rionaleonhart | You're Really Somethin', Kid.

Crossposts: https://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/504752.html

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You're Really Somethin', Kid.

I saw that

futuresoon was posting about a game called Your Turn to Die, and my response was, 'Well, this sounds likely to be up my street from the title alone.'

I investigated.

It was up my street.

Your Turn to Die is a game in the strangely populous 'a bunch of people are abducted and put through traumatic, murder-filled trials for mysterious reasons' genre; it feels very inspired by Zero Escape and Danganronpa, with a little more emphasis on horror. (I don't know why there are so many games on this theme, but I'm not complaining for a second.) Mechanically, it's closer to Ace Attorney, although there are various minigames. The game is available at no cost, but I've been watching a Let's Play by ManlyBadassHero instead. A lot of Let's Players can get a bit loud and overexcited, so I'm enjoying Manly's style; he's engaged with the game and reacting to things, but he's also relaxed and soft-spoken. (This works extremely well when he's reading Keiji's lines.)

Frustratingly, the game is episodic and as yet unfinished, but there's a solid amount out already. It's remarkably high-quality for a game that was released for free and translated unofficially!

Poor Joe. He was a good kid. I like that, given the options 'you die, everyone else survives to continue the killing game' or 'you and your friend survive and escape, everyone else dies', he aimed for the option that meant he could live rather than going for self-sacrifice, but he took the trouble to tell everyone that he didn't harbour any bitterness towards them when they scuppered that plan. He didn't want to die, but he didn't want people to be haunted by his death either.

(I also enjoyed how extremely fucked up his execution was. Poor Sara, given a button and told 'if you press it fast enough, it'll slow down; maaaaaaybe it'll stop?' I love that she's still desperately pressing it long after he's died.)

And then Sara starts being haunted by horrible hallucinations of Joe! I'm so in favour of this.

Riona: FUTURESOON WHY WOULD YOU GET ME INTO ANOTHER DEATH GAME
futuresoon: ahahaha YOU WERE EXACTLY WHO I WAS HOPING TO GET INTO IT. "the protagonist having hallucinations of her horribly-murdered best friend is an actual game mechanic," i thought, "riona absolutely needs to see this." but i didn't want to spoil.

Sou's backstory is really interesting! He's such a survive-at-all-costs lying little shit because he learnt that this killing game's been simulated countless times with AIs, and he never survived the simulations, and he desperately concluded, 'Well, if I have a 0% chance of survival, I'm going to have to make myself into someone else who maybe can survive.' (Are we the real people this time, or is there a chance this is just another AI simulation?) I also love that, despite his efforts to pretend otherwise, he genuinely cares about Kanna.

I'm shipping Keiji/Sara and it's going to bring the fandom police down on my head (Sara is seventeen; Keiji's age is unspecified, but he's definitely over twenty; parts of Tumblr are convinced that so much as thinking about these two fictional characters kissing is an Actual Crime). I just really enjoy the ambiguity of Keiji. Is he actually flirting, or is he just playing around? Is he untrustworthy, or is he the most trustworthy person here? He's so cagey (no pun intended) about his past and his motivations. He's probably my favourite character, and his interactions with Sara are really interesting. Maybe I should write slightly unsettling Keiji/Sara-tinged fanfiction.

My favourite response I've seen to anti-Keiji/Sara sentiment: 'oh no, someone call the poli... oh wait.' Keiji is a police detective.

There's a character in this game who's mockingly addressed at one point as 'Cubetaro Hamburger', and his real name (Q-taro Burgerberg) is genuinely sillier than that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh no, another game in the "people are put into horrible situations and have to do terrible things to survive" genre. And you can play it on mobile devices! What a terrible (delightful) thing to discover the day before I have to go away for work.

Yesssss. I don't know why this is an entire genre, but I love it. If you do play it, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

i’m playing yttd too! i’ve finished chapter one, barely into chapter two so i didn’t read the spoilers section of this post. i’m enjoying it so far, and i’m enjoying how large chunks of the Danganronpa and Zero Escape fandoms have seemingly all jumped onto YTTD in the last like, week and a half. it is, of course, extremely on brand for both fandoms. (i don’t know why this is a genre now, but i love it?)

