極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 (Zero Escape: 999) 🗝 Week 3 (Visual Novel Book Club)

[natarin]

Week 3: Starting April 14th

極限脱出 9時間9人9の扉 Home Thread!

This is being read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club.

Previous Part: Week 2
Next Part: Week 4 (starting April 21st)

Reading

This week we’re reading three scenes starting from the 2nd square on left side of the first branch of the flowchart; see week 2’s main post for screenshots of the starting points.

Note: it’s not always obvious when a section ends, so try to keep an eye on the flowchart when you think you’re getting close to the end. Below is a screenshot of how your flowchart should look and where the section ends. Screenshots are under a double spoiler so you can unblur one at a time (minimizing spoilers).

Screenshots (potential spoilers)

Current flowchart:

Stop here:

The third section is a puzzle section so it should be pretty obvious when it ends; when you go through the door and it says “you found it” you’re in the right place!

General Advice

In the remastered version, novel sections have two reading modes: novel and adventure. The mode you are currently in is displayed in the top right; click on it to swap between the two. Novel mode includes both dialogue and narrative text, while adventure mode includes only dialogue. Which you read is up to you; novel mode generally gives you more information by nature of writing out descriptions of events, while adventure mode is less reading by nature of being only dialogue.

Note: the game will occasionally force you into the other mode. When this happens, you can simply click the button in the top right to swap back; however, if it forces you into novel mode, there may be a reason it does so, so proceed with caution!

Choices

The choices are under a double spoiler so you can unblur one choice at the time (minimizing spoilers). For those of you who would like to go through the game blind as to which choices matter, I am including baseline responses for all choices. However, for those of you who would like to make your own choices where it doesn’t affect story progression, whether a choice is critical or not is marked under a second spoiler below each choice.

Note: the appearance of some choices are triggered by previous choices, so if you pick different responses on ones that aren’t required for story progression don’t be concerned if you don’t see some of the choices listed below.

Choices

「心配……してくれてるんですか？」
まあ、いちおうな
required: yes | no

「もしかしたらこの船……」
タイタニックのレプリカなんじゃないか？
required: yes | no

「順平くんは信じてないんですか？祟りとか、呪いとか」
信じてる
required: yes | no

≪しおりをどうする？≫
受け取らない
required: yes | no

「ほんとに要らないんだな？」
やっぱりもらっておく
required: yes | no

「カブ……？カブってあの……」
株式の？
required: yes | no

「うーん……そうだなあ……。しいて言うなら……」
ふにゃりんぱ
required: yes | no

「『タイタニックの沈没は予言されていた』って話、聞いたことないですか？」
知らない
required: yes | no

「なんで二酸化炭素は液体にはならねえんだろう？」
早く脱出したい。イラッとする。
required: yes | no

≪『36度になるまで溶けない氷』？？？≫
気になる
required: yes | no

「その現象はまたたく間に世界各地へと広がっていったんです」
素直に感心した
required: yes | no

Guides if you want to check choices yourself (beware of spoilers!)

From what I can tell it seems like major spoilers and puzzle answers are hidden, but proceed with caution!

Japanese guide
English guide

Puzzles

In case anyone has trouble with the puzzles or that just isn’t their thing, I’m including the relevant puzzle instructions. Of course you’re welcome to ask for help in the thread as well! If you are trying to figure it out I’d recommend asking for hints here first, as the guides are somewhat hit or miss with how much they reveal and how quickly.

Puzzle guides (beware of spoilers!)

2等船室
Japanese guide
English guide

厨房
Japanese guide
English guide

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter/part and any content in future chapters/parts.
• When asking for help, do your best to provide context. Pasted text, screenshots, descriptions, etc. Unlike book clubs we can’t flip to relevant pages, so we may need a little help identifying exactly what is being discussed.
• Feel totally at ease to ask questions or give your thoughts, any time! Clubs live and die by participation, and asking whatever question you have, no matter how silly it may seem, helps others who are reading it and even the answerer themselves.
• Have fun, and do your best to interpret anything said with as much good faith as possible

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m planning to read this VN but will start later
• I am not reading this VN

[natarin]

It’s that time again! If you want an indication of length, this part took me about 2h 30min, so it’s a little bit longer than last week. Let me know how pacing feels as you go, we’re theoretically aiming to increase to 4 scenes next week, but we’ll see how that goes! I suspect the upcoming scenes will be less dense than this week’s but I will report back once I play through them.

