Viridian ⋙ 梵天 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aberdevine) wrote2012-08-31 02:04 pm
aberdevine) wrote2012-08-31 02:04 pm
Entry tags:
[OOC] Masked Lady Game Writeup
... well, I say writeup, but this is going to be pretty bare-bones. It's also extremely belated, oops!!
The central decorative part of the game was very loosely based around fukuwarai. The introductory story Masked Lady told is a slightly edited version of part of Lafcadio Hearn's "Mujina" from Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (which you can read here if you are interested).
It was completely possible to win the game without leaving the initial room (as Zwei proved for Turquoise), depending on how you went about it. Body part collection wasn't necessary, and in fact could work against you depending on what you used. Criteria for winning involved:
- least number of cuts made to the doll (Tiger's Eye, none)
- most cuts made to the doll (Turquoise, dear god)
- attention to the themes of the game (Kunzite, Emerald)
- aesthetics/creativity (Sapphire, Iolite)
So, really, nowhere in there is "most body parts found and used," though obviously Iolite's creativity did involve a lot of props. Anyway, on to the exploration section:
Key for the kanji-impaired:
目: eyes
鼻: nose
心: heart
This is the general layout of the house you were in, which is based on the floorplans of a real traditional-style Japanese house (though the rooms don't correspond to the real house at all). I drew this up before writing any other part of the game other than the introduction. I had all of the descriptions written ahead of time, though I modified them as I went depending on the unique circumstances of each team. SO HERE ARE MY NOTES:
Genkan/Hallway
The door creeeaaaaks open. Beyond it is a fairly unremarkable, albeit gloomy, genkan. You find yourself on the raised, wooden portion, with the low, earthen floor to your right. A variety of different shoes have been neatly lined up at the divide. Past the earthen floor is a set of sliding doors. Judging by the chains and heavy locks crisscrossing them, you won't be able to get past them. Other items of note include an umbrella rack with an umbrella in it, a door across from you, and a door to your left.
>the umbrella rack
The umbrella is rusted and has holes in the canopy. It probably wouldn't work very well to keep out rain.
>the shoes
They all seem to be women's shoes. Heels, lacquered geta, a truly ridiculously high pair of platform geta with delicate designs painted onto them…
>high heels
There's a piece of cheap chocolate halloween candy.
>The door to the left:
The door is locked.
>The door in front of you:
The hinges are a little sticky, but you can force it open easily enough. A dim hallway stretches ahead of you.
As soon as you step through it, the door slams behind you.
>The hallway:
The bare electric bulbs hanging from the ceiling flicker constantly, but give off enough light to see by. Both the floor and the walls of the hallway are made of scuffed wooden boards that have definitely seen better days. A few framed woodblock prints line the walls.
> the prints
They look like some pretty high-quality Ukiyoe prints, if you're the type to be a connoisseur of such things. They all feature women, true beauties of the style. Or so you might think, if you could see their faces — the strange part is that the woman is turned away or somehow concealing her face in every single picture.
> take a picture off the wall
There's something on the wall behind the picture… or rather, in the wall. It looks like the frame was carefully concealing gouges in the wood. They look like scratch marks. Specifically, like someone was using their fingernails to claw madly at the wall…
>further down the hallway
At the end of the hallway is a lacquered wooden end table with a vase on it. What might have once been a lovely arrangement of flowers has long-since dried up and died. To your left is a traditional sliding door, while to your right is a western-style door. The door on the left has a fogged-glass window set into it with a rusted nameplate underneath.
NOTE: I screwed up here and didn't catch it in my proofreading, O-OOPS. A few teams had already examined the doors by the time I realized what was wrong, so I... just had to keep things incorrect for all the teams to keep it fair. The western door, the one to the right, was supposed to be the one with the window and nameplate.
>touch the flowers
They're so old and fragile that they disintegrate at your touch.
KIMONO ROOM
The door slides open. Beyond it is another traditional room with tatami mats. Unlike the room you started in, though, this one is anything but "mostly empty". A row of elegant kimono on kimono racks stretch out in a line in front of you, blocking your view of anything further into the room. To your right is a closet, and a bit to your left there looks like there might be a break in the wall of kimono.
