#chief-penguin

[chief-penguin]

It's been 9 years since 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors changed my life . . .

[kaitothetwinblade]

I just want to let you know that you have really good taste in games and I love seeing you on my dash. ^w^

hahaha thanks c: that’s very kind of you & it’s made my day to hear something like that! c:

[chief-penguin]

About The Nonary Games release of 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors:

This game is not just a port, but an adaptation, and not a very acceptable one at that.

There are two modes that the game can be played in, "ADV mode" and "Novel mode". Unfortunately, the default mode is ADV. ADV mode removes all of the narration and replaces the most important parts (like descriptions of actions and events) with the protagonist, Junpei, thinking aloud. These soliloquies are often unnatural and feel tacked on, but they are necessary without the narration. Even then, presenting the story in this manner is like adapting a novel into a screenplay, but without any additional visuals. All that is left are voiced dialogue boxes and the original mostly static visuals.

Much of the suspense and horror is found in the visceral narration. For example, the description of violence and gore is often done using vivid similes that create disturbing and memorable imagery. Instead, the graphic description of a corpse is replaced with the protagonist simply saying "Blood...Blood and...pieces of flesh..." out loud, along with a picture of blood which was already present to supplement the narration. The atmosphere is also adversely affected in more subtle ways. A scene near the beginning where a character opens a door is written as:

"Then he slowly..

lowered...

the lever..."

Staggering the sentence like this is a simple way to add tension. A simple way to adapt this into a screenplay would be to show the character slowly reaching for the lever, perhaps cutting back and forth between the lever and their face. Without any added visuals, the tension, suspense, and horror in this game is almost completely lost. The characters' additional voice overs are simply not written well enough to replace the narration. Therefore, the only way to experience the story properly is to play in "novel mode". At the very least, the game forces you into novel mode if the narration is too important and complex to be re-written as a soliloquy, although this is only done for story purposes and not for atmosphere.

Novel mode is not perfect either. For one, it adds a blue filter around the screen to show that the protagonist is thinking, which distracts from what visuals the game does have. More importantly, and more adversely impactful, the jarring soliloquies are still present in novel mode, so you have a perfectly fine description followed by a character saying basically the same thing, but worse, out loud. For example, the narration describes a character body slamming a door, followed by the protagonist exclaiming that they body slammed a door. This late voice over would feel tacked on even if this was the only way to experience the story, but because the audience knows that it is an artifact from "ADV mode", they are being constantly reminded of the poor formatting of the narration.

The Nonary Games release is still worth playing simply because it is an amazing story with awesome characters, writing, and music. That being said, it is not a definitive release of the game despite the enhanced visuals, sound, and game mechanics.

[chief-penguin]

My last-minute Oogie pumpkin! Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃

[chief-penguin]

Some pictures of this year’s King Stan pumpkin, and a bonus picture of my Bowser pumpkin from 2011!

[chief-penguin]

Some more from Hal-Con, with @chewiechipsahoy as Robbie and @cotton-octopus as Eileen.

[chief-penguin]

On this night seven years ago I saw an advertisement for 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors on Masahiro Sakurai's website. That night led to a series of events that changed my life.

[chief-penguin]