There are definitely more choices to navigate this time; I listed them to the best of my ability, but if anything seems off or you have any questions please let me know!

[meagstudies]

@natarin

• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m planning to read this VN but will start later
• I am not reading this VN

I’m assuming this is supposed to be the option for “I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this part yet” ??

[natarin]

Oh oops yeah, forgot to change the choice for that next week!

[Daisoujou]

Spoilers

Good old funyarinpa.

The way characters launch into these infodumps has always been kind of funny to me, but I forgot how sudden and longwinded the one in the freezer was, haha. The group loves to talk about their eccentric interests! As always, replay for me, but man Santa comes off as such a goofball here. Definitely more drawn to his characterization through the rooms than anyone else’s, though listening to Murasaki’s stories is cool too. A little light on Yashiro just yet, but I’ve always liked this whole group. Hope our new players have a good time with the puzzles

[omk3]

So it turns out Steam is disagreeing very badly with my computer I only figured it out after I reinstalled Windows twice in order to finally solve the random shut-down problem that it was causing and which I had been sure was a hardware issue so I’m not installing it ever again. Luckily there was another computer I could borrow that doesn’t have the same issue, and I finally got to play today.

This was a fun section with lots of interactivity. I knew I had to look through the hole in the shower curtain, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how. I had to look at a guide to get it, and I felt so stupid. Same for the rusty knife, I kept missing the box for some reason, even though I could see it.

I wasn’t expecting to get a chemistry lesson! I wonder whether all those telepathy references are building up to something. Will we need to somehow transmit the solution to some puzzle to someone we can’t see later on? Or is it just random fun information to fill the game?

I’m finding the game a smooth experience so far, language-wise. The look-ups I need are few enough that I think I’m fine without a text hooker. Too bad not everything has audio though. I’d also love to be able to repeat the audio for the last sentence if I miss it, but if there’s a way I haven’t found it.

[natarin]

It’s almost week 4, so time for check-in! I haven’t fully finished the next section yet due to working out choice things, but from what I can tell doing just the next three scenes would be a decrease in length from this week’s assignment. I cannot confirm yet, but I think doing the next four scenes would be more comparable in length. That said, how do you all feel about increasing to four scenes next week?

Note: for the sake of keeping this club at pace with the general expectations of the VN club, unless there is staunch opposition to moving to four scenes I think we should do so.

How many scenes should we do next week?

• Do four scenes
• I’m okay with doing three scenes or four scenes
• Do three scenes

Let me know what you guys think!

[natarin]

I have now finished the next four scenes and I can confirm it is actually still shorter than this week’s assignment was; it took me about 2 hours so about 4/5 the length of week 3 I’d say. Between that and the votes in the poll I think we’re all good to go to four scenes next week and see how it goes! I’m gonna set up the post and try to get it published later tonight if anyone has any other thoughts or comments please let me know!

[liveunderwater]

Just wrapped up reading this week’s scenes. I did end up switching over to the PC. It is a remarkably faster process. Even without text hooking. Now I’m spending much more time in the grammar dictionaries than the kanji ones.
Still sometimes the ocr just cannot figure complex kanji. How often I have to correct (こ for に and fill in missing rendaku is tiring too. Small things.
Feels like I should be able to keep pace this way.

Admittedly used the strategy guides. After spending too much time searching for a 3 digit solution, it turned out to only require 2 digits. Turns out I was over thinking it. Having discarded the actual answer without even trying it.

Can I start next week now? I’m hooked, this is fantastic! Yes science lessons. Have already found myself on wikipedia too often.

[Voi]

Done! Wasn’t able to play at all last week due to work, but since it sounds like Week 4 won’t be too bad, I should catch up.

My favorite part was the conspiracy theory stuff in the freezer room. They’re freezing their butts off (Santa most of all, Murasaki and Junpei have sweaters/jackets) and keep getting distracted by random trivia, all of them are like “let’s get out of here” then “wait but what about–”.
Also I kinda want to re-read Cats Cradle now.