playing the original version 9 years before the start of this one. Is confirmed to still be alive, as he was found in the coffin in the Chapel. Can remove his bracelet at will, but decided to only do so if absolutely necessary. Upon learning of Clover's death from Ace, he basically went mad. Got shot 6 times by Ace, and still didn't go down. Sacrificed himself in order to kill Ace, by burning them both alive in the ship's incinerator. Or did he...? Reunited with Junpei, Clover and Seven in the chapel. Came to the conclusion that June's bracelet is upside down. Also came to the conclusion that Santa's bracelet only displays a 3 but counts as a 0. Was ordered by Zero to not speak to the other players about the first Nonary Game. Was kidnapped by Cradle Pharmaceuticals for the first Nonary Game. "Saw" Akane Kurashiki die in the first Nonary Game. His Japanese codename is Nils (ニルス), nirusu in the Japanese transliteration.  A young man who already has In the Japanese version, his name remains Santa (サンタ).  A somewhat young looking girl with a high voice, and distinctive pink hair. Her real name is Clover Field. Her bracelet has a "4" on it, and so she chose to go by Clover. The first of two references to flowers, she decided to name herself after a four-leaf clover due to it generally meaning good luck. It doesn't appear to have helped much, since she was promptly taken hostage by the currently unnamed man with the 9th bracelet. Is Snake's younger sister. Saw Zero when they were captured. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Became depressed when Snake vanished, and has become much worse upon discovering his corpse. Believes that Zero may be one of the 7 remaining players of the Nonary game. Went missing at one point. Was found dead in the 1st Class Cabin's bathroom. Appeared to have been killed by a knife. Killed by Ace. Or was she...? Has been in the Nonary Game twice. When she last played, she was in Nevada at a place called "Building Q". Was the first person to realise that all 7 remaining players can't proceed past the two 9 doors. Was forced to stay in the chapel with Junpei and Seven. Was not ordered by Zero to not speak about the first Nonary Game, but Snake requested it anyway. Was kidnapped by Cradle Pharmaceuticals for the first Nonary Game. Her Japanese codename is Yotsuba (四葉), which means "four leaf -". Pretty much always used as a short version of Yotsuba no kurobaa, four leaf clover.  The main character. For a rather unfortunate reason, he doesn't have an alias and is stuck going by his real name which is Junpei [Surname]. A bit of an idiot with a penchant for bad jokes (though he's not the only one with that second part), he's in his early 20s and appears to live alone. Knew June when they were both in elementary school. Somehow, despite not having seen her in about 15 years, he recognised her immediately when they met during the game. He also saw Zero when he was captured. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Looked after a few rabbits with June while in elementary school, though they were killed by someone. This prompted them to decide to catch whoever did it, though they were met with no success. Thinks that someone at Cradle Pharmaceutical believes in remote viewing to the extent that they would engineer the kidnapping of 16 children. Thinks that Snake is still alive. Realised that Ace has prosopagnosia. Deduced that Ace stole the 9th Man's bracelet, attempted to kill Snake, and probably killed Clover as well. Presumably drowned on the ship. Or did he...? Was forced to stay in the chapel with Clover and Seven. Had an epiphany that helped him free Snake from the coffin in the chapel. Came to the conclusion that the 0 bracelet is actually the letter O. Appears to be able to access the morpohogenetic field, as he can remember things he learned during the "Safe Ending." Is able to access the morphogenetic field. Gave Akane a doll prior to the first Nonary Game. This doll is the reason she was caught by Hongou when Seven tried to rescue her. As he has no codename, he will forever remain merely Junpei (淳平), a standard spelling for that name.  The very blatant love interest and the real player character. Her bracelet has a "6" on it, and so Junpei gave her the name of June as it's the 6th month of the year. Her real name is Akane Kurashiki and she knew Junpei when they were both in elementary school. Saw Zero when she was captured. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Looked after a few rabbits with Junpei while in elementary school, though they were killed by someone. This prompted them to decide to catch whoever did it, though they were met with no success. Told Junpei about a mummy that was on-board the Titanic. Allegedly it was of a Priestess of Amon-Ra, who's body was encased in ice that would not melt. Told Junpei a different story about Ice-9 and the crystalisation of glycerin. Also told Junpei about the book "Futility," and how it predicted the sinking of the Titanic. Seemed to die when Junpei was chasing after Zero. Whether she did or not is unclear as she had vanished by the time Junpei returned. Or did she...? Was taken hostage by Santa at gunpoint in the chapel. Snake believes her bracelet is really a 9. Someone called "Akane Kurashiki" died during the first Nonary Game... was it really June? Yes. She died during the first Nonary Game, as confirmed by Seven. Despite collapsing inside the incinerator with no way out, she has disappeared again. Seven failed to save her from the incinerator, because she dropped a doll Junpei gave her as a gift. Her Japanese codename is Murasaki (紫), the only code name spelled in Kanji which doesn't have the actual number in it, but mu is one of the readings for the number 6. Means 'purple', and much was changed later in the translated version whenever story elements related to this particular code-name choice appear. Akane Kurashiki, meanwhile, is spelled 倉式茜, and is a standard spelling of the name, though it's worth noting Akane itself, spelled this way, can mean a shade of red/crimson.  