999 - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Holy crap there are some SPOILERS below for 999 - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. It's a good game, so it might be nice to play it first, but hey, read on if you want to.

I just wanted to write something briefly about 999. Released on the Nintendo DS in 2009, it's a very serious and very funny visual novel. The main plot is about being trapped on a boat with a bunch of people, playing a deadly game involving the number 9 in a bunch of ways. It reminds me most of Death Note, in that its setting is very rule-based. Many of the plot twists are about people bending the rules to suit their needs, or about new rules coming to light suddenly.

The story of 999 is also very entwined with the actual structure of a visual novel, which impressed me very much. Visual novels are similar to Choose Your Own Adventure books, in that they typically focus on breadth rather than depth. So instead of a book where a single chain of events happens, they usually branch out into many different chains of events with significantly different results. The game-ness of a visual novel is found in exploring all of these different endings. Getting the "true" ending usually involves using knowledge gained from prior play-throughs...something that the characters themselves would not have access to.

999 plays with this idea of character/player split at the very end of the "true" route. The player and the character simultaneously discover that someone has been guiding them to this end using knowledge gained from the other failed endings. It's as if someone was playing a visual novel, but in the universe of the visual novel itself! It's very interesting, and it brings the player closer to being part of the universe than just a mere observer.

It reminds me of Deadly Premonition in a way. The main character in that game talks to his "alternate personality" a lot. But the alternate personality is really a stand-in for the player, allowing the main character to address the player directly, and for the player to control the main character's actions with an in-universe explanation. It gives the player a direct and very real role in the fictional universe of the game.

The idea of bringing players into the "magic circle" of the game isn't a new one, but I rarely see it performed effectively. Deadly Premonition, 999, imscared, Baten Kaitos...these are the only examples I can think of off the top of my head, and they happen to be some of my favorite games.

One last thought: 999 is a great example of why visual novels are more than simple books, or just games with a lot of words. They can give an experience that a book can't by allowing the player to assume a role in a universe and affect it in unique ways. But their high text-to-game ratio allows a lot more character analysis than a typical game could. Playing 999 is the closest I've felt to being a detective; I was analyzing people's motives, reactions, and abilities so I could make good decisions.

I highly recommend the game, but for your own sake, play it on an emulator. The text scrolls way too slowly and I ended up playing most of the game at 2x speed. I don't think I would have finished it otherwise.