>the closet
It looks like it's a linen closet. Folded futons are piled neatly on the shelves.
>go through the futons
As you go through them, your hand hits something small, hard, and a little sharp.
>feel it
It's vaguely curved. Hard, yet flexible. There seem to be a few of them.
>shake out futon/etc
A bunch of fingernail clippings fall to the floor.
>continuing through the gap
A few feet in front of you is a second row of kimono racks. You'll have to walk all the way to the other side in order to find another gap to go through. There also seems to be a decorative alcove of some sort over there. More noticeably, though, is the row of figures kneeling in front of the kimono racks to either side of you, flanking the path you'd have to take. They're… layered kimonos, posed like someone invisible is wearing them. They only come up to about knee-height.
>feel around for someone invisible
OH GOD IT— no there's honestly nothing there. The kimonos must be standing up on their own, but how...?
>push/pull/whatever a kimono
It crumples in on itself. It's just a kimono, after all.
>decorative alcove
It's a lovely alcove. There's a shelf presumably for displaying tasteful items, and a hanging scroll with an ink painting of a mountain landscape hanging in the background.
Oh, and there's a human nose sitting on one of the shelf. That too.
>nose
Yep, it's definitely a nose. A pretty, well-formed one. Looks like it was cut clean off someone's face.The blood's congealed, though, so you don't have to worry about it dripping on your hands or anything.
>through the gap
Once you step past the row of kimono racks, there's a sliding door immediately to your right. To your left are three more kimonos hanging in a zigzag pattern. It looks like there might be something beyond them.
>past the kimono
Oddly, it's just an empty corner. Except, wait, you've got the strangest sensation that you're being watched…
>what
On the shoji screen in front of you, a dozen eyes suddenly blink open. They're all staring at you.
You could have gouged the eyes out of the screen and used them in the doll. Only a few people actually got this far, though, and that action would have upped your violence score (so, even if you hadn't cut the doll, you couldn't win due to "no cuts.")
Doll Room
The door slides open easily. Depending on your levels of pediophobia, though, you may wish it hadn't. Three of the small room's four walls are covered in Hinamatsuri doll displays. Sitting on tiered red display shelves are dozens of small dolls. They're all quite elegantly-attired. Each wall has a full court retinue: emperor, empress, court ladies, musicians, guards, etc. The one wall that isn't covered by dolls has a sliding door set into it.
>dolls
Unlike the kimono figures from earlier, or the prints in the hallway, the dolls all have faces exactly like you would expect them to.
>display shelves
They're pretty nice. The color's a little faded, though. But— hold on, is that a hole next to one of the musicians? It is. It looks just big enough to stick a hand through.
>put your hand in the hole
You stick your hand in up to the wrist and your fingers hit something that goes "squish."
>what
It's vaguely circular in shape…
>pull it out
It's… a peeled grape.
>tugging/handling doll roughly/etc
Oh. Its head popped off. Hm.
>ripping open a doll
There's a tiny plush heart inside the doll.
Again, barely anyone made it this far. Any of the dolls' features could have been used on your team's doll, but they would have been ridiculously small, and cutting them off would have upped your violence score.
CORRIDOR/GARDEN
No one made it this far! :B OOPS I WAS TOO SLOW, SORRY GUYS.
The door slides open… onto a wooden porch corridor. It's nighttime outside, and strangely peaceful — you can hear crickets and see the occasional firefly drift by. There isn't much of a garden to speak of past the porch. Just some soft green grass and a few artfully-placed rocks in a narrow strip a few feet deep. A high bamboo fence seems to surround the whole house and garden. The corridor continues to your left, as does the garden.
>continue
You round a corner. The garden is a little broader, here, but it's no less empty. The one landmark of note in it is what appears to be an old well. The corridor continues forward a little further until it hits a wall. There's a door there.
>well
The grass around the well grows high and unkempt. Little wonder, as the well is all but falling in on itself. The roof beams are rotted and sagging, and several varieties of moss are slowly taking over any exposed wood. The well cover is nowhere to be seen, and the rope — which is in surprisingly good condition — to dangles down into the darkness, possibly still attached to the bucket. The wheel used to help pull up the rope is rusty but still seems operational.