A very large man who is somewhat akin to a mountain. His bracelet has a "7" on it, and so he decided to be called... Seven. It's certainly functional, if nothing else. Whilst everyone saw Zero upon being captured, he was the only one who didn't give any data to corroborate this. That was because he has amnesia. He claims to be unable to remember anything from before he woke up in his room on D Deck in the ship. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Believes that the ship they are on is the HMHS Gigantic. Believes that Snake may have been murdered by two participants in the Nonary Game, who authenticated Door 3 with Snake. Used to be a police officer at some point, and may still be one now. Has been on-board the ship before, whilst on assignment. He was looking for a group of 16 missing children, who had been kidnapped by an organisation known as Cradle Pharmaceuticals. One was named Aoi, one was named Light and another was named Nona. Discovered that Cradle Pharmaceuticals were running experiments with the children in how to control people. Whilst working on the case, he found out that all 16 kidnapped children had been to a hospital ran by Cradle Pharmaceuticals which is how he deduced their involvement. He remembers that a young girl died in the experiment. Presumably drowned on the ship. Or did he...? Told Junpei about a woman named Alice who was frozen and would thaw. She was purchased by Lord Gordain and allegedly stowed on-board the Gigantic. Seven believes this even if others don't. Volunteered to stay behind at the chapel so everyone else could leave the ship. Was forced to stay behind in the chapel with Clover and Junpei. Agrees with Snake that Santa appears to be Zero. Upon seeing a photograph of the 4 men who were behind the original Nonary Project, his memory was restored. Interrupted the first Nonary Game, and managed to save Snake, Santa and Nona. Failed to save Akane Kurashiki. Confirmed that the Akane Kurashiki who died during the first Nonary Game is, in fact, June. His Japanese codename is still Seven (セブン). Sebun in the Japanese transliteration.  A women dressed in what can barely be called clothes, who looks an awful lot like an exotic dancer. Her real name is [First Name] Kashiwabara. Her bracelet has an "8" on it, and so she picked Lotus for her codename due to the number of petals it has... albeit not necessarily in reality. Saw Zero when she was captured. Reconvened with the rest of the group at the "large hospital room." Suggested leaving someone behind at the large hospital room as a "sacrifice." Has twin daughters. One of her daughters is named Nona. Both Nona and her sister were kidnapped by Cradle Pharmaceuticals for their experiments. A few months after they were rescued, tried to play detective and learn what had happened but discovered nothing. Explained to Junpei and Santa about the theory of morphogenetic fields to mess with them, as she doesn't believe in it at all and thinks it's pseudoscience. Seems that she works with computers in some capacity. Is currently unemployed, but used to work for a cyber-security firm of some kind. Presumably drowned on the ship. Or did she...? As her daughters never told her about the first Nonary Game, when the other players of the second Nonary Game kept talking about it she got sick of being left out of the loop. As PoliteMachineGun pointed out, lotuses are one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhist art and a really common motif. Even though the flowers have more than eight petals, the motif is stylized as having only eight. Each petal represents a part of the Eightfold Path. Her Japanese codename, meanwhile, is Yashiro (八代). When spelled 社, yashiro is yet another shinto term, meaning a shrine. Spelled the way it is in the game, it's usually read Yatsushiro and is the name of a city in Kumamoto perfecture.  A small and very quiet man who's hair resembles a bird's nest. He stammers a lot and appears, to put it as scientifically as I can, to have freaked the gently caress out. His real name is Teruaki Kubota. His bracelet has a "9" on it, and the codename he was given by Junpei is "the 9th Man." Presumably, he saw Zero when he was captured. He somehow managed to bring a knife with him, or found one in his room, or something. The point is he has a knife. He promptly uses it to take Clover hostage for... some reason. Attempted to use Clover and Ace's bracelets to let him through Door 5 alone. His plan worked, but it had a somewhat unintended side-effect, as he died for his trouble. His bracelet has been taken by someone after he died. Ace stole his bracelet, and used it to attempt to kill Snake. Ace killed him, in order to take his bracelet. He used to work for Cradle Pharmaceuticals. He worked in Research and Development for the Nonary Project. Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at May 17, 2013 around 23:48 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 03:49 |
