#sos the final escape

[easternmind]

Interview with the creators of Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2

The following interview was translated from the EnterBrain! guidebook for Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2 (2002), known in the west as Raw Danger. While the original episode benefited from some cult following in the west due to how experimental and rudimentary it was, it is my sentiment that the sequel was far more polished and ambitious, taking the concept of interwoven character arcs much farther than any of the other episodes that followed. I would not hesitate to consider Zettai Zetsumei Toshi one of the most original and daring independent PS2 games coming from Japan. Kazuma Kujou, the lead designer of the original, acted as producer at Granzella for the release of the third installment, Damaged Town and Her Song; as well as the fourth part which, as I reported many years ago in this page, was halted due to the Fukushima incident in 2011 - a principled decision that speaks volumes of the creator's moral fiber. The game would later be recovered and published for the PS4 under the name "Summer Memories". Playstation Plus Premium users can currently download it for gratis.

Up to the birth of “2”

On the left, Maki D. (designer). On the right, Kujou Kazuma (producer).

-- Firstly, what were your thoughts at the end of the game’s development?

Kujou, Kazuma (herein referred to as Kujou): In a word, I think it was a long development cycle. From speaking with Maki D. (herein referred to as Maki), it seems that we began before the end of development on his previous project, and so it took until about February or March of 2001.

-- He already started on something new before it was finished?

Kujou: That’s right. I suppose, because it was Maki who was directly creating the game, my feeling that it was taking a long time was quite different to his.

-- How about you, Maki?

Maki: Thinking about it now, I was under quite a lot of pressure from my uncompleted project, and I felt like I was being stretched in different directions. Especially when I was considering the initial planning, and when I was searching for the best way to proceed, I was spread a little thin.

-- Before your course of action was finalised, what kind of ideas did you have?

Kujou: The fact that the main character is not a hero in the city’s disaster never changed. There was the element of cold though.

-- The idea of the cold was there from the beginning, right?

Maki: In the beginning we envisaged a snow storm game, at that time we planned on having snow falling down.

Kujou: From initial development, I mentioned the winter-like setting amongst the staff and they told me that it would be difficult to create. Afterwards we came up with the idea of stopping an earthquake. However, if we made “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi” about an earthquake, it would have become just an ‘earthquake game’, so if we wanted to create a true ‘disaster game’, we had to come up with something else.

Maki: Although at the beginning we had all kinds of ideas and images of snow and volcanic eruptions, the cold aspect was leading us to an impasse. So, we planned what would happen if we made it about a flood. This was also the time we started to build a rough map.

-- And that’s when you moved on to set up the characters and scenario?

Maki: That’s right. The story doesn’t just begin with the disaster. From the beginning we had thought of having it start from a peaceful place.

Kujou: Yes, since, in our previous project, we had the main character thrown into a place that had been left a ghost town right at the beginning.

Maki: Although it’s a peaceful party scene, if you notice, there’s one person who is without a date. With this project I also wanted to show the contrast between that elegant scene and its turning to total confusion. Maybe that’s the reason the map took so long to create.

-- As for the party, a lot of preparation was put into the choices available in the subevents, is that right?

Kujou: That’s right, the choices… well, we emphasised it so much, by the end I felt like I was writing a thesis on it! (laughs). It’s because the method of inserting these choices made it so difficult. It was weird, and the order was all jumbled up and things like that. I thought that because the player is only watching the images that have been directed, they don’t feel that they’re playing a game. That’s why we wanted to add choices to the important scenes.

Maki: Yes, and on top of that, as the choices were added, the forking conversations just kept piling up (laughs).

-- Did the branching aspect cause you trouble, what with so many characters?

Maki: Oh yes. Staff members didn’t have an accurate overall image of the project’s stages because there was a lack of communication and they weren’t giving their opinions when they were unsure of the characters’ time schedules.

Kujou: Right until the end, discussions got a little bit warped and because it was easy for it to become incoherent, they were having to constantly reconfirm why they were working together and what the scenario writers were working on.

-- There was also a mutual interference?

Maki: As far as that goes, I was thinking about how simple it was for the main character to get out of scrapes, maybe just brushing past, and that the player might find this a little boring; I wanted to stick my nose in and add some gaming strategy, that’s why the game turned out more like this.

About the main characters

-- You created Shinohara (Joshua Harwell) first and added the other characters afterwards, is that right?

Maki: Looking back on it, Shinohara was there from the beginning, but when we got down to the other 5 characters, I felt they were not as rounded, and we needed to add something.

-- Of all the characters in the game, which one caused you most trouble?