I'm so pleased to find it has a reasonably lively fandom! I was afraid it'd be the 'only four people on the planet have written fanfiction for this game' Zanki Zero situation all over again. Once you've finished chapter two, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

YES, I HAVE ALSO BEEN WATCHING AN LP OF THIS, AND HAVE BEEN WAITING TO TELL YOU. I am afraid I can’t respond directly to your post because I’m having to go LALALALA CAN’T READ because I’ve only seen up to the end of chapter 1 (my LPer is taking a little break before chapter 2). So I will come back and reply to the main body of the post when I have finished it. But I can’t wait to post this, because I’m inpatient, so here’s some thoughts on chapter 1 and in general.

Funnily enough, I described this as a blend of Danganronpa/Zero Escape/Ace Attorney to my friend just yesterday via text! The Main Game sections also borrow heavily from Werewolf and, to a lesser extent, Town of Salem with the card roles. Town of Salem is one of my favourite games that I have hundreds of hours and victories in it (I –love- that style of strategy game, and I play opposite the ‘regular’ strategies and try to be subtle when I’m taking on ‘evil’ roles), so right up my street to be having to read the room into who is what role.

I think one thing that fascinates me is that despite its similarities, there are also notable differences across the Main Game segments. So, while it’s stylistically similar to, say, Danganronpa, there you’re shooting down theories of a murder that has already happened when people are mistaken. In Your Turn to Die, a lot of the time you’re looking at people who are outright lying – either to protect people, to just be a terrible person, to hide their card role or make themselves look suspicious, or because they’ve been threatened to etc. And the fact they’re lying is, in a way, more interesting – because can you then trust anything that character says or take it at face value, especially if the motive for their lying isn’t especially clear? Between that and the votes being kept anonymous, it creates that atmosphere of anyone could be against you in some ways far more effectively than the games it is inspired by. Take Virtue’s Last Rewards similar vote system; the voters are up on the board, so hostility is created between various sets of people. But when you don’t know who’s screwed you over? Who do you trust?

I will have a look at the Let’s Player you’ve been watching when I’m all up to date (I’m planning on playing through chapter 2 myself, but also chapter 1, to familiarise myself with the controls). If I like something enough, I’ll watch numerous LPs as long as the LPer doesn’t annoy me. I’ll also recommend the LP I’ve been watching – The Nyancave (presently my favourite LPers). They get quite into the story and because there’s 3 people there (well, 2 for 2 episodes when one of them is sick) you also get them actually discussing, and having 3 people for voicing purposes works quite well in bouncing off eachother. I’m actually very curious to see ManlyBadassHero’s voicing for certain characters (Keiji, Kai) because I’m very curious if different readings of certain voice lines will impact on how you read a character. (Also, they’re actually youtube streamers, so you can also read the live chat while listening if you’re into that sort of thing. Many of the chat are blind, so it works well for this one.)

My favourite character is Gin, because I’m a sucker for the little kid archetype apparently. Naturally, this means his death sentence is assured at some point. Sorry, kid. I’ll try to death glare at you a bit so you can stay alive.

-timydamonkey

I'm so pleased you're into this! I was thinking it was something you might enjoy. I'm glad you shared your thoughts on the first chapter, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of the second!

It's definitely interesting to have the 'who's voting for whom? who's got a reason to lie?' tension. Even though its inspirations are clear, I appreciate that this game's doing its own thing. There's another major difference between this game and Danganronpa/Zero Escape that starts to make itself clear in chapter two; I'll have to remember to talk about it once you're there!

On your recommendation, I've poked around parts of the Nyancave Let's Play! They're doing some good voice work, although I'm pretty attached to ManlyBadassHero's voices for a few of the characters, in particular Keiji and Sou. As you say, it's really interesting to hear the same line read in different ways. I loved watching the chat react to the Sacrifice.

Gin is absolutely precious. What a good kid.

i also was getting major Werewolf vibes! to the point where in chapter 1’s Main Game, as soon as a certain character claimed to be the Keymaster, i thought oh. they’re claiming this, but if i counter-claim, it puts all the suspicion on them — and the person who *wants* the most suspicion possible must be the Sacrifice! and that theory probably stuck in my head for longer than it should have :P

(i’ve never played Town of Salem, but i’ve played a decent amount of Werewolf, Mafia, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf.)

