You're Really Somethin', Kid.

[rionaleonhart]

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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

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

[(Anonymous)]

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

[(Anonymous)]

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

[rionaleonhart]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[rionaleonhart]

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.)

[(Anonymous)]

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

[graveexcitement]

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.)

[(Anonymous)]

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

[rionaleonhart]

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.