MYOSOTIS - Thank you Zero Escape

Welcome to Thank you Zero Escape! This project aims to bring together all fans to show our appreciation towards the games. "MYOSOTIS - Thank you Zero Escape" is now crossing the ocean and on its way to its new owners. Digital version will be available online for free on June 28th.

[thankyouze]

Senryū: Zero Escape Human Haiku

Irish ZE fan here! I'd heard about 999 and Virtue's Last Reward from online friends many times-- and I was curious, always being a fan of puzzle games and visual novels with a bit of murder and mystery thrown in. My curiosity piqued, in August 2013 I decided to go ahead and buy myself both games-- and once I started 999, I knew I was hooked! The plot, characters, and mysteries were so well-woven, and each 'bad' ending made me curious to see what would happen when I took the next path. For me, Zero Escape has always been a group experience. I liveblogged the games as I played, telling friends my theories and thoughts and reactions-- both my friends and I had so much fun watching my reaction to the twists and turns of the games, that they knew and I didn't! Once I'd finished up with VLR (which I had a great time with-- Sigma Klim is one of my alltime favourite fictional characters), I was anxious to see the release of the third game-- and I am infinitely glad it was able to come to pass. Thank you so, so much to Mr. Uchikoshi and all others involved in the making of this wonderful series-- I can't wait to see what awaits me in ZTD!

Message by @juniperwoods

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

See the project screenshots here!

It all started on November 26th, 2012. I was returning home from a long trip to Lapland, and once we got back home it was already 1AM. Before going to bed, however, I checked for new demo versions for games on my 3DS - and found Virtue's Last Reward. It seemed interesting, so I downloaded it overnight. After trying it out the next morning, the puzzles felt very interesting. At the time I wasn't really paying attention to the story, but it seemed okay nevertheless.

After a bit of thinking, I finally decided to purchase the full game. And after playing for a little while, the story cranked its way into my brain. It was at that moment when I started to play not just because of the puzzles, but to understand the story and seek for the answers hidden inside. It took me a little while, probably a week or so, until I had all the endings and gold files. At first, I was really happy for having played through such an incredible story (and very intriguing puzzles!), but then came sadness - what if I could never experience that feeling again? I started to search for a similiar masterpiece, discovering 999 and Ever17 in the process. Since Ever17 seemed to be very difficult to obtain due to a ridiculously low amount of English copies, I decided to order 999 from the US. It seemed odd that it had never been released in Europe, but I ultimately let that slide.

A copy of 999 appeared in the mail a couple weeks later, and that fact alone made me extremely happy. Unlike VLR, 999 took me two weeks to finish because I didn't want to use guides for the endings. And, once again, the true ending blew my mind. "So this is the reason for those references in VLR!", I thought, and my mind filled with the same feeling of joy and happiness as before. But that was ultimately forced to come to and end as well, because I found myself addicted to visual novels like these two. I couldn't get enough. And, to tell you the truth, I still can't.

I started to do some research regarding the games, especially the series' main writer, Kotaro Uchikoshi. This is how I discovered the Infinity series (and Pepsiman, to this day I've wanted to play it just for the sake of it!). While the games in that series, Never7, Ever17 and Remember11, were very difficult to obtain at the time, I resolved myself. I would read through them, no matter what. I'm against pirating games, so even with this resolve I wasn't willing to do that, but I ultimately watched non-narrated let's plays on YouTube of the Infinity series. While it does feel kind of bad, I couldn't stop myself. It was either that or buying copies on Ebay from scalpers for terribly high prices. Their endings didn't give me the same feelings as Zero Escape did, but Ever17 and Remember11 were especially great nevertheless!

When Spike Chunsoft and mr. Uchikoshi announced that the third ZE game, now titled "Zero Time Dilemma", was at risk of never being made, my heart shattered. The fact that people weren't buying the games because they thought they weren't interesting probably made something snap in my head, and I began an attempt to bring these works to people through essays, "book reviews", by recommending them to friends and family as well as by starting a rather ambitious new project - recreating Virtue's Last Reward in Minecraft! To this day, that map has been under near-constant development, and I believe it to finally be ready for the world.

Titled "Minecraft's Last Reward", the map is basically a multiplayer version of VLR with puzzles of my own creation. The map is made to resemble the look of VLR in as much detail as I possibly could add, and I even went as far as to make custom textures for it. The map is still not perfect, but it is complete enough for me to showcase it here. While the released versions didn't seem to get much attention, one day I got a message from a person who was working on a similiar project. At the time I didn't know they were sort of "neighbors" to me (the person being Swedish), but we became friends. He and his brother found my map to be a perfect template for their project, which became known as "Minecraft's Last Reward 2".