>look into the well
It's pretty deep. You can't see the bottom.
>throw something in the well
You wait… and wait… and wait… and wait… was that a splash, or was it just your imagination?
>pull up the bucket
There's the awful shrieking sound of disused machinery, and the crickets fall silent. The wheel turns as you pull, though, rust flaking off as it does. The rope slowly rises up. It definitely feels like the bucket's still connected.
Is that a sound from inside the well?
>gosh is it
Something echoes upwards. It's a rhythmic sound, but you can't make out exactly what is is…
>keep raising the bucket
It's a woman's voice, thick and quivering with tears, overlaid with something else — the rhythmic pounding of a heart.
"One." Thump.
"Two." Thump.
"Three." Thump.
>keep raising the bucket
The counting and heartbeat suddenly stop as the bucket comes into view. There's no water in the bucket, but there is a human heart.
>door
The door is closed with a latch. However, the latch being on this side means you can easily open it if you want to.
>through the door
You're back in the entryway. Apparently this was the locked door from earlier.
Surgical Suite
You open the door, and… okay, well, that's different. You appear to be in some sort of medical office. There's a large desk with several drawers against one wall. Yellowed papers spill off it in disarray. Various faded anatomical charts are pasted to the walls, though most have at least one corner that's slowly peeling off. An articulated skeleton stands next to the desk. On either side of a boarded-up window are two bookcases, crammed full of books. To your left is a pale blue curtain hanging on rings from a rail on the ceiling. It looks as though it could be pushed aside.
>desk
The papers all seem to be medical charts. Name, age, blood type, medical history — things like that. On a number of them, various identifying details have been blacked out with a thick marker. A few charts have black-and-white photos stapled to them. Each of the photos is of a young woman in a kimono. Their faces have all been scribbled out, though.
>drawers
You try each of the drawers, but they're all stuck. Except for the last one. That one finally opens, revealing a tray full of eyeballs.
Or rather, of glass prothetic eyes. They're quite well made. The only problem is that no two seem to be the same color.
>bookcases
I hope you're at university level on your kanji knowledge, or the titles of none of these books are going to make sense. Well, they're all mildewy, so maybe they wouldn't make sense anyway.
>open book
There's a paper cutout of a nose stuck between the pages.
>curtain
The curtain's rings rattle along the rail as you tug it aside. Beyond it is what can only be an operating room. A raised tray full of rusty medical implements stands next to a rickety hospital gurney. Various cabinets line the wall, and, in the case of one cabinet, seem to be blocking a small hallway that continues further back. More papers and tools spill across the floor.
There's a vaguely person-shaped lump under the stained blanket on the gurney.
>cabinets
No luck. They won't open.
>pull back the blanket
It's your lucky day! It's not a corpse, it's just a life-size anatomical model. It's one of those models where one half looks like a normal mannequin, whereas the other half has had its skin peeled away to show the organs, muscles, and skeletal system underneath.
>climb over cabinet
You're in a small corridor. It makes a left turn up ahead, but there doesn't seem to be any lighting up ahead.
>keep going
It's hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like you've found a storeroom of some sort. Metal shelves are crammed full of jars full of disturbingly organic-looking things sustained in cloudy liquids. Cardboard boxes balance precariously on top of old-fashioned wooden chests.
>jars
There's a lizard in this one. It's missing all its skin.
>boxes
Huh, it's just a bunch of boxes. There are more medical papers and surgical supplies haphazardly piled in them. Eventually you find a beautiful little lacquer box lacks the layer of dust covering everything else.
>lacquer box
Two human eyeballs stare up at you from where they rest on a bed of soft velvet.
Anyway, I hope people enjoyed the game despite my slowness, and I learned some valuable lessons from the experience for the next time I try to run anything exploration-based. I said it at the time, but I'll say it again: you all went above and beyond what I was expecting in terms of creativity, and I would have let you all win if I could have ♥ Choosing which teams best fit some of the winning criteria was downright agonizing.