Maki: Tsuge (Isaac Schiller) was the most problematic. Of course, he’s driving around in his taxi, and he covers quite a distance. Because we’d said for a long time we were going to use the same map, in order that you can’t see it being reused, we made it at the end.

-- Don’t you think there are a lot of characters with a negative image? People getting arrested, losing their memory, and all kinds of skeletons coming out of the closet (laughs).

Maki: Although we originally planned for Nishizaki (Paige Meyer) to win friendship, it ended up developing quite unhappily. But by the end of Saeki’s (Amber Brazil’s) character arc, I felt very happy inside.

-- Were there any characters you discarded?

Kujou: During the organisation of the game scenario, there were changes to the characters, but we wanted to add meaning to the number of people, so we came to use them all.

-- Comparisons to your previous work were being drawn?

Kujou: That was for characters that were decided much later. About a year ago I suggested that we include them, but it wasn’t taken seriously.

Maki: The characters from my last work came from inside me, and there’s a part that was eaten up, and I didn’t like that. On top of that, since the character set from my previous work had almost no bearing on the new, we could do whatever we wanted with them, which added a little element of fear.

-- Did you want to include the Woman Looter from the beginning?

Kujou: At first, before I even knew we were going to include her, I just had this feeling, of doing things my own way (laughs).

Maki: For some reason she was a very easy character to use, from a positional standpoint.

-- Sudou (Keith Helm), who was a character in your previous work, also makes an appearance, and his image changed quite a lot from the last game.

Kujou: Well, I guess we added that character because we wanted to contrast him with the cuteness of the impudent Honda (Sophia Briggs). We also wanted to give the player a feeling of recognition when his name appears onscreen. At that time, he was a non-controllable character, but autumn last year, around October, we changed him to a playable character.

-- That was fanatastic timing.

Kujou: We were also wondering about the end of Tsuge’s (Isaac Schiller’s) segment, so we brought them together and included them in the modified Editorial Department’s map.

-- Did you make any other modification?

Maki: We also changed the scene in which Shinohara and the head chef fall off the expressway, at short notice.

Kujou: The designer got angry with that scene too. The falling scene was decided around November, but of course, because there was no terrain underneath… we started to develop the idea of Shinohara and the head chef dropping off here.

-- And you had sudden talks about that too?

Kujou: About the ambiguity of whether the head chef lives or dies in the end, and whether he could be thought of as a main character, is what we discussed, and in the end we added him. I think it turned into a good scene filled with ideas.

-- Were there any elements that you wanted to add, but had to leave out?

Kujou: We were wondering if it would be possible to tie all the endings together.

Maki: It was just, the amount of endings… there were twice as many as there are now, so we had to cut some of them.

The little details

A page borrowed from Tomonobu Itagaki's fashion book.

-- So why is there no health gauge this time?

Maki: In order to make the coldness stand out, we got rid of the health gauge. Of course, unable to rely on a health meter, the player has to concentrate on the movement to determine where to go.

-As the body temperature drops, the character’s movement gradually slows down and the player starts to panic, especially when visibility worsens.

Kujou: It turns that way right at the start. When it’s so tough at the beginning you really feel like you’re about to collapse.

Maki: Thing about the cold is, although the player understands the cold, it’s hard for them to know the effects of the temperature, and the items, and so they wonder if they’re going to run out, so in the end we added the TP gauge which shows the character’s body temperature and if they are wet.

-- Were there any other last-minute alterations?

Kujou: We also changed the characters’ names, didn’t we?

-- Like Avolon?

Kujou: Calling it Avolon happened much later. We also had talks about the name ‘Echidna’ (laughs).

Maki: His role was always like this, even though some things had already been decided, he would rearrange things, like scenes which would suggest characters’ motives or true colours.

-- I was surprised when I saw the number of choices.

Kujou: The number of choices was greatly cut down, but in the final scenes, they have real consequences; I wanted to hit the player with some tough choices. We could only add up to 7 choices at that point, but I asked them if we could have 8 choices, so they added it in for me (laughs).

Maki: Because the number of choices increased, at first, we had to place a cursor to the left, but this made them difficult to read, so we gave the choices colours.

-- There are some choices that people probably won’t make, right?

Kujou: There are. Even though some choices might only be selected by one in a hundred people, the voice actors still recorded them for us.

-- Were there any issues with the sound?

Maki: As much as possible, I wanted to refrain from having the music define the atmosphere, and instead let the sound effects create the atmosphere of actually being there. As you’d expect the sound of rain falling was essential, and when you can hear that, it makes you feel melancholy, and that was an atmosphere that was important to the game.