Edited 2019-07-28 21:59 (UTC)

I like Werewolf, but I haven't played too much of it due to a) lack of opportunity and, relatedly, b) it's hard to play evil roles early on in Werewolf when you don't know the other roles well enough to lie effectively. I'm a huge Town of Salem fan, and I know all the roles well enough to lie effectively. It doesn't always work - for instance, Jester is the Sacrifice-like role of Town of Salem, and I play it very subtly as opposed to the brazen way most people play it which immediately marks them as that role, but sometimes it's too subtle for less experienced players to notice - but I love the strategy element and it drives me crazy when people forget that it is supposed to be a strategy game. I got so annoyed when they altered the spy role as it was "too powerful" when you just had to be strategic - a smart mafia could weed out spies and other town members by throwing about fake information and names or pretending to be blackmailed. It could be powerful for both sides, you just had to use your brains about how to play it.

Ahem. Sorry for the Town of Salem diatribe, don't get much chance to talk about it and Werewolf is similar enough that you might appreciate the explanation. :P

And yes, I originally read that person as being the sacrifice. I did let go of that very early, though - but then when I realised they were just being a bit of a wind up, I wondered if they were actually the Sage and knew the Sage wouldn't counterclaim because it was them, and wanted to see if they could needle the keymaster into revealing - it's the sort of play I might do if anything could be achieved more easily that way, not that it was in any way clear in this case that it would achieve anything. (I'm not sure the Sage could actually do that, but it says they can't lie about the results of their divination, not their role. Or would claiming to be the keymaster count as lying even though they weren't actually saying they'd divined anything? Hmm, wording.)

i do appreciate the town of salem info! it makes me kind of want to try it out, though i don't know anyone else who plays it -- all my Werewolf and One Night Ultimate Werewolf experience has been IRL, and while i've played a decent amount of Mafia online (on epicmafia) it's always been with online friends/acquaintances, not randoms.

subtle/less obvious/strategic plays are fun! my heartrate always shoots up whenever i'm an evil role, but i like to think i'm at least decent at it anyways. my favorite testimonial i've ever received is, "it's always the quiet ones that are mafia. unless grave is mafia then it kinda gets fucky."

In my country the age of consent is sixteen, so my head is like hey, ship away! Ahaha.

It's sixteen in my country as well, so the idea of seventeen-year-olds being sexual beings isn't remotely scandalous to me, but for some reason certain areas of fandom have really latched onto 'you can't ship anyone under eighteen with anyone over eighteen or you are a TERRIBLE CRIMINAL'.

Yeah, the US-centricity doesn't usually really leave much space for anything else.

Shouldn't antis be more worried about all the murdering and killing going on?

Nonsense. Everyone knows that fictional depictions of murder are fine, whereas fictional depictions of anything even adjacent to sex will immediately plunge society into unimaginable moral turpitude.

How could I have forgotten!

Well, chapter 2 part 1 is done and dusted! This was written stream of conscious style during the chapter (and consequently may seem to contradict itself), but I’ve also added some stuff occasionally to prior theories. Much longer than chapter 1, huh? Also, sorry, still can’t respond to your main post due to not being at part 2 yet.

SPOILERS ABOUND (also please don’t spoil me for chapter 2 part 2, ty)

I told you I’d also play through chapter 1 to get a hang of the controls. This means I’ve been able to have somewhat of a retrospective look at chapter one, and in doing so, I have clearly found the funniest line of the first chapter:

Gin [to Sou]: “Just make up some lie, meow! You’re honest to a fault, woof!”
Yup, that Sou. HONEST TO A FAULT.

So the intro scene with Kai was fairly enlightening. So Kai works for Sara’s father, and seems to have been appointed as something along the lines of a bodyguard but from the shadows? Hence, why Sara sees him as her stalker: he’s not done a very sleuthy job of following her around. Of course, this beggars lots of questions about Sara’s family, and why this is necessary. Interestingly, it also reminds me of the kidnapping scene in chapter 1: Sara’s father is absolutely nowhere to be found, but I noticed on my playing it that when Sara gets yanked into the room for the First Trial, there are three hands. So even if you count Kai as being involved on this part (and that’s not a given as we clearly run into him on the street), there’s someone else, too. Possibly Sara’s father is involved…? (Later edit: Or is this part of the running plan – knock her out and run! Although, er, it obviously went wrong if that’s the case. Or Kai wasn’t involved at all in the knockout – I can’t remember whether Sara inferred the one who knocked her out was her stalker, or stated that she actually recognised him as her stalker and therefore it was Kai.)