One day, I saw a tweet about 4infinity.co. At first, I just thought it was a rather strange website, but the numbers on the page reminded me of the ones in 999's suitcases. So, I decided to keep an eye on the site. As time passed, I made numerous theories of the words that appeared and I became increasingly confident that this was a message of hope: Zero Escape 3 was coming. Unfortunately I could not attend the Aksys panel held in LA back then due to the sheer distance between our countries and the cost of plane tickets for a mere high school student, but I waited for the promised live stream. The tweets that appeared on my Twitter page shortly after confirmed and steeled my hope - ZE3 is a thing, and it's really coming!

As soon as I heard about this fan project, "Thank You Zero Escape", I couldn't refuse to participate. Originally my plan was to remake the Grand staircase from 999 in Unreal Engine 4, but that project failed at its final stage - my 3D models wouldn't import properly, making them look like a real mess. My nect idea was to make a new video regarding the Minecraft VLR map I made, but ultimately I ran out of time to make the video look good enough. As a last resort, I decided to execute plan C. That would be this article, and some screenshots of both the Minecraft map I created and a few regarding the models I made for the original project - including a model of Junpei! While this isn't as grand as what I hoped for, I would say I did my part nevertheless.

If I hadn't played that demo of VLR back in 2012, I would not have all these friends I got thanks to Zero Escape, not to mention know what a visual novel is. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank Kotaro Uchikoshi for making my life what it is today. I want to thank him for my newfound interest towards writing stories. I also want to thank him for inspiring me to start making video games. Let his future be one with hope!

Sincerely, Lari Liuhamo, also known as "Diapolo10" 28.5.2016

P.S. You and Nakazawa should start working together again at some point. I love you guys!

Contribution and message by @diapolo10

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

First I’d like to thank Mr. Uchikoshi and Aksys for their hard work and dedication!! You’re amazing!

This series has let me connect with some really wonderful and talented people who have been there for me when life has been hard, I’m proud to call them friends. I’m happy to be a member of the fandom that proved that human will can change reality.

When I picked up 999 on a whim, I didn’t know what to expect. I fell instantly in love and 999 became one of my favorite games ever, one I bugged everyone I could to play because it was so amazing. The writing made the characters and the world come alive. It made me laugh, it made me uneasy, it was by turns delightful and downright eerie. I loved every single moment and could hardly put it down.

When I learned the sequel was coming out on the 3ds I was determined to get a copy as soon as possible. Virtue’s Last Reward was the reason I purchased a 3DS in the first place, I owned the game before the 3DS! It was such an amazing adventure just like 999. I’m know Zero Time Dilemma will provide just as many hours of brilliant thought provoking writing and I couldn’t be more excited. Thank you again so much!!

Art and message by @prosecutor-1412 

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

First of all, THANK YOU DANNY for being the absolute best when I showed up crying for twenty whole minutes. Thank you Taka, thank you Karen, thank you everyone at Aksys for being so sweet. Thank you Uchikoshi-san for taking a picture with me, and even giving me an autograph (I am learning Japanese now so I won't be embarrassed next time, haha!)

Thank you for not only making what Zero Escape is today, but also for personally being such inspiring people. You all give me the inspiration to work just as hard on making games! Thank you!! 

Art and message by @niaori

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Elapsam semel occasionem non ipse potest Iuppiter reprehendere

Two doors

Pick one

Wait

You’re a locksmith

Can you teach me to pick locks?

That’s sick,

 Man

First off, thank you so much for creating my favourite game series of all time. My friend asked me if I could write some “bad poems” for the school newspaper, so I wrote this one. It was meant to be a joke but I think it actually encapsulates the series pretty well, people are given choices but can see beyond the scope of choosing one or the other. I love how this series plays with choice and free will, so I'm super excited to see that at work in zero time dilemma. I love 999 and virtues last reward so much, these games have some of the most interesting narratives of all time. They had me crying, screaming, laughing, all while leaving me with a sense of hope. Theyare nothing short of brilliant and I cant thank you enough for them.

