Archive for August, 2010

Ryou’s Journal – Day 4

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

I woke up today with the disc still looping. I had a headache so I took the headphones off and went to the window to make sure no light could get in to make my headache worse. I was hungry. Around my room were a few empty boxes of microwave noodles from the past few days, but no leftovers, so I ate some of the snacks I had bought at the shops. NES and Max spat their hateful static at me and threatened the burning and grinding.

Max told me I should just get it over with before someone interrupted me again, like yesterday. I was sick of him. I went to the drawer with the knife and locked it, then hurled the key under my bed. I told Max that I didn’t need him and that I would smash him to bits if he didn’t shut up. He buzzed and whirred at me angrily for a while. He didn’t try to convince me to kill myself again, but he kept making threats every so often and so did NES. I worked on my music for the rest of the day and went to bed with my latest track playing in my headphones.

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Ryou’s Journal – Day 3

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

I listened to my new disc for a long time today and realised my latest track is nothing compared to the ones on this disc. Max and NES jeered at me, telling me that they were right. Couldn’t I see that I would never be as good as these people? Why even try? What was the point? I found my knife again where it had bounced off the wall when I threw it. I sat in that corner with the knife in hand for maybe half an hour. I was just about to do it, but I heard a knock on the door. After a moment I opened it. It was Ben with his stupid symbols. He asked me what I was doing with the knife. I told him it wasn’t his business and he should go away. I pushed the blade back in and put the knife in my drawer. I went to bed to the sound of 8-bit music drowning out the static of the angry machines.

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Ryou’s Journal – Day 2

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

I didn’t get much sleep last night. Max and NES were whispering to each other and laughing coldly. Whenever I was about to drift off a burst of static would wake me. I got up while it was still dark and put my headphones on. I plugged them into the Game Boy, not NES and tried to block out their threats. I tweaked music till about noon but it didn’t make me feel any better. I kept looking at the two, sitting there on the low shelf, conspiring. NES sparked and told me she would burn the room down in my sleep. Max yelled at me and told me how stupid I was and how useless my life was, making music in my room alone. I felt wetness on my cheeks and they laughed at my tears.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw open my desk drawers and grabbed my box cutter. I pushed the blade out of the sheath and sat there at my desk trembling with the knife above my wrist. I don’t know how long I sat there. In the end, I couldn’t do it. I hurled the knife into the corner of my room as the machines laughed at me, saying again how useless I was, I couldn’t even kill myself.

I ran away and before I knew it I was outside on the street. I peered around in the light. It was so bright. I wandered down the street to the shops. It was after lunch but before school got out. There weren’t many people around, thankfully. I bought some snacks and I couldn’t believe it but I found a Blip Festival 2008 disc in a trade-in game shop. I bought it and asked them how much I could get for trading in my NES and Betamax. They didn’t want the Betamax, but they said they would take the NES. It was weird walking around the shops, but it felt good and when I got home I told NES what she was worth. She didn’t say much after that. I listened to my new disc a couple of times through and fell asleep with my headphones on.

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Ryou’s Journal – Day 1

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

I got a call from Ben today. He was mumbling about that stupid symbol he’s always drawing. He said he wanted to show me. I told him I didn’t care and hung up. I messed around with my old Game Boy and the synthesiser again today. I spent a while tweaking my latest 8-bit track. It was afternoon by the time I had something I was sort of happy with. I listened to it again and I think it might have sounded good.

The Betamax was sitting on top of the TV like always, with a stack of tapes next to him. When I played the music for Max he started whispering static at me. I couldn’t hear him. I turned the music off and crawled up close to him. He was whispering… horrible things. He was making threats, saying how pathetic my music was and how I would never amount to anything. He said he would grind me up. I tried to calm him down. I pushed his favourite tape in but he just chewed it up and made a really scary grinding sound, spitting the shredded tape out at me. He was silent for a while and so I got up and moved away.

I put on my big padded headphones and lay on my bed listening to some of my other tracks through my modded NES for a few hours, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. After a while the NES started talking to me – that hadn’t happened before. She screeched static in my ears and I threw my headphones off. I could still hear her though. She said it wasn’t just Max that would get me, she would too. She said she would burn me and choke me. I didn’t want to listen. I put my headphones away before going to sleep. But when I turned my back to Max I heard him spitting static again. I tried to sleep, but all I could do was listen to him. He said that I deserved to die.

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Hikikomori Week

Please note that the following post and the links to “Ryou’s Journal” and the “Hikikomori” RPG talk briefly about suicide and depression in a fictional context. If you or someone you know is suffering from depression, there are people who can help you. I apologise in advance if any of the entries in “Ryou’s Journal” offend any readers.

I recently came across a single-player RPG called Hikikomori by Ewen Cluney. I’m intrigued by the idea of a solo RPG (just one player and no GM), so I think I’ll give it a try. Hikikomori is a term referring to young adults seeking social isolation. There are chances of good things happening to your hikikomori, but a lot of the game sounds quite depressing and one of the possible outcomes in the game is suicide.

I mention the game here because you play seven consecutive and unusually eventful days in the life of your hikikomori and at the end of each in-game day, you write a journal or blog entry as your character. I had the idea posting the journal entries here each real-world day for a week.

So, the next week worth of posts could be depressing (or uplifting!). You’ve been warned.

I’ll start tonight and once the week is done I’ll post a little bit about the crunchy side of things to show how my hikikomori changed mechanically during the week or give a little review of the game. I’ve never pretended to be someone else in a blog post before – Vam thinks doing that is stupid. I think it’ll be fun.

Below is and index that will link to each of the days and the post-game analysis as I post them.

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WHAT YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF INTO

Pyres of Vam is run by Mockingbard and his alter-ego(maniac) Vam. It focuses on tabletop roleplaying but you'll find other things here too.

Mockingbard loves roleplaying, worldbuilding and stories. He posts setting ideas, session recaps, gamemastery tips and the like for fun, for himself and to get his creativity on.

Vam posts from the villain's point of view: debunking monster myths, providing adventure ideas for villains, and helping fellow villains and dastardly GMs deck out their lairs and complicate the lives of filthy adventurers.

We write this stuff because we like it :) Hopefully you'll find something you like here too.