-- Lastly, could you tell me your greatest highlights of the game?

Maki: Probably the scene in the second half of chapter one, when Shinohara (Joshua Harwell) causes the train to derail. Also, when the characters die (laughs). -- How about you, Kujou?

Kujou: Let me see, there are so many great scenes. What I want the players to see is obviously, the presence of the disaster, but I hope they enjoy the freedom of the choices. Whether it’s a disaster, or something heart-warming, it’s all the same when it comes to creating a fun game. I think the choices are one of the most Irem-like features of the game.

[ionomycin]

fishbone corset

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 295

So, maybe Danny should have been more specific when he said he wanted to get reincarnated, because this? Is not an ideal situation. 

See he’s fine with being a clone, really, but uh, apparently the scientists want to terminate him- which, like dude, he’s not even melting or actively dying! So what if he failed at their tests, his body is three, give him a break! 

Well, at least it’s given him certainty in getting out, because these are Not good people. He wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and- hold up, another clone? Brother? Two brothers? One aged up, one in the middle of it- since his own aging-up failed past three? 

Oh hell no, they can’t experiment on his brothers, those are his brothers and living people just as much as he is! Time to break out- and he’s taking those papers thank you- and gonna’ grab his… he’s gonna’ call them his triplets because they’re the same age, just aged differently. 

Now hold his hand, they’re runnin’ to the mountai- oh thank fuck, the physically-oldest of them can fly. To the mountains while they have the cover of night and they can figure things out. At least his life isn’t boring yet…

[bluerosefox]

Family Resemblance

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I

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I had another 11pm brain worm.

Enjoy

-x-x-

Daniel Wayne, the younger toddler brother of Bruce Wayne and the son of Martha and Thomas Wayne had been kidnapped the night their parents were murdered.

Daniel had been snagged the moment their killer heard people headed to the alley and Bruce in his state of shock didn't realize it until it was far to late and could only scream in horror (from everything) as his baby brother is crying his name. (If you wanna make it even more heart wrenching, make it Danny's first time being able to say Bruce's name right and/or Bruce had said some mean things to Danny earlier after he accidentally broke something of Bruce's, something like 'I wish youd go away' or 'I never wanted a brother, you're such a bother!')

Bruce is being held by Alfred as some police officers are chasing down the Wayne's parents killer while some stay behind to see if they could do something.

Minutes turn to hours and as they wait, praying the police at least found Danny, Bruce is ridden with guilt. From his parents death to allowing his brother to be kidnapped.

Eventually the police return to give Alfred and Bruce the news. And it's not good.

The killer escaped and Danny was nowhere to be found.

And it would take many years before he would be found.

-x-x-

Bruce gets a call from Damian during school hours one day. When he answers he is greeted with Damian demanding him to get to the school and explain himself.

Confused Bruce asks what does he mean and Damian responds with

"The two new students in class today are the spitting images of you and I father! Either they are poorly created clones or you have more hidden blood children!"

-x-x-

Meanwhile the very students being discussed are calling up someone too

"Ellie? Dan? What's wrong? You better not have made too much chaos already, I just paid for the uniforms for that place."

"DAD! I THINK ANOTHER ONE OF THE FRUITLOOPS FAILED CLONES SOMEHOW SURVIVED!"

"What?"

[vultures-and-scavengers]

cullen telling himself, "this year will be better," and then the sky cracks in half

[odetojupiter]

the fact that kevin day also witnessed a man being chopped up in the tower at evermore after neil’s audition is mad, and it’s something that is very much not addressed ever. like, maybe part of kevin was so accepting of how things were in the nest because he knew that this is the second branch, and if he were to leave, he’d become the main branch’s problem because he knows too much, and the main branch casually chops men up as a warning to literal children. and then he’s still called a coward for leaving ?? but also a coward for wanting to go back to make the inevitable less painful for him ??? and that’s not even considering what riko and tetusji did to him specifically, before even jean arrived at the nest. and his mother’s death would’ve been quite recent at that point. just insane.

[lemonsharkgirlfriend]

everyone's joking about a lesbian love triangle being the focus of rhaenyra/alicent/mysaria's stories in hotd s3 but that will literally be what happens when mysaria acts to uphold and support the image of rhaenyra as queen (or rhaenyra's duty) and alicent is kept prisoner (or a hidden but unavoidable reminder of rhaenyra's love). and so the love triangle will serve to represent rhaenyra's internal conflict between love and duty

[taddymason]

Face to Face

[finehs]

It's difficult for you to say aloud, I know, so I won't ask you to. Rather, I would ask you to consider a proposal. Stay on permanently. 