Attractions: I took along people I liked, with an extra side of who I thought might not pick up other clear chips as others might find them less useful. So, I like Keiji and Gin for example, but if both were options, I’d typically go for Gin as I figured less people will be willing to partner the kid as they’d think they’re gonna have to carry him. Other times if I thought somebody seemed particularly suited for an attraction, I’d team with them.

Tokens: This was so hard. That chapter intro with Gin made me super wary of the effects of tokens, especially since the kid is literally handing them out like candy but won’t take anything in return. Then I thought it might actually be a double bluff, and anybody who isn’t trusted by not having traded away any tokens might be in trouble too. So I took some and I felt terrible, because I JUST WANT TO TRADE, Gin. No freebies! Also, it occurs to me that I don’t necessarily have control of my own tokens. I don’t remember how the rules were phrased, but say if I swapped 20 tokens with Kanna, and 20 with Sou, could Kanna then use my own tokens as currency and trade them to Sou instead of her own…? (I use Kanna and Sou as the example as they’re the two who explicitly work together, even if Kanna may be doing it in a spy capacity currently.)

-timydamonkey (with more posts incoming)

Here is where I ended up with tokens: Keiji 20, Q-taro 10, Reko 50 (0), Gin 30, Nao 30.
And with hallucinations: 70 (down to 0 in medical room)
I don’t see what the text is getting at here. Is it a mistranslation or did I miss an oddity? Can’t be the ‘big sis Sara’ because he literally calls her that all the time.
Sara: “But it’s only a one-time payment. I’ll play with you for free next time, Gin.”
Gin: “Gotcha, woof! I’ll play using big sis Sara, meooow!”
Sara: (Did he misspeak, or…? Oh well.)

There’s been lots of Gin this chapter. This makes me more nervous that he’s a goner. And deeefinitely don’t forget that chapter intro. (Although, we didn’t get loads of some of the characters who died in chapter 1, too…)

Mishima on the monitor: Maybe Nao? She’d determined to move forward and not keep speaking to him, but maybe she was tempted? And I typed this before her pretty sus reaction. Also, Keiji is pretty sus too. EVERYONE IS SUSPECT ALL AROUND.
Let’s return to: NEVER LOOKING AT ANYTHING IN MY ROOM TO AVOID TRIGGERING ANY MORE HALLUCINATIONS.

REKO, YOU KNOW I CAN’T ACCEPT ANYBODY PUSHING BUTTONS UNLESS I CAN SAVE MY GAME THE SECOND BEFORE. Also, the problem with this room of lies is that if Reko and I get 3 chips each, then when we get 10 clear chips, we effectively have to back out of doing other attractions and if she is doing similar to me and helping along people like Gin, Kanna, Nao who otherwise might not get paired, then there is a problem that they might never get enough chips. Especially if we can’t give away chips: if Sara could earn, say, fifteen, then give five away, that’d be awesome, but it seems way too easy and I’m sure that this set-up has been designed to murder more people rather than cheerful cooperativeness saving the day. Also, I’m concerned that this “final attraction” will also close all the other attractions, even though gameplay-wise that wouldn’t work as pretty much everyone would be dead. (Room of Lies, the gloves, the bang… if Reko has been replaced by a doll I will be very unhappy. Since we are in a world where some dolls can talk.) (Later edit: Okay, I am really, really proud of myself on this one.)

-timydamonkey

Y’know, I kind of respect Kanna’s line of reasoning: Yeah, in the Main Game Sou was terrifying, but he undeniably did lead various lines of discussion and if he hadn’t then it could have gone very badly wrong. And Sou, for all that he isn’t a thoroughly pleasant person, is smart. To use the Town of Salem example, he’s the guy who knows the tricks and how to play strategically, even if it doesn’t win him any friends. (I don’t believe his amnesia, though. I think he knew he’d blew it as far as trust was concerned and that was the nearest he could do to a reset so that he doesn’t immediately become the easiest to kill – he can’t play jester every Main Game.) (Later edit: Score!)

A lot of people want to talk with me about Reko (prizes! Suspect!), but I’m going to cheerfully ignore them as I think Sara would assume she knew the reason because of the discoveries, and would want to focus on other leads. That’s not to say that she doesn’t disagree that she’s acting oddly, though.

We’re pretty stuck on this Kai’s parents theory, though I really don’t feel it suggests that at all – what it suggests is simply the organisation link. Also, Keiji does not look too happy that we entrusted the laptop to Q-taro rather than him. (Also, Q-taro, don’t tell us where you’re going to hide it…!)