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 Warning: the lp you are about to read is canon. [Video: Introduction]   That number on the top-screen? Eh, probably nothing worth worrying about. I mean, what's the worst that could ha-   ...oh. [Video: End] [Music: Silence]  Alright, so, text will appear on both the top and bottom screen accordingly depending on how scenes progress. Anything on the top screen is either spoken dialogue, or something thought by a character. Anything on the bottom screen is narrative text. I'm mentioning this now, because even though both screens will often have something written on them at the same time they appear in different orders. Sometimes, you might get half of the bottom screen then a few lines of dialogue before the rest of the bottom screen gets filled in. This is a rather long way of saying if I just posted an image that had stuff on both screens it wouldn't be clear which order you read things in, so most of the time I won't for both your benefit and mine.  Ow!With a "crack," Junpei's head connected with something metal. He rolled over and threw out his hand to steady himself, but he found himself groping at empty air. His balance lost, and his still-fuzzy mind struggling to understand what was going on, Junpei tumbled down to the cold, grey floor.  Junpei glared around the room, still trying to determine where he'd woken up. The fall had shaken the last cobwebs of sleep from his mind, and finally he understood where he had fallen from.  He wondered if that bump was the reason he felt his vision wavering a bit, but that seemed unlikely.  At first, he thought the tremor that ran through through his legs was just another effect of his rude awakening, but as he looked around, he realized it was real... The whole room was shaking.  Then again, Junpei had no idea what it was, if not an earthquake. He tried to tell himself it was important. Junpei rubbed the growing bump on his head and gingerly climbed to his feet. His balance regained, he finally took his first good look around the room...  ...And muttered to himself. Where... Am I?His pain momentarily forgotten in the face of the confusion of his circumstances, Junpei looked around the room once again.  He felt his stomach tighten. There were a thousand things the sound could have been, but none of the things he could think of were good. In an attempt to distract himself, Junpei looked around the room once more.  There was a stove that looked more antique than functional.  The 3-level bunkbed had mattresses that were so thin, that they were little more than blankets.  On the other side of the room was an identical bed, and set in the wall between the beds was a slightly dirty iron door.   [5]? What's this [5] mean...Suspicious, and still utterly confused, Junpei approached the door slowly. Standing, at last, in front of the door, Junpei grabbed hold of the L-shaped handle. A push yielded no movement, and a pull the same result.  A few more tries cemented the truth in Junpei's mind: it wouldn't open. It didn't matter how much he pushed and shoved. The handle wouldn't budge.  ...As you might have figured from trying to open the door several times before anyway, Junpei is not even close to being a genius. Junpei knocked, hard, on the door.   Hey! Hello? Is anyone there!? Open the door! There was no response. Junpei threw his left fist into the door-- --and stopped. What the hell is this... In the center was a large LCD display. It looked like nothing else so much as a watch but it clearly wasn't that. After all, it showed only a single number. (5)... That's...that's the same as the door...It's true that the numbers were the same, but he had no idea what that might mean. All he knew was that it was strange, and new, and he wanted it off.  He sighed, and flipped the thing back over. There were a number of rivets around the rim of the face. Perhaps... He pushed them, but nothing happened. I don't know about you, but if I woke up in a strange place with a new bracelet on my wrist I would mess with it as little as possible. That's just me sat here saying that though; maybe if I was really in this situation I would panic and press random buttons too. On a watch, they might be dials for adjusting the date or time, but on this bracelet they did nothing. Junpei was at a loss. What was he going to do? Growing more desperate, he began to tug at it. However... Urrrrng! A steel ring ran from the face, around Junpei's wrist. He wouldn't be pulling the bracelet off any time in the near future. What the hell is the deal with this thing?! Where am I!? And why the hell am I here!? Why! Why!? What the hell happened to me!? It was at that moment that he noticed the window. The window was round, rimmed in riveted brass like a window from an early 20th century ship. What...? Wait... Am I in a ship?  What the--!? You gotta be kidding me! Wh-What the hell is going on here?! A crack split the glass of the window, and for a moment Junpei stared at it. Then the window burst, and water began to pour into the room.  Junpei yelled, and spun around. His feet slipping on the water already coming through the window, he ran for the door. Hey! Anyone! Is anyone there!? C'mon, if you're there, say something!There was no reply. As Junpei screamed, and pounded on the door, the water began to rise. It was now ankle-deep on the floor, and rising quickly toward his knees. 
Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at Jan 9, 2013 around 17:03 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 03:49 |
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   [Music: Unary Game] For the sake of convenience, I'll be skipping over any tutorial stuff we get as and when it appears. Most of it is irrelevant, anyway, but for the few bits that aren't (and anything else similar) it'll be added to the original post as and when it comes up.  So, now we're at the "main" gameplay sections which is basically a point and click adventure game. We examine things, such as the water highlighted in yellow, to get hints, items or just general chatter which might be interesting and it might not.  (It's like a waterfall. I don't think shoving something into the window is gonna stop the water. In other words, if I don't wanna die, I need to find a way out of this room. I have to figure this out!)Despite everything you might think from this, we're not actually on any timer since the water never rises until the plot demands it does. It's pretty off-putting all things considered, but it's understandable why this is the case.  If nothing else, it lets us do some handy crap like examine the plumbing for no apparent reason. (It's a pipe.) (There's nobody here to make fun of my lame jokes... Man, this sucks.)This room is honestly pretty good as a way of getting to grips with both the controls, the way things crop up on both screens frequently... and Junpei's surprisingly lacking intelligence and sense of humour. We'll be seeing a lot of that last one more than the rest though.  Moving on, if we examine any of the four things over on the left of the screen (the board, the sink and the towel being the other three), rather than give us any dialogue we get transitioned to a new screen instead.  Over here there's two things that stand out immediately, but let's ignore that for now and look in the sink instead.  I'm pretty sure that's a typo and they meant "in" the sink rather than "on" it. Bound to be one or two somewhere, after all. (This is the only drain in this room...)There's nothing else here that's really worth looking at other than the obvious two so let's look at a shelf.  This might not seem particularly important, but  When we examine the picture itself...  It's added automatically to our inventory, without a single word about it. That dialogue box in the top-screen is completely optional and only appears if you manually examine the item in question. (There's [screws] keeping the back on.) As you might expect, it's the same thing with the note up here.  Nothing else to do over in this side of the room, at all, so let's pan around to the other side and see what we can find there.  I'll skip examining the door, since Junpei already tried that, and instead lets do something more productive and look at a ladder.  (bunks. Well, worst case scenario, I can just climb up there!) (...Yeah, right. Like that's gonna work.) The ladder and top bunk are a wash, but let's see if there's anything we can wrangle out of the middle one instead. (Hmm... Well, I can reach this bunk. Might as well look through it.) So much for that. As for the bottom bunk, when we examine that...  Yep, probably nothing important here at all. Dunno why you'd think there is. Let's examine the bed further to prove that point.  (It's pretty flat.)It hasn't come up yet, but sometimes when you examine things multiple times the dialogue changes a bit. Let's look at the bed again. (That doesn't look very comfortable.)And, y'know what, let's do it one more time for good measure.  We could look at it again, but after this point it just loops a generic "it's a bed" message. There is one other thing here to look at though!  When we examine the pillow it moves (kinda; there's no actual moving animation though), and we get something new to look at.   (There's an arrow that goes all the way across the paper. It's red under the red symbols and blue under the blue ones.) As for the left side of this screen, let's look at the beds there as well.  There's barely any space between the bed and the ceiling. I don't think I'd even have enough space to turn over. I'd bet money this was for poorer passengers, or maybe the ship's crew. No, I didn't skip anything. He really exclaims that out of nowhere if you examine the top bunk here. It makes me wonder if the sequence was originally meant to be timed since this seems like it would be a good indication that you really should finish sooner rather than later. As is, it just happens for no apparent reason.  Oh well, rather than worry about that let's look at more beds!  (stop the water! All right window, let's see how you like this. Shoot... That's not gonna happen. There's way too much water coming through there.) (I guess there's only one way I'm going to live through this... And that's by getting the hell out of this room!) (After all, there's not really anything else I can do.)And if we examine the bottom bunk, yet again we get a perspective change.  This screen seems a bit more busy than the other ones. There's plenty more here to consider examining, so let's start with what got us here:  Not much comes of that, so instead let's examine the ladder that takes up the center of the screen.  (Oh man, the water's already up to the bottom of the bed! I've gotta hurry this up!)Let's examine it again, just because we can.  Not much this time, but that's no reason to give up. Let's try again!  And, hell, once more for good measure.  (its a gif) ...Okay, yeah, this is the other thing I alluded to when looking at the pipes. Junpei's not done yet though, so let's see what else he has in store!  "Hey, so did you hear what that shopkeeper said after his ladder got stolen?" "No, what'd he say?"  I'm sure this will open the floodgates for awful, awful puns but I'm pretty sure Junpei makes all the ones you can make without stretching it a bit. And even with stretching it too.  "So this friend of mine fell all the way down a 15-foot ladder." "Wow, that's pretty bad. How's he doing?"  There's one last bit that we can get out of this. Might as well, since we have seen them all to this point.  "Trying to keep up with all the latest stiles has me all rung out..." "Well, if it's a choice between being a step for someone else, and being a real social climber, I'll take the ladder!" "What do you call a secondary ladder covered in people?"  (Besides, this is no time to be making jokes! I need to get out of here, now!)We can keep examining it still, but like the bed before it just loops a generic "it's a ladder" message now. Instead, let's examine the one thing that screams important:   (Let's see if there's anything in the keyhole.) Nothing much here other than a lock and some numbers, unfortunately. At least we can examine them both if we really wanted to. There's no point to it right now, but instead let's see what else we can find.  Back on the previous screen we still have two things to examine. This teapot and its stand being the more prevalent, we'll look at it first.  