Contribution and message by @syntheticmemes

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Knife

Knife. Knife was my first ending in my Nonary Game. I remember that I went crazy, like “Woah, it can't end like this...”, then I realized that the game had different ways to end. It was very funny to see Junpei saying very things all the time, even when things were getting serious lol. I really loved the ending of 999 and then, when I thought that I'd never play a second part, I found Virtue's Last Reward, which was an insta-buy on the e-shop, and I played it for a whole summer to get all the timelines... Thank you Zero Escape

Message by Albertkyoka

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Have A Niiiiiiice Reading

I've heard about 999 for the first time on a French website about videogames. It was a review, and it got a very high ranking (19/20, 20 being the best). I was already an Ace Attorney fan at the time, so I wasn't scared of reading text, but I wasn't good at English back then. A few years later, (after becoming fluent in English (^: ), I suddenly remembered about this game and decided to give it a shot. I really really really loved it. I loved the ambience, the characters, the puzzles, the stories/scientific theories etc (I actually used the Chinese Room, from VLR, as a basis for an English presentation. I found it great how the game gave a completely different interpretation to the experiment than the philosopher who emitted it). It only took me 3 days to go through all 6 endings, and the final twist really got me. And I loved the final scene, upside-down. And I also loved how knowing everything completely changes your perception of the story. The tiniest word at the corner of a sentence can suddenly takes a completely different meaning. There are a lot of things I love about this game. I thought it was the best story I had ever seen, I loved it. But that's it, I "just" loved it. Something happened a year and a half later, something that I would never have imagined.

A few months after finishing 999, I bought a 3DS. I knew 999 got a sequel, but I didn't paid much attention to it. I have to confess, I thought 999 "didn't need a sequel", and they "just made it to get more money". Months later (again), I was bored and had little money, but wanted a new game. So I bought VLR, 'cause it was cheap on the e-shop. It just took me a few seconds ingame to wonder why I didn't buy it sooner. I completely loved it, everything felt better than 999. I loved the flowchart, I loved the characters (Sigma, particularly), I loved everything, just like I did back then with 999. And then, I finished the game.

And suddenly, this "love" felt really dull compared to what I had been feeling until now. I was completely speechless. I couldn't express myself about the game. I couldn't let out a single word about it, because I was in front of something better than the best had ever seen, better than the best I could imagine, and I don't know any word to express something like that.

There's one thing I could say though, one thing that never left my mind since then: I NEED THE SEQUEL. That's when I heard about Operation Bluebird. However, I was a bit late for the "Operation", since ZTD had been announced already. Since then, I haven't spent a single day without checking their Facebook page, (sometimes even yours), to check if there had been a new announcement about ZTD. And I can say I loved the teasing. The way the participants were revealed, one by one, was like a sweet torture. And it's not just the teasing. The GAME itself seems great. I have no doubt I'm gonna love it even more than VLR.

Following the news about ZTD also allowed me to catch some informations about "the guy who wrote Zero Escape". And I wasn't disappointed. You seem really dedicated to your work, and to your fans, and that's something I really admire. Knowing the one who created these games is someone like you, it just makes me love the series even more. If I could, I would read this right in front of you, but that's not possible (^: I've read recently that you felt awkward in front of fans, and you have no reason to. The world needs more people like you :)

Message by Loïs Tonnet

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Thank you | Thank q | Thank 九

My first encounter with Zero Escape was the game Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. I’m pretty sure I came across it when I was looking through the game selection on Amazon (North America). The cover art, the description, and the M rating all caught my eyes – especially the M rating. That game might very well have been my first M-rated game. I loved playing all the puzzles in the first game. I loved the complexity of the storyline, and the integration of philosophy, science, and real-life occurrences.

When the second game Zennin Shibou Desu (Virtue’s Last Reward) came out in Japan, I was too impatient to wait for the localized version to come out in the U.S. and bought the Japanese one right away. As if 999 weren’t complex enough, I felt the second game was even more complex than the first game. But that just meant I fell even deeper in love with the game and the series. When the game included information about the blood moon, I thought, “Oh, that’s kind of cool!” But when there really was a lunar eclipse and blood moon in real life on the date in 2015 mentioned in the game, I was really amazed. That kind of depth of research beforehand is very awe-inspiring. (Of course, I went outside in the middle of the night to watch the eclipse and view the blood moon!)

With the upcoming third game, I am really looking forward to being able to have both Japanese and English available. I love the Japanese voices, and at the same time, I love the localization’s work with the wordplay and puns that carry over from the Japanese version.

I am really grateful to have chanced upon this game when I did. It has given me insight into fascinating things I wouldn’t have otherwise known existed. I’ve met many wonderful people because of theses games. My mind has definitely been worked out by these puzzles.

Thank you, Uchikoshi-san and Aksys, for making everything possible! 

