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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