Killing Oneself for a Role-Playing Game? Strange Connections of the Suicides with an Obscure Visual Novel

 




Image Credits: アップタウン本部 (@uptownch)

20th October 2021

Multiple Regions

Asia

The users in the dedicated investigation forums of the Internet are trying hard to get to the depth of this mind-boggling case. This urban legend has been tied up with the real-life suicide incidents taking place in public toilets of different regions across different countries of Asia. In the previous report, based on the experiences and facts shared by other users, we tried to explore if there was any sort of connection between these incidents. The report also threw some light on how few janitors working in the public toilets where such incidents occurred, even though the premises are located miles apart from each other, are now sharing their findings and experiences via discussion forums on the Internet. After a week of continual rigor in finding a connection between the people who committed suicides, one astonishing fact has come across. One of the persons claiming to be the relative of one of the unnamed persons who committed suicide in a public toilet has shared some information about a strange compact disc (CD) that contains some sort of a video game. The unnamed person has claimed that his/her/them relative played this game for hours on the computer before committing suicide.

The CD was shared with one of the janitors in the forum. However, as per what was posted by the janitor, that CD is in a bad condition as it seems that it has been entirely scratched by the nails to destroy the data. Once the thread about this CD was live on the Internet, many other relatives of the victims started searching the personal belongings of their departed and found such CDs. Now how did everyone know that they are the same video game’s CD? It is because of another peculiar fact that the CDs had ‘Midnight Vol.1’ written on it. Another shocking revelation was that most of the CDs were in a similar inoperative condition because the rear of the discs had been scratched by nails. It seems as if just before heading for the premises of committing suicide, these people had purposely scratched these discs to erase some worthy data. This detail was just a bleak ray of hope that was about to be diminished quickly, but in a matter of almost a day, there came another post by an anonymous user where the user claims to have found a similar CD in a better condition. 



The same user (who shared the CD with the janitor) tried to play the CD on the computer and made another post that revealed a few things related to it. The game was called ‘The Midnight Volume I’ and it was a visual novel that had aesthetics of Japanese animation (anime to be precise), but the language of the game was completely in English. A visual novel is basically a video game that works like interactive fiction and the players can reach multiple endings based on the decisions they make. It was a role-play-based visual novel where you would pick your character from an assortment of strange characters. There is no information provided by the user on what were these characters and how did they look but all we know is that due to the CD being scratched, the game screen appeared to be very glitchy, and from what was understandable is the fact that the game had a creepy ‘gamemaster’ of sorts whose tasks were to be completed and at the end of the game there is an option to meet other people who picked up the same character as you along with meeting the ‘gamemaster’ in the real world. The screenshot of the game’s end screen shared by the user is very glitchy and somewhat incomprehensible. That same user hasn’t posted anything after sharing the screenshot.


However, there was another user who somehow got a better screenshot of the game but did not share any details regarding what the game is exactly. What is this game that makes people first scratch the disc of the game and then commit suicide in a public toilet? It would be better if we somehow try to procure the CD. But till then, this mystery will remain a mystery for the time to come.

But there are people who are using their creative streak to solve the mystery in their own way. Based on this urban legend, an interactive fiction game has been developed. The game can be downloaded from here- https://cultbalmproductions.itch.io/the-midnight-janitor-tales.

How strange is that an interactive fiction game is being made on the urban legend involving an interactive fiction game.


Comments