[bizarrelittlemew]

calling it right now that season 3 starts like this

[your-fuccked-up-dad-volume61]

The urge to kidnap her & rape her in the woods. Chained against a tree & split open on my cock. The screams in pain drowning out all the pathetic cries for help. Carving our initials inside of a heart on, “our” tree afterwards so everyone knows what a sweet couple we are. 🔪🌹

[momentomori24]

THEY ARE SO INSUFFERABLE AND HORRIFIC AND AWFUL BUT SO AMAZING AND DORKY AND THIS PART IS SO UNFAIRLY FUNNY AND CUTE AND WHOLESOME-- PLEASE, PLEASE HAVE MORE SCREENTIME IN S2. PLEASE LET THEM TAKE OVER THE SHOW. I KNOW THEY'RE HORRIBLE PEOPLE BUT I NEED MORE OF THE VEES.

And the most important scene of them all (to me):

First of all, how is Vox doing that. Second, you just know that these two douchebags are going to bang so hard with Alastor getting his ass kicked replaying in the background after this. I hate them so much.

[conflictofthemind]

Thoughts on "Escape from Camazotz"

Oppressive Suburbia, Conformity, and Season 5 Themes

I've long thought that a major focus of Season 5 will be the contrast between the families of The Wheelers and The Byers, and exploring how non-traditional family environments can be freeing vs the oppressive structure of the nuclear family.

In a Wrinkle In Time, Camazotz is a planet controlled by the big bad of the book, the "IT", who forces the citizens into a conformity that resembles American suburbia. All of the houses the same, the citizens the same, doing the same things at the same time without individual identity. Without anything different. Different means a lot of things, but with Stranger Things dropping different in reference to Will's identity and the presumable themes of this season, it will heavily codify as queerness and how it threatens the cisheterosexual family model.

Henry was raised in the 1950s, a decade still revered by conservatives for it's traditional family dynamics that supposedly were the peak of culture and happiness for all. That was all a lie, of course, and Henry knew so as he shows to Nancy and Eleven during his monologue. The second most conservative decade aside from the 1950s in American society is widely considered to be the 1980s.

The Creels will serve in parallel to The Wheelers; the worst example of what they could become and the damage that this type of family could do to a child that is different in any way. Notice how Vecna selectively shows Nancy visions of The Wheelers dying, but not anyone else she may consider family or friends (like Jonathan).

That is; unless they change their ways and come together as a healthy functioning family facing their traumas, The Wheelers will be toast.

Karen has been moved up to a main character role this season. Ted's actor says the father starts to show up more for Holly (hold that) and realizes he wants to act differently. Holly has been recast. Finn has said Mike goes on a much more personal journey this season, and steps up as a leader.

Oh, also: the catalyst for all of this is that Holly goes missing. The contrast will help show how the Byers (including El and Hopper here) were able to pull together and help solve Will's disappearance, versus how the Wheelers as a closed off nuclear family grapple with Holly's vanishing.

Each of the Byers is in some kind of a non-1950s conformist relationship, but particularly Will (not in one now but we all know he will be). I think El might represent, after she breaks up with Mike, the fear of the unmarried woman being satisfied without a husband. The above shot really emphasizes my point.

I predict that Will will end up coming out to his family rather early on, and we will see all of them immediately accept him with little surprise or push-back. Will is a visible gay man who comes from an open minded non traditional family (divorced, non-married, adoptive) that is willing to have honest conversations.

But this theme will place the most focus on the Wheelers. Mike is the main character of said family and this will particularly focus on his arc, and his acceptance of his queerness in the midst of suburban conformity.

He is not visible, he comes from a Reagan-supporting family who don't communicate with each other. He is not particularly close with his family like Will is. He pushes his feelings down and tries his damn hardest to be normal despite it all. His trauma hasn't really been addressed at all. He is falling back into his usual habits - the one thing he dared to do different (grow his hair long) has gone back to how it was.

It's not all doom and gloom though. This season above all will be a redemption arc of the American nuclear family, how they choose to escape their conformity and learn to be there for each other, thus overpowering Vecna. Not that the Wheelers are going to end this personally.

"Great, more hysteria. Just what we need". "It's the news, now indistinguishable from the tabloids".

[wellcollapse]

the way i would pay for oliver to write meta about buck's character

[haunted-xander]

I had a vision

[fusionsprunt]

me when my meteor-powered robot gf attempts to murder me 😳😳