♥ ✄ ♥ ✄
Feel free to ask any questions about the game here! Or, idk, about the Masked Lady in general, though obviously I reserve the right to not reveal spoilers etc etc. Mini-question meme, I guess.
The central decorative part of the game was very loosely based around fukuwarai. The introductory story Masked Lady told is a slightly edited version of part of Lafcadio Hearn's "Mujina" from Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (which you can read here if you are interested).
It was completely possible to win the game without leaving the initial room (as Zwei proved for Turquoise), depending on how you went about it. Body part collection wasn't necessary, and in fact could work against you depending on what you used. Criteria for winning involved:
- least number of cuts made to the doll (Tiger's Eye, none)
- most cuts made to the doll (Turquoise, dear god)
- attention to the themes of the game (Kunzite, Emerald)
- aesthetics/creativity (Sapphire, Iolite)
So, really, nowhere in there is "most body parts found and used," though obviously Iolite's creativity did involve a lot of props. Anyway, on to the exploration section:
Key for the kanji-impaired:
目: eyes
鼻: nose
心: heart
This is the general layout of the house you were in, which is based on the floorplans of a real traditional-style Japanese house (though the rooms don't correspond to the real house at all). I drew this up before writing any other part of the game other than the introduction. I had all of the descriptions written ahead of time, though I modified them as I went depending on the unique circumstances of each team. SO HERE ARE MY NOTES:
Genkan/Hallway
The door creeeaaaaks open. Beyond it is a fairly unremarkable, albeit gloomy, genkan. You find yourself on the raised, wooden portion, with the low, earthen floor to your right. A variety of different shoes have been neatly lined up at the divide. Past the earthen floor is a set of sliding doors. Judging by the chains and heavy locks crisscrossing them, you won't be able to get past them. Other items of note include an umbrella rack with an umbrella in it, a door across from you, and a door to your left.
>the umbrella rack
The umbrella is rusted and has holes in the canopy. It probably wouldn't work very well to keep out rain.
>the shoes
They all seem to be women's shoes. Heels, lacquered geta, a truly ridiculously high pair of platform geta with delicate designs painted onto them…
>high heels
There's a piece of cheap chocolate halloween candy.
>The door to the left:
The door is locked.
>The door in front of you:
The hinges are a little sticky, but you can force it open easily enough. A dim hallway stretches ahead of you.
As soon as you step through it, the door slams behind you.
>The hallway:
The bare electric bulbs hanging from the ceiling flicker constantly, but give off enough light to see by. Both the floor and the walls of the hallway are made of scuffed wooden boards that have definitely seen better days. A few framed woodblock prints line the walls.
> the prints
They look like some pretty high-quality Ukiyoe prints, if you're the type to be a connoisseur of such things. They all feature women, true beauties of the style. Or so you might think, if you could see their faces — the strange part is that the woman is turned away or somehow concealing her face in every single picture.
> take a picture off the wall
There's something on the wall behind the picture… or rather, in the wall. It looks like the frame was carefully concealing gouges in the wood. They look like scratch marks. Specifically, like someone was using their fingernails to claw madly at the wall…
>further down the hallway
At the end of the hallway is a lacquered wooden end table with a vase on it. What might have once been a lovely arrangement of flowers has long-since dried up and died. To your left is a traditional sliding door, while to your right is a western-style door. The door on the left has a fogged-glass window set into it with a rusted nameplate underneath.
NOTE: I screwed up here and didn't catch it in my proofreading, O-OOPS. A few teams had already examined the doors by the time I realized what was wrong, so I... just had to keep things incorrect for all the teams to keep it fair. The western door, the one to the right, was supposed to be the one with the window and nameplate.
>touch the flowers
They're so old and fragile that they disintegrate at your touch.
KIMONO ROOM
The door slides open. Beyond it is another traditional room with tatami mats. Unlike the room you started in, though, this one is anything but "mostly empty". A row of elegant kimono on kimono racks stretch out in a line in front of you, blocking your view of anything further into the room. To your right is a closet, and a bit to your left there looks like there might be a break in the wall of kimono.
>the closet
It looks like it's a linen closet. Folded futons are piled neatly on the shelves.