”Kanna… just can’t see Alice as a bad person…” KANNA, HE IS A LITERAL MURDERER. Also, not that she knows, but Alice has plenty of motive in regards to Sou given the discussion he had with Keiji. Although, maybe Alice just wants some of Sou’s tokens, since I’m pretty sure that’s whose Keiji and him were discussing getting in the monitor room yesterday.

Medical office ghost: -walks in- -sees the window- NOPE. –walks out- -game won’t progress- …My poor hallucination percentage… I mean, it clearly isn’t one given that Alice knew about it, but memories seem bad right now.

Theory: The first smashed monitor is Sou’s. We know there’s something fishy with Sou in relation to Alice’s past, and the screens are for buying personal information on the others. Who would most need to protect that personal information? Sou. And he’s the one to have the opportunity to smash the screen. (Although, Keiji is also very tight-lipped on his past…)

-timydamonkey

Interesting things from chatting to AI Reko: Reko said earlier that she treasured her bongos, AI Reko doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. (Later edit: Their memories are updated every six months, so I suppose the other scenario rather than it being a lie is that something changed in the six months since it was programmed in, since we don’t know when they were last updated.) She values her family, and her own life. Also, she can’t answer questions about the Death Game, however there’s a suggestion that there may be something in common.

The video of Keiji and the woman: hm, I’m very glad I spoke to him beforehand rather than taking Gin’s tokens (GIN, YOU WON’T TRADE, I DON’T WANT YOU TO END UP WITH NOTHING. Maybe we should just tell him we’re Pokemon card trading instead.) because it makes that play off just slightly better: they are obviously acquainted. Although he’s certainly more callous there, not to mention the situation is more suspect, rather than just shooting them on the job for example.

Things I don’t like: NOT BEING ABLE TO SAVE. Oh dear, this does not look good.

Options I would take if I were braver: “Q-taro, are you… trying to buy a soda?!” And now we can always ask, remember that time when Q-taro as good as murdered us? (Also, geez, he’s been doing some good trades if he has 200 tokens, but still has 40 of his own. I just assumed he’d been told that, say, keeping hold of any of your own tokens meant death. I am totally smart.) The answer is clearly NEVER TRUST Q-TARO.

-timydamonkey

Incidentally, this makes me realise that somebody should write a Death Game AU of the Bunker Diary. Seriously, it’s like three quarters of the way there already. There’s definitely attempted killings and death traps for the trapped characters along with the other general mindfuckery, and really where everything goes wrong is when they break the kidnapper’s rules. As we all in this genre know, you gotta follow the rules. (This is why you saw that newspaper article about how it was relentless misery, by the way. The writer clearly is not a fan of Death Game set ups. Also, no happy endings.)

The notes: now this explains something I wondered earlier. I thought it was a bit suspicious that in the Main Game last chapter, Sara and Q-taro’s occupations were incorrectly listed due to the paper switchup, but Keiji’s still appeared to be accurate. That becoming ex-detective works nicely for me: he wasn’t totally lying, but it’s not just coincidence that it lined up correctly. Also, after the discussion that Alice and Keiji had about Alice’s murder, it is extremely interesting that Sou is not listed there. Neither are Kai and Joe – is it because neither were intended to be here but tried to rescue Sara? And, so far as I can see, Nao also isn’t listed (unless she is the most surprising boxer ever). Very curious, unless we’re missing a page. (I typed this up while holding the screenshot on the 4 pages, so it wasn’t clear this would all be brought up.) And if we are missing a page, it seems like they’ll all be 0.0%ers assuming this is some sort of vote because of how it’d total up. (A vote of who will survive/win?)

The difference between the 2 ending sequences to chapter 2 part 1 is… very interesting. This game creator is giving themselves a lot of work to pull this off.

I was going to keep on writing until the end of chapter 2, but realised how long this is, so mid chapter split it is!

-timydamonkey

yessssss, I was so pleased to wake up to this

Gin is so cute in the token trading section. He just wants to buy your time!

Gin: “Gotcha, woof! I’ll play using big sis Sara, meooow!”
Sara: (Did he misspeak, or…? Oh well.)

I think it's just that 'play using big sis Sara', as opposed to 'play with big sis Sara', is odd phrasing.

Also, Keiji is pretty sus too.

I love that Keiji is just as suspicious as possible at all times, while also being weirdly kind and supportive. He's so good.