From here we can get a closer look at the teapot itself, so let's do just that.  (A... key? Yeah, there's a little blue key in the bottom of this pot. Odd.) (What's it for, then? This key's blue... Is it supposed to open something else blue?)That's kind of a leap in logic, isn't it? Might just be me, though.  Anyway, back on the main screen we can also examine the door to the stove. (This is the door to the stove. Well, it opens easily enough. Sure wish the door to get out of here was that easy to open.)  (What's this... It looks red...) (Doesn't seem to be anything special about it.)The last place to check out is more noticable here than on the previous screen so let's check it out now.   Nothing much in here, though. There is something that looks oddly familiar though...  (Yup, there's a lock on this one too, and it's not opening.)Hmm, well this is awkward. We can pan across to the left by backing up a bit, but that just leads us back where we started. I guess that means we've seen pretty much everything there is... except the contents of these two briefcases. At this point, we could probably try and brute force the blue one since we have a matching coloured key but that might not work. There is still one thing left to do. Remember back when we examined the picture frame. Let's try and use it with the screwdriver to get those screws undone. It'll probably lead to nothing but a photo of a boat, but it's something new at least.   An "old cruise liner," huh? Hmm...  (So someone wrote a bunch of numbers and symbols on the back of the picture, huh.)Well, that's odd and not something I'd remember easily or want to check the long way every few seconds. So, it's a good thing there's no need too! One more mechanic that hasn't quite come up yet is that we can rotate items when looking at them.  Much like we were told, the symbols and numbers were on the back of the pictures. I'm sure I've seen something on here somewhere else before, but I can't put my finger on what... Eh, it's probably nothing.  But we do have what is probably the key to the blue case now, so let's go use it. First we select it from our inventory so it appears in the bottom left corner and then examine the lock. This is how items are used and it can sometimes get you different reactions, or dialogue but from what I remember it's mostly used for puzzle solving.  (...Aaaaand nothing. I guess I'm gonna need some sort of code for the dial.) I'm pretty sure the code we have already is right. I mean, there's not much else it could be right?  Okay, um, I don't think this is working.  So rather than worry about that, let's go take a look over here before we open that briefcase. I get the feeling we're overlooking something. (Maybe if I pull it...!) (Well, it looks like pulling on the lever just makes a weird noise. Great. The light's still red, and the display hasn't changed.) Damnit! Why the hell isn't this thing opening?!Let's examine it again; maybe we'll figure something out.  (through it or something like that. Maybe if I can find a card, I can unlock this thing.)Well, that's certainly an idea but first we have one last thing to check. You might have noticed it a few times by now...   There's something taped onto that... mirror? We can see reflections of the room, but Junpei isn't there for some reason. Let's give that item a closer look.   He intended to leave immediately, but... Something stopped him. His reflection stared back from the mirror, but he had scarcely recognized himself.   How did I end up here...?Even as he said it, something in his mind opened... [Music: Silence] And a memory bobbed to the surface. It was the last thing Junpei remembered before waking up in the strange room...  Junpei shuffled up the stairs, and opened the door to apartment 201. Inside was his apartment. A small, one-bedroom affair, that ran him about $630 a month. He moved into it when he entered college, and so far he'd been there for 3 years and 7 months.  The fluorescent lights on the ceiling blinked and flickered slowly to life, as if waking from a deep slumber. Their cold light illuminated the landscape he'd come home to so many times before... Everything was as he'd left it. The magazines piled up in the corner. The text books collecting dust. The CD cases covering the floor. The jeans and t-shirt he'd worn the day before, then tossed onto the floor. There was one thing that didn't belong, however. There was a breeze. Breaths of cold night air wafted into his apartment, carrying the smells of autumn with them. The white curtain framing his window swayed gently in the wind. "Huh. That's weird... Did I leave that open...?" Junpei walked toward the window, trying to remember if he'd closed it or not before he left. One of the panes was hanging open. He stuck his head out, and looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Junpei shrugged. He must have just left it open earlier. He closed the window. Then it happened.   Junpei tried to scream, but all he could manage was a strangled croak. He tried to step toward the man, but his legs could no longer support his weight. Junpei collapsed to the floor--a crumpled heap of limbs, like a discarded puppet.  A small object, shaped distressingly like a grenade, sat on the floor in front of his face, hissing. The white smoke poured out of it at an incredible rate. The smoke had grown so thick that the details of Junpei's apartment began to fade into the white haze. He could feel his mind begin to fade as well, a white haze that was not the smoke creeping into the edges of his vision.   You are going to participate in a game. The [Nonary Game]. That was the last thing Junpei remembered. The white smoke overpowered him, the masked man faded from his vision, and he felt his consciousness fall away into the white mist.  That son of a bitch must have taken me here!As to who the man was, or might have been, Junpei had no idea. Indeed, he wasn't even sure that his assailant had been a man. The voice had been cold and mechanical--likely passed through a voice-changer--and the body had been covered in a thick cloak.  What it might mean... That was beyond him. Junpei had no idea where he was, or why he was there. There was only one thing from his memory that seemed important...  This might seem superfluous given how the game gave us this exact same bit of dialogue moments ago, but it's possible to have saved and quit sometime between then and now. It's not particularly likely, nor is it a good excuse, though. The Nonary Game, huh... [Music: The Unary Game] Well, we have the red key now and we know that the blue key went in the blue briefcase, so...  Let's give it a try over here too.  (In fact... It's not doing anything at all. Well, all right, I take that back. I guess I can move the dial now. So, it looks like I'm gonna have to put in the right numbers and then turn the key. I do that, this thing should pop right open. Let's give it a shot.)I think 0101 might work this time!   (I wonder if anything I've got might have a hint... I think it should open if I put in the right numbers and turn the key.) (Wait... What about that note on the bulletin board? There were a couple of symbols on it that were red...Someone drew those symbols on the back of the picture, along with some numbers.) (open?)Okay, so now we know what we're doing let's take a closer look at these memos. Though we'll need to look at this one more than the others. You probably don't remember what was on the cards, but the ones we're currently interested in is the red ones which based on the arrows on the notes we found ran: Top-left full triangle, bottom-right empty triangle, top-right full triangle, empty square. Combining this with the cypher card we get, in that same order, 7485. Let's give it a try.  (It's opening!) Hmm, that's...a lot of empty space. Feels like a waste, honestly. Let's see what those two card things are doing here.  Alright, we have some keycards! I know just where to use these things.  (use them.) All right, let's slide this card and see if it works.  (Do I need someother cards to get this to work?! poo poo, I need to find more cards, now!)Well, we found this first set over in the red briefcase so lets head back to the blue one now to see if we can get in there. This time we're decyphering: Full square, top-left empty triangle, bottom-left full triangle, top-right empty triangle. This and the code for the symbols gives us 0263.  (looks like it's working!) (Looks like there's something in here... What is this...? A file...?)And now, we get introduced to something you'll grow used to very, very quickly.  (Let's see here... Compute a [digital root] with the following steps: First, add all the numbers in question to one another. If you end up with something greater than a single-digit number, add the digits to one another. Keep adding digits in this manner until you have a single digit answer. That final single digit is your [digital root]. EX: The [digital root] of (678) would be...) (Therefore, the [digital root] of (678) is [3]. EX: The [digital root] of (1234) would be... 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 → 1 + 0 = [1] Therefore, the [digital root] of (1234) is [1].) I see... ...Oh. Looks like there's something on the back of this thing. A notebook, a pen, a calculator, and a stack of [key cards]. Huh. Let's go try these out on the card reader now!  (There aren't any more cards in here. I've only got one other hint.) Of course! The files! (That file said something about a "[digital root]".) A digital root... The digital root huh. (What am I supposed to do with--) (There's a [5] on that door.) (I'm not really sure about this...) (Ah, whatever. It's worth a shot.) Let's see if this works. I'll just slide the cards that give me the [digital root] of [5] through the reader. That's close to a 5, right?   (All right... I just need to pick the cards that have the [digital root] of [5]. Then I show them to this thing, and the lock should open... Now, to get a [digital root] I have to keep adding the numbers together until I've got a single digit. So let's say I've got (678)... (6 + 7 + 8) = 21. Then add 2 and 1, and my [digital root] is [3]. Or how about (823)...) So which numbers do I need to make a [digital root] of [5]?Oh, I want 5 exact? Well that's easy enough to manage...  Alright, this looks like I've got it now!   (Huh... Did it just unlock!? Well, that light was red, and now it's blue. No doubt about it...) (There's nothing keeping me in here now! Time to go!)We could look around one last time, but we've seen everything there is worth seeing already. We've also done all the mandatory stuff there is, even if it took a fair bit longer than it probably would otherwise. Let's get out of here! [Music: Silence]    Junpei's official art Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at Jan 20, 2013 around 03:13 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 03:50 |
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Funny enough, I *just* beat this game. It's really a fantastic little title, and hopefully this LP will bring even more attention to it (although I understand it sold quite well.) That said, this is going to be an interesting game to LP. Especially given the nature of it, I'll be curious to see your take on it, though I can't say I'm keen to read ALL of this game's dialog all over again. I hope some science goons chime in when the time is right to go deeper into some of the cool concepts this game introduces!
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 03:56 |
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Is Digital Root an actual thing? Because I did that stuff all the time to waste time or make puzzles for my friends in high school.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 06:34 |
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BFC posted:Is Digital Root an actual thing? Because I did that stuff all the time to waste time or make puzzles for my friends in high school. There's a much simpler actual mathematical function that does the exact same thing. Divide a number by 9, and take the remainder. If you get a 0, it counts as 9 instead for the game's purposes.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 06:36 |
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BFC posted:Is Digital Root an actual thing? Yeah, it is. The most common use for it I can think of, though, isn't trying to escape from a room filling with water, but rather used (by kids, normally) to quickly check if something is divisible by 3, 6 or 9.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 07:59 |
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Any chance you'll be doing Virtue's Last Reward after this game? Or are there no proper ways to catch screens from Vita/3DS?
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 08:13 |
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Oh man I loving love this game. I'm glad to see it getting LPed, and it looks like it'll be done justice. I had no idea those ladder puns were there, and I always checked everything. I hope you'll keep including the optional observations, a lot of them are great.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 08:43 |
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This looks really interesting; all else aside, I can't miss a game where you can force the main character to make endless terrible ladder puns while the room slowly fills with water. Definitely keeping an eye on this LP.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 10:58 |
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So, this game looks pretty fun. Getting a "Saw by the way of math geek"-vibe so far, excited to see where it goes. Also: Those ladder jokes... I should commend the game for actually giving the main character a discernible personality, although that personality appears to be "spectacularly bad at jokes."