>go through the futons
As you go through them, your hand hits something small, hard, and a little sharp.
>feel it
It's vaguely curved. Hard, yet flexible. There seem to be a few of them.
>shake out futon/etc
A bunch of fingernail clippings fall to the floor.
>continuing through the gap
A few feet in front of you is a second row of kimono racks. You'll have to walk all the way to the other side in order to find another gap to go through. There also seems to be a decorative alcove of some sort over there. More noticeably, though, is the row of figures kneeling in front of the kimono racks to either side of you, flanking the path you'd have to take. They're… layered kimonos, posed like someone invisible is wearing them. They only come up to about knee-height.
>feel around for someone invisible
OH GOD IT— no there's honestly nothing there. The kimonos must be standing up on their own, but how...?
>push/pull/whatever a kimono
It crumples in on itself. It's just a kimono, after all.
>decorative alcove
It's a lovely alcove. There's a shelf presumably for displaying tasteful items, and a hanging scroll with an ink painting of a mountain landscape hanging in the background.
Oh, and there's a human nose sitting on one of the shelf. That too.
>nose
Yep, it's definitely a nose. A pretty, well-formed one. Looks like it was cut clean off someone's face.The blood's congealed, though, so you don't have to worry about it dripping on your hands or anything.
>through the gap
Once you step past the row of kimono racks, there's a sliding door immediately to your right. To your left are three more kimonos hanging in a zigzag pattern. It looks like there might be something beyond them.
>past the kimono
Oddly, it's just an empty corner. Except, wait, you've got the strangest sensation that you're being watched…
>what
On the shoji screen in front of you, a dozen eyes suddenly blink open. They're all staring at you.
You could have gouged the eyes out of the screen and used them in the doll. Only a few people actually got this far, though, and that action would have upped your violence score (so, even if you hadn't cut the doll, you couldn't win due to "no cuts.")
Doll Room
The door slides open easily. Depending on your levels of pediophobia, though, you may wish it hadn't. Three of the small room's four walls are covered in Hinamatsuri doll displays. Sitting on tiered red display shelves are dozens of small dolls. They're all quite elegantly-attired. Each wall has a full court retinue: emperor, empress, court ladies, musicians, guards, etc. The one wall that isn't covered by dolls has a sliding door set into it.
>dolls
Unlike the kimono figures from earlier, or the prints in the hallway, the dolls all have faces exactly like you would expect them to.
>display shelves
They're pretty nice. The color's a little faded, though. But— hold on, is that a hole next to one of the musicians? It is. It looks just big enough to stick a hand through.
>put your hand in the hole
You stick your hand in up to the wrist and your fingers hit something that goes "squish."
>what
It's vaguely circular in shape…
>pull it out
It's… a peeled grape.
>tugging/handling doll roughly/etc
Oh. Its head popped off. Hm.
>ripping open a doll
There's a tiny plush heart inside the doll.
Again, barely anyone made it this far. Any of the dolls' features could have been used on your team's doll, but they would have been ridiculously small, and cutting them off would have upped your violence score.
CORRIDOR/GARDEN
No one made it this far! :B OOPS I WAS TOO SLOW, SORRY GUYS.
The door slides open… onto a wooden porch corridor. It's nighttime outside, and strangely peaceful — you can hear crickets and see the occasional firefly drift by. There isn't much of a garden to speak of past the porch. Just some soft green grass and a few artfully-placed rocks in a narrow strip a few feet deep. A high bamboo fence seems to surround the whole house and garden. The corridor continues to your left, as does the garden.
>continue
You round a corner. The garden is a little broader, here, but it's no less empty. The one landmark of note in it is what appears to be an old well. The corridor continues forward a little further until it hits a wall. There's a door there.
>well
The grass around the well grows high and unkempt. Little wonder, as the well is all but falling in on itself. The roof beams are rotted and sagging, and several varieties of moss are slowly taking over any exposed wood. The well cover is nowhere to be seen, and the rope — which is in surprisingly good condition — to dangles down into the darkness, possibly still attached to the bucket. The wheel used to help pull up the rope is rusty but still seems operational.
>look into the well
It's pretty deep. You can't see the bottom.