We’re pretty stuck on this Kai’s parents theory, though I really don’t feel it suggests that at all – what it suggests is simply the organisation link.

graveexcitement and I also couldn't really see where the 'Kai's parents' theory came from; maybe something was lost in translation?

Maybe we should just tell him we’re Pokemon card trading instead.

Ha, yes!

It's great to see your experiences with this game. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the rest of chapter two!

So I had to play through the first few minutes of this chapter twice, due to going back and reloading after running out of time. What’s interesting is that the ‘out of time’ version actually gives Sara more useful info than the saving Reko version – though I’m going to stick to the Reko alive version, I think. I’ve also left myself a save for the other route if I choose to go that way.

Looking back at the list of names, now that it isn’t 1AM, brings another fact to light. We’re operating on the assumption there should be 20 names, but we’re missing Sou, Joe, Kai and potentially Nao. But assuming these are supposed to be referring to people kidnapped or part of the game, we’re also missing Kanna’s sister. There’s no other Kizuchi on that list – so unless they have different surnames, that’s odd. I also assume that Megumi is the one from the victim video. (Later edit: I’m doing alright with these!)

As suspect as Keiji is, he has to trust us to some degree. Even if you ignore that he’s always stuck up for us inexplicably even from the beginning (more so than even Joe sometimes), doing a trade in the manner he did is opening up himself to retaliation since he’d be an easy pick. It’s one thing to trade anonymously, but doing it that way and relieving yourself of the most powerful card too does confirm that he genuinely does trust us in his own way.

I’ve finally hit on what Sou reminds me of! He’s the guy who in playing Secret Hitler you want to be a fellow fascist. Generally speaking, he argues logically, and tells unpopular truths, but he uses these tactics to drive the argument in the way he wants it to go (in this Secret Hitler analogy, that would be using the foreknowledge of who your teammates are and who you need to clear of suspicion/who it’s safe to cast doubt on – and doing all of that while playing similarly to how Liberal plays look) and does it effectively enough that some people will follow along. He, er, actually reminds me quite a bit of me in Secret Hitler games (though I’d like to think I’m less of a douche about it).

I am really curious why nobody noticed the visual similarity to Sou. Kanna noticed the scarf, but dude, it’s the face. Puts a very interesting spin on that chapter opening too.

-timydamonkey

Sara: THE MOST SUBTLE OF PEOPLE. –checks role- -pegs it!-

So, something I noticed in the monitor room is that my Sou theory is probably right for that last monitor, as he has no photo. Then I was wondering about why Mishima has a monitor given he didn’t survive the first trial… but Nao is also missing a photo, so was the screen Mishima’s AI was on meant to be Nao’s?

I love that Gin’s reaction to finding a room full of dolls is to want to draw on Sou’s.

I’m beginning to think Nao genuinely is the boxer on that list. She is the master of sucker punches. (Incidentally, I love how everybody has so many different plans all bouncing off eachother. And I love that most of the characters are genuinely being useful. And that even the captors all aren’t on the same page.)

If Sou hacking the card roles means continuing to follow that book, I will be very sad. I don’t want Gin and Keiji to die. ;-; Though they’ve both been in focus, and that is a dangerous place. Mind you, so has Sou.

Sou clearly prefers Werewolf/Town of Salem to Danganronpa/Ace Attorney. GOTTA GET THE CARD ROLES IN EARLY.

Nao just raised an interesting point I’d considered in this discussion: the strategic thing to do for the person with the sacrifice card would be to trade it off to Gin, who can’t get rid of it. It doesn’t really hold up here, because we know where the sacrifice card was for a very long time. And also it’s pretty monstrous to pick on the little kid. But if you look at it logically, rather than emotionally, that’s the safest play in terms of protecting yourself from that card.

Not sure the timeline of Q-taro teaming up with Kanna and Sou fits here since he was clearly with them at the chapter opening, before role cards. Although, actually, that was probably a flash forward, so scratch that: chapter 2’s initial opening was, after all, a flash forward of Gin in peril.

