Part 2: 3rd class cabin

[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?! Shit, 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