>throw something in the well
You wait… and wait… and wait… and wait… was that a splash, or was it just your imagination?
>pull up the bucket
There's the awful shrieking sound of disused machinery, and the crickets fall silent. The wheel turns as you pull, though, rust flaking off as it does. The rope slowly rises up. It definitely feels like the bucket's still connected.
Is that a sound from inside the well?
>gosh is it
Something echoes upwards. It's a rhythmic sound, but you can't make out exactly what is is…
>keep raising the bucket
It's a woman's voice, thick and quivering with tears, overlaid with something else — the rhythmic pounding of a heart.
"One." Thump.
"Two." Thump.
"Three." Thump.
>keep raising the bucket
The counting and heartbeat suddenly stop as the bucket comes into view. There's no water in the bucket, but there is a human heart.
>door
The door is closed with a latch. However, the latch being on this side means you can easily open it if you want to.
>through the door
You're back in the entryway. Apparently this was the locked door from earlier.
Surgical Suite
You open the door, and… okay, well, that's different. You appear to be in some sort of medical office. There's a large desk with several drawers against one wall. Yellowed papers spill off it in disarray. Various faded anatomical charts are pasted to the walls, though most have at least one corner that's slowly peeling off. An articulated skeleton stands next to the desk. On either side of a boarded-up window are two bookcases, crammed full of books. To your left is a pale blue curtain hanging on rings from a rail on the ceiling. It looks as though it could be pushed aside.
>desk
The papers all seem to be medical charts. Name, age, blood type, medical history — things like that. On a number of them, various identifying details have been blacked out with a thick marker. A few charts have black-and-white photos stapled to them. Each of the photos is of a young woman in a kimono. Their faces have all been scribbled out, though.
>drawers
You try each of the drawers, but they're all stuck. Except for the last one. That one finally opens, revealing a tray full of eyeballs.
Or rather, of glass prothetic eyes. They're quite well made. The only problem is that no two seem to be the same color.
>bookcases
I hope you're at university level on your kanji knowledge, or the titles of none of these books are going to make sense. Well, they're all mildewy, so maybe they wouldn't make sense anyway.
>open book
There's a paper cutout of a nose stuck between the pages.
>curtain
The curtain's rings rattle along the rail as you tug it aside. Beyond it is what can only be an operating room. A raised tray full of rusty medical implements stands next to a rickety hospital gurney. Various cabinets line the wall, and, in the case of one cabinet, seem to be blocking a small hallway that continues further back. More papers and tools spill across the floor.
There's a vaguely person-shaped lump under the stained blanket on the gurney.
>cabinets
No luck. They won't open.
>pull back the blanket
It's your lucky day! It's not a corpse, it's just a life-size anatomical model. It's one of those models where one half looks like a normal mannequin, whereas the other half has had its skin peeled away to show the organs, muscles, and skeletal system underneath.
>climb over cabinet
You're in a small corridor. It makes a left turn up ahead, but there doesn't seem to be any lighting up ahead.
>keep going
It's hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like you've found a storeroom of some sort. Metal shelves are crammed full of jars full of disturbingly organic-looking things sustained in cloudy liquids. Cardboard boxes balance precariously on top of old-fashioned wooden chests.
>jars
There's a lizard in this one. It's missing all its skin.
>boxes
Huh, it's just a bunch of boxes. There are more medical papers and surgical supplies haphazardly piled in them. Eventually you find a beautiful little lacquer box lacks the layer of dust covering everything else.
>lacquer box
Two human eyeballs stare up at you from where they rest on a bed of soft velvet.
Anyway, I hope people enjoyed the game despite my slowness, and I learned some valuable lessons from the experience for the next time I try to run anything exploration-based. I said it at the time, but I'll say it again: you all went above and beyond what I was expecting in terms of creativity, and I would have let you all win if I could have ♥ Choosing which teams best fit some of the winning criteria was downright agonizing.
♥ ✄ ♥ ✄
Feel free to ask any questions about the game here! Or, idk, about the Masked Lady in general, though obviously I reserve the right to not reveal spoilers etc etc. Mini-question meme, I guess.