-timydamonkey

All this card talk is really interesting, and it is basically a giant game of Werewolf – let’s discuss how all the cards were moved around to make conclusions! Only, in Werewolf, it’s unclear what your role is at the end of the night, just at the beginning, so you have to do this card swap chat. I came into the narrowing it down to four section thinking Keiji can’t possibly be the sacrifice because he looked very suspicious, and I can’t see him voting for himself twice and not picking up any more votes. Sou, again, he looked pretty bad but only had 2 votes – though he’d also said he was the sacrifice earlier, so it was at least possible people might not vote him due to the possibility. Though I can’t see Reko voting for any of the others. Therefore I felt Kanna or Nao must be the sacrifice. But the current discussions are making it look a bit more like it could be Keiji… if he were to get traded the sacrifice card in the fifth trade, he could fake being the sage very easily, because it was the last trade. He would still know who the keymaster was because he’d be aware that the card had not been moved. And he’d have the most motive to take it to protect Sara. Although, I’ve jumbled that up a bit, he’s claiming to be the keymaster again now rather than sage, so maybe not. Sou also said he may hack card roles, but it’s a bit stranger that he’d take danger away from Sara since he doesn’t really like her. And the fact that you can actually trade other people’s cards rather than your own screws this all around a bit. Really curious.

Ooh, Sou. Such a strategist – with that message, he not only avoids the meltdown, but he can effectively control her actions even moreso. Although, I imagine that when he left that message, he didn’t quite mean for it to play out the way it did?

Did I mention I love Gin’s nicknames for everyone? Also, this game has such good music.

I’m glad I spent so long scrutinising that list, because it made all the questions about it really easy, and it addressed my issue with there being 5 missing people. Although I couldn’t remember who was on the blackboard, so I couldn’t cross-reference them so easily. But it was pretty clear to me who the fake was, especially given the whole “whoops, Sou should be dead” thing, and the computer file as well.

So I voted for Kanna for much the same logic as she had: by making that trade when she was sure Sara had the sacrifice card, she had already made the decision to die – and through no real fault of her own, that trade ended up making somebody else die instead. I’m not sure Kanna could deal with too much more guilt, and on top of this it was finally her stepping up and following her own path – I think she’d rather go out like that, and her sister would be proud. She’s also not wrong that Sou is potentially far more helpful – but that wasn’t the driving reason for my vote. (Sou, meanwhile, now wants to murder me.)

I’m not surprised that game is a little bit smaller, because the way they’re branching with different deaths makes things very difficult (I also suspect it means the relevant people will have lesser roles in the next chapter). I mean, I know for a fact that Reko or Alice will be dead as of chapter 2 part 2, and while I haven’t played the other choice at the Main Game, I’m assuming that selecting Sou will also progress rather than going directly to a gameover.

-timydamonkey

Anyway, now I can directly respond to your post!

And then Sara starts being haunted by horrible hallucinations of Joe! I'm so in favour of this.

Poor Sara. And hallucination Joe is so bitter, compared to going to die actual Joe. I suppose that at least he’s not just offering permanent commentary. (Although my favourite thing about Lamplight City is that the protagonist wanders around being haunted by the voice of his dead colleague – the colleague who his own misjudgement got killed. He also gets a bit touchy on his death subject.)

Sou definitely grew on me. In fact, pretty much all of the characters have, which is unusual… normally I feel a distinct disinterest to a bunch of the cast in these style of games. I don’t –dislike- them… they’re just not especially interesting. Or are terrible fan service bots.

-timydamonkey

It’s one thing to trade anonymously, but doing it that way and relieving yourself of the most powerful card too does confirm that he genuinely does trust us in his own way.

I love that I had the same 'huh, Keiji really does trust us' reaction and then TURNS OUT HE'S FUCKING AROUND WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S CARDS (although he is still putting himself at risk by making himself appear a safe trade/vote). He's manipulative and yet not malicious, and I find it really interesting.

If Sou hacking the card roles means continuing to follow that book, I will be very sad. I don’t want Gin and Keiji to die.

I was EXTREMELY concerned by that book.

the strategic thing to do for the person with the sacrifice card would be to trade it off to Gin, who can’t get rid of it.

This definitely occurred to me, and I didn't feel good about it occurring to me.

And he’d have the most motive to take it to protect Sara.

I was so scared Keiji had done this. It was a huge relief that he made it through chapter two, even if I've got a feeling he's going to break my heart in chapter three, one way or another.

I'm excited that you're caught up! If you're curious about the fandom, it's got a lot of ship bashing, but the Keiji/Sara fans seem to be a lovely bunch and the comments I've received on my fanfiction have been really sweet and enthusiastic. I've never felt so rejected and warmly welcomed by the same fandom simultaneously.

I'm curious what choices you made at the end of each part. Did you run out of time on the 'save Gin/Q-taro!' vote or did you progress on naturally? What about the vote in the Main Game? (I'm curious to know if the little scene at the end changes depending on which route you're on. Mine looked fairly ominous.)