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 11:19 |
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HR12345 posted:Any chance you'll be doing Virtue's Last Reward after this game? Or are there no proper ways to catch screens from Vita/3DS? Just calm down, buddy. We're only two updates into this game, and we're not gonna be done for a good time now.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 12:29 |
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HR12345 posted:Any chance you'll be doing Virtue's Last Reward after this game? Or are there no proper ways to catch screens from Vita/3DS? There's two ways to capture a 3DS that I know of: 1. Get an official "Nitro" device from Nintendo. I know a popular LPer on YouTube, I'd say who, but I think they want it under wraps, who managed to get one; but Nintendo has to actually give it to you. You can't buy one. (I don't have one.) 2. There's a guy you can send your 3DS to who will solder it, etc. so that it will do (2D) video output. It's apparently a little expensive, and of course, requires modding your 3DS. But yeah, we're a long way from finishing this. Good luck, Dragonatrix. P.S. I guess I see where you're coming from for completeness' sake, but I don't know how necessary it is to include the game instruction files in your OP.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 14:06 |
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I'm a huge fan of this series and I thank you for displaying it here for people interested in it to read through! I just finished Virtue's Last Reward and am looking forward to seeing my favorite characters from the first game again.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 14:31 |
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I'm happy to see this. It looks like you are going to do a good job without totally beating the game down right out of the gate.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 14:44 |
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slowbeef posted:I don't know how necessary it is to include the game instruction files in your OP. Hmm, I could remove them if they're completely unnecessary and it wouldn't really impact anything. It'd look a bit sparse though with just "About Digital Roots" as the only entry for the time being. Which might actually be better than arbitrary padding now that I think about it. HR12345 posted:Any chance you'll be doing Virtue's Last Reward after this game? Or are there no proper ways to catch screens from Vita/3DS? Aside from the obvious aspects covered above, from what I've gathered it'd be relatively easy to do with a Vita since it can take screenshots as an actual command or something. I don't know how viable that is in practice, and if it's even worth it. ...The other, and much more immediate, issue with this is that I don't have a Vita in the first place so I couldn't do that if I wanted to. I also don't really want to spend just shy of $300 on modding my 3DS just for LP either (or around $450 buying a second one already modded). Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at Jan 9, 2013 around 16:21 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 16:19 |
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I clicked on many objects over and over to see what Junpei would have to say about them, but I didn't realize he had that many terrible jokes ready to go. Looking forward to see what else I missed!
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 16:20 |
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Dragonatrix posted:Hmm, I could remove them if they're completely unnecessary and it wouldn't really impact anything. It'd look a bit sparse though with just "About Digital Roots" as the only entry for the time being. Sure, but you're only at the start - I'd imagine it'd be sparse now and flesh out more as the game goes on. Up to you. It's one of those "eh, could look better, could not" kind of suggestions.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 16:21 |
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I've played VLR, but seeing as I don't have a DS, the only way I got to experience this game was through a YouTube LP, so I'm looking forward to re-experiencing it here! Looks like you're doing the game justice thus far. Good luck with the rest of the LP!
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 16:51 |
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slowbeef posted:It's one of those "eh, could look better, could not" kind of suggestions. Alright, so I've removed them to see how that fares. I don't think anyone will really mind not knowing they could hypothetically press a button to find an unnecessary tutorial... that tells them they can press that button to get to said tutorial, at least.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 17:07 |
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Heard good things about the story in this, looking forward to it since your sandcastle post. Enjoyed your Prof. Layton'ing too. Someone else started an LP of this around the time I registered, but I think it got abandoned and disappeared. Shame you couldn't have continued from where they left off. (I always wondered why HelloWinter didn't continue from what Mega64 had done on Phoenix Wright too.)
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 17:18 |
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VagueRant posted:Someone else started an LP of this around the time I registered, but I think it got abandoned and disappeared. Shame you couldn't have continued from where they left off. (I always wondered why HelloWinter didn't continue from what Mega64 had done on Phoenix Wright too.) That's not typically done, except in the case of games where the original LPer got very far in. I think Lufia only went through the first door anyway, so it's not like you have long to wait.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 17:33 |
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BFC posted:Is Digital Root an actual thing? Because I did that stuff all the time to waste time or make puzzles for my friends in high school. It's pretty much a fancy application of modular arithmetic, any number's digital root is what it's equal to in mod 9. Which to find, like someone said earlier, you just divide by nine and determine the remainder.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 21:19 |
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Cake Attack posted:It's pretty much a fancy application of modular arithmetic, any number's digital root is what it's equal to in mod 9. Just as a little extra piece of information I happen to know related to this (given that there's loads of cool stuff you can do with modular maths), most people know that if you take the digital root of a number and it's divisible by 3, the number itself is divisible by 3 (and if the digital root is 9, the number's also divisible by 9). However, if you alternately sum a number (for example, 18975 becomes 1 - 8 + 9 - 7 + 5 = 0), if the number you get from that is divisible by 11, then the number itself is divisible by 11. So 918412 is divisible by 11, since the numbers alternately sum to 11. Apologies if this is fairly common knowledge, or people think it's irrelevant, I just read it in a book once and thought it was pretty cool.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 21:41 |
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I hope this game fares better than the last abortive 999 LP. Seems pretty good so far!