Message by Jenkat

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Dear Mr. Uchikoshi, thank you so much for creating this series! When i was introduced to 999 3 years ago, little did I know that it will end up being my favorite game of all time! I cannot thank you enough for working on this amazing series!

Art and message by @colonelowl

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

I'm so glad to have stumbled upon 999 a few years back, as Zero Escape has come to be one of my favourite games of all time.

It's one of those little things that makes me happy, knowing that a friend, or a stranger has played Zero Escape. One more thing to bond over HAHA

And for that, I am grateful for all the people that have invested their time on this game:

Mr. Uchikoshi, for creating this game

The team that helped realise the game

Aksys, for giving us an excellent translation

And the fans, for supporting the series and allowing this trilogy to be complete

Thank you for all your hardwork!

皆さんお疲れでした!

Art and message by @purinjin

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

I know how hard it must be to make something like Zero Escape, with all the possible timelines that have to be consistent while creating an engaging story, lovable characters, stylish artwork, and great localization too, so thank you so much for doing it! Thank you to the designers, programmers, artists, writers, director, producers, musicians and sound engineers, translators, accounting and finance, legal, PR staff, marketing, debuggers, test players, and everyone in the team!

I can't wait to see what happens to the cast and the world of Zero Escape at large. My friends and I love to discuss and speculate about Zero Escape just because how mindblowing the games are. I especially love Luna, who’s the kindest, gentlest character ever to be trapped in a deadly game. I wonder if we’ll get to see her again if only for a bit in Zero Time Dilemma.

Please keep doing your best! But don't forget to stay healthy and be happy. :D

Art by @rheine

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

I discovered 999 by chance a few years ago, thanks to a post in a forum. It was so full of compliments that I thought, why not give it a try? At first I didn’t' know what to expect, with so many routes and endings, but little by little, door after door, my love for the game just kept growing. It took me a while, but when I reached the ending, I was totally amazed.

I bought VLR the very next day and I literally couldn't put it down until I finished it. How could a game that has so many things I love exist?!? And ZTD will definitely join the list.

I hope that a lot more people have the chance to enjoy these games and feel the same way I did.

Thank you, Uchikoshi and everyone involved for this wonderful experience!!

Art and message by @shiroudachan

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to experience a part of your world.

Cosplay by Neoqueenhoneybee

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Art by @strawbanna

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

I want to say thank you to Uchikoshi-san and Zero Escape team for creating such a wonderful game series! Both 999 and VLR leave me with the impression that I will never forget!

I first got into Zero Escape from listening to an SMT podcast and the hosts were discussing what game has the best story and one of them mentioned 999. So I decided to give the visual novel version on ios a try and got totally blown away once I finished the game!!  

I started VLR on PSVita right after I got the chance and spent 3 whole days straight playing the game non-stop. I could not stop! The game felt so real and kept me excited all the way through.

Phi is my favorite character. I grew attached to her after playing VLR and always feel like I will always have her by my side no matter how many times I jump through the timelines as Sigma. Even though I don’t know who she is until the end of the game but I always have the feeling that I can trust Phi.

I absolutely enjoy experiencing the game from both Junpei and Sigma’s perspective and can’t wait to play as CQD protagonists in ZTD!

Art by Wan Naru

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

Even though I only got to know Zero Escape relatively late, it's been an awesome journey! I'm sure that I have never spent as much thought and emotion on any game, as I did on your series. Due to it's touching, inspiring and clever manner, it indeed changed my view on the world and especially on what we perceive as right and good. It made me feel for the characters, so much that I even shed tears for them. (Which I almost never do while I play video games.) The dilemmas presented in Zero Escape showed me not only that it is never wise to claim to know what's "right", but also that hope or a way out can be found, if you seek for it. Kyle's, Akane's, Sigma's, Junpei's and the other's choices and mistakes will surely linger in my mind when I have to make a hard moral decision.

So, as you see, Zero Escape changed me and many others and in the end, also brought up a just as clever, funny and thoughtful fanbase.

Now, I look forward to the last game and hope to see a happy end for the cast, that I grew so fond of. Thank you for your hard work and good luck for your future work

Art by @chessy051​

For the Thank you Zero Escape project

[thankyouze]

It's hard to convey all the emotion and fun that playing Zero Escape has brought me. Thank you to everybody who was involved in making this awesome series possible and good luck for all your future work. I hope to see more inspiring and breath-taking games like this series in the future. All the best and greetings from Germany. Thank you!

Art by @15ichigo27

For the Thank you Zero Escape project