The book was interesting, because Keiji had admitted to me earlier that there has been a 'similar incident' before. He clarified nothing about it though, because he is Keiji. So I'm assuming that book comes from the same situation that Keiji was referring to.

This definitely occurred to me, and I didn't feel good about it occurring to me.

I play too many strategy games for it to not occur...!

Yep, deeefinitely a Danganronpa style fandom, haha. I'm probably not going to go down the fanfic route as I don't know what I'd write. Well, it'd probably be something about hallucinating, as a lot of hallucinating seems to go on in this game. (Sara, Keiji makes a comment that implies he experienced something similar earlier on in chapter 2 when he shot someone, whatever the hell was going on with Sou at the start of 2.2...) I'm not sure that alone is good reason for a fic unless I particularly want to practise writing horror.

I was watching ManlyBadassHero's Let's Play, so I didn't make choices myself! He succeeded on the 'save Gin' vote, then went back to see what happened if you didn't push the Reko replica (which I assume is the same as the 'run out of time' route), then progressed on the 'Reko is still alive' route.

In the Main Game, he went 'well, there's an obvious bad end here and I want to see it' and voted for Nao, then went back and voted for Sou, then went back to see what happens when you vote for Kanna. I think he's planning to proceed on the vote-for-Sou route, though. The scene at the end is very different.

Keiji had admitted to me earlier that there has been a 'similar incident' before. He clarified nothing about it though, because he is Keiji. So I'm assuming that book comes from the same situation that Keiji was referring to.

I'd actually assumed it was an account from one of the AI simulations of this game, presumably written by one of the AIs involved.

Well, it'd probably be something about hallucinating, as a lot of hallucinating seems to go on in this game.

The balance has shifted now and 'fluff' is on top, but, when I first investigated the AO3 section, I checked the most-used additional tags. The most-used additional tag is 'fluff' in almost every fandom I've ever seen, so I was delighted to learn that in this one it was 'hallucinations'.

Everyone should write Sara and Keiji having weird tense interactions. (The fandom's actually been very good to me on that front! All the Keiji/Sara fanfiction I've read so far has been pleasingly weird and tense.)

Edited 2019-08-01 17:26 (UTC)

I realised after I commented that you knew it from the LP route! Though I'd recommend you also play it, it's actually pretty fun gameplay-wise. And I guessed it'd be pretty different, and I've left a save before that decision point (I may or may not have 36 saves. Far too many of those are in chapter 2.1s timed discussion). So I'll probably play the route I chose, then go and look back at the other. (I also have a save on the Reko dead path.)

I'd actually assumed it was an account from one of the AI simulations of this game, presumably written by one of the AIs involved.

See, I considered that, but the fact it looked old made me assume we could be talking say, decades, rather than shorter periods of time.

Every fandom has got to have hallucinations. Funnily enough, when I was doing my uni degree (which was English and Creative Writing), here was the best comment I ever got in my opinion from a tutor: "I very much enjoyed the sense of menace and claustrophobia that you create in this piece. That's not easy to do, but some sections were truly chilling. This is clearly a strength of yours." Hmm... maybe I'm missing my calling not writing more horrific hallucinations. :P

i enjoyed your commentary! also haha, i may or may not have 32 saves myself -- and yep, a bunch of them are from the 2.1 timed discussion.

somehow i didn't consider until it was brought up in-game how easy it would be to trade Gin the Sacrifice card, but i *did* spend way too much time theorizing what the best strategy would be for a player who got the Sacrifice card, assuming they did have at least 50 tokens to trade it away with.

also, the ability to trade other people's cards as well as your own definitely reminded me of Werewolf/One Night Werewolf games in which there's several different role-swapping roles running amok.

i did initially assume that the Memorandum was probably either from a previously held Death Game with similar demographics, or else something something time travel, but after i learned about the AI death game sims, i think it's probably from one of those. (which makes me feel better, since the canon timeline has now diverged from the Memorandum sim, so i'm less worried about it coming true.)

Oh yes! What was the difference between this and Danganronpa etc that you wanted to discuss?

We've already talked about it; it's the fact the game has different routes in which different characters can live or die! I was really surprised by that, particularly as the choices early in the game seemed very 'these don't actually make a difference'. Very cool, but also very ambitious; goodness knows how long the final chapter will take to make.

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