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 21:43 |
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Finished 999 less than a week ago thanks to Patrick from Giant Bomb talking it up a lot. Looking forward to following this thread. It struck me when I started that this is the only VN I've played (admittedly not a large pool) that's written in third-person past-tense. Maybe that's actually really common though, I don't know.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 22:19 |
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I ordered this game after I picked up VLR but realized I should play this first. I'm two and a half endings in right now, having some good times. Well 'good'. It's a neat story.tooooooo bad posted:It struck me when I started that this is the only VN I've played (admittedly not a large pool) that's written in third-person past-tense. Maybe that's actually really common though, I don't know. No, it's quite unusual. It's a game that likes to do things differently.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 22:36 |
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I am just fine with this thread getting started. I keep meaning to actually play 999 but I've never gotten around to it. Maybe some day I'll be reading this thread and I'll just decide I can't handle the suspense anymore and that'll be that. Who knows?
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 22:59 |
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Cake Attack posted:It's pretty much a fancy application of modular arithmetic, any number's digital root is what it's equal to in mod 9. Modulus 9 plus one.  neongrey posted:I ordered this game after I picked up VLR but realized I should play this first. I'm two and a half endings in right now, having some good times. Well 'good'. It's a neat story. What are your odds of either playing 999 first or waiting for this LP? I can't say much without spoilers, so I'll just say I'd recommend 999 before VLR.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:04 |
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slowbeef posted:What are your odds of either playing 999 first or waiting for this LP? I can't say much without spoilers, so I'll just say I'd recommend 999 before VLR. I think he meant he's two and a half endings into 999, not VLR. Hopefully, because it really can't be stressed enough that you should play 999 first.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:07 |
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slowbeef posted:Modulus 9 plus one. Not quite! It's regular mod 9, but a result of 0 counts as 9.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:10 |
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smenj posted:However, if you alternately sum a number (for example, 18975 becomes 1 - 8 + 9 - 7 + 5 = 0), if the number you get from that is divisible by 11, then the number itself is divisible by 11. This is pretty cool info (to me, anyway), but the way you've written your example doesn't really work because of that whole "order of operations" thing. As is, it reads the same as 1 - (8 + 9) - (7 + 5) which is ... v Dammit, I dunno how I got something that simple wrong. Dragonatrix fucked around with this message at Jan 9, 2013 around 23:29 |
| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:14 |
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Dragonatrix posted:This is pretty cool info (to me, anyway), but the way you've written your example doesn't really work because of that whole "order of operations" thing. As is, it reads the same as 1 - (8 + 9) - (7 + 5) which is If you're going to , you should get the order of operations right. Addition and subtraction, being the same operation in algebraic terms, have the same precedence and are evaluated left to right. The parentheses you've added in both cases are incorrect, but in the second case, you're not artificially distributing a -1, so the result is the same.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:24 |
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Yeah, I maybe phrased it badly. I bought VLR first and realized between buying and playing that I should play 999 first. Since I found 999 easily enough I ordered it in and I've been playing that first. Thanks, though. 
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| # ? Jan 9, 2013 23:37 |
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Cool, I'm glad someone is hitting this game up again after the last LP ended prematurely. I finished one playthru of this game and I couldn't find the time to keep going. Looking forward to it.
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| # ? Jan 10, 2013 01:30 |
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Yay another attempt at this game, I got the game when it first came out and stop after awhile since I didn't had the time to play it. Been meaning to start it up again and this thread might make me.
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| # ? Jan 10, 2013 04:06 |
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I'm glad to see this around. I was actually considering making an LP of this myself, but my computer is a piece of junk and I can't even make halfway decent gif captures. Can't wait to see the reactions everyone has to it though.
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| # ? Jan 10, 2013 04:37 |
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Count me among the people happy to see this game picked up again! I can't wait to finally see how the story unfolds.
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| # ? Jan 10, 2013 06:38 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 14:44 |
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smenj posted:Just as a little extra piece of information I happen to know related to this (given that there's loads of cool stuff you can do with modular maths), most people know that if you take the digital root of a number and it's divisible by 3, the number itself is divisible by 3 (and if the digital root is 9, the number's also divisible by 9). However, if you alternately sum a number (for example, 18975 becomes 1 - 8 + 9 - 7 + 5 = 0), if the number you get from that is divisible by 11, then the number itself is divisible by 11. So 918412 is divisible by 11, since the numbers alternately sum to 11. Apologies if this is fairly common knowledge, or people think it's irrelevant, I just read it in a book once and thought it was pretty cool. There is actually a pretty sweet application for that that has been used for nearly 2000 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casting_out_nines Since this method results in falshe positive in 1 out of 9 times you can additionally use the same check with 11 and reduce the false positives to 1 out of 99 times (9*11). Anyway, enough derailing. I'm happy this LP starts again. I was following the first one and was quite sad to see HelloWinter burn out. I'll definitely follow this one and hope you will make it through.
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| # ? Jan 10, 2013 08:29 |
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