🦜サバイバル・ゲーム! Survival Escape Game 🦜 Book club [🎒 SEEKING ADVENTURERS!]

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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:up_arrow: :up_right_arrow: Gather round :left_arrow: :up_left_arrow:

Land ahoy!!

Hello adventurers, survivors, onlookers :eyes:

Having narrowly avoided disease and injury, the party returns to tell a tale of ferocious winds, curious turtles, and resourceful cooking :hear_no_evil_monkey: Care for some seaweed?

Gather around closely now, there are rumors of another adventure.

There are whispers of seeking a desert oasis, others speak of an expedition to the savannah. A few lunatics seem to have set off for a bottomless swamp…

But wait, there’s something else. There’s a group we don’t recognise in the corner. They’re talking about something else. Something new.

We edge just a bit closer, and we hear fantastic tales. Of a werewolf village, of an adventure on Twin Island, a battle of wits, and even (shrieks in the distance) a death game.

It’s poll time :tiger: :tiger: :tiger:

Let’s decide, do we venture into the desert, savannah, or swamp (all from the サバイバル・ゲーム! series that we have read so far in this club). Or do we do something radical, far more challenging, possibly even nonsensical and nonsurvivable :see_no_evil_monkey: Do we venture into the world of SCRAP mysteries and puzzles?

More about SCRAP

This would be the ultimate adventure, going where no club has gone before :rocket: a different series and type of adventure that I wanted to float with the club.

These are more modern escape books, some are puzzles, and many have a more narrative mystery style you have to solve.

I have not tried one, I don’t know how hard they will be!

What do I know?

They seem to be popular :star: and in print!

Difficulty: could be closer to IBC than BBC: They generally don’t have sample pages, but this one has both preview pages in the product description and sample reading pages. From that, it doesn’t look like the kanji and vocab use is beyond middle school (~1000, very common use). So perhaps if you’ve learned up to 600 you’d be ok with a bunch of patience, and >800 is perhaps more doable, and that it wouldn’t feel easy until the 1200-1500 range. That said, I could be totally wrong! In any case, whereas the サバイバル・ゲーム! series is at the BBC level, we’re looking at possibly moving up to IBC level (or something between BBC/IBC) with SCRAP.

There is often a website paired with the book, hints (in the book or on the website), and maybe even other features as one book mentioned an app. Did I mention this would be an adventure on many fronts led by someone without a clue?

I think we would probably need to get creative together about how we help each other along and solve mysteries. It may be more about solving a mystery in collaboration rather than voting at decision points.

It looks like the kind of thing that would be really fun to explore as a club!

General idea with the polls

I’ll make initial polls open for a week (until Monday the 18th to get 2 full weekends) to determine timing and rough direction (which series). Then if the majority want to start now, we’ll vote the following week for the specific book in the series chosen. If we want to start later, I’d suggest voting for the book (in the category chosen), in about 6 weeks.

IMPORTANT: I’m using the newfangled Ranked Choice option on the polls. After you vote, I think they might appear to look like the poll is finished, but that is just the interim result. The poll will close at the end of Monday the 18th.

When should the next club start?
  • I’m ready to go (club starts in ~6 weeks)
  • I’d like to decide in 6 weeks (club starts in ~12 weeks)
  • Something else (please comment)
0 voters

The books are paper, so we need to allow time for all copies to arrive, hence the 6 weeks add-on.

Which direction do you want to go?
  • continue with サバイバル・ゲーム! (full furigana)
  • try out SCRAP as part of this escape-themed club (little to no furigana)
  • something else (please comment!)
0 voters

If サバイバル・ゲーム! wins, I will make a poll to decide from the remaining 3 adventures. If SCRAP wins, then how about people make an informal nomination of the one they want (the catalogue is large), and then we vote from those? Alternatively, in theory, we could throw all together (SCRAP + サバイバル・ゲーム! titles) but it feels unfair since very different reading levels are required.

This post will have a link from the home post so you can find it again after it gets buried.

It’s been a blast adventuring with you all :star: I’m looking forward to the next one, let’s go!!!

DISCLAIMER

The SCRAP options will be harder (little to no furigana), so please don’t be shy about declaring this a terrible idea. On the other hand perhaps if there is interest we can alternate SCRAP and the remaining サバイバル・ゲーム books. Be vocal, and then pack your bags :hiking_boot::hiking_boot: because one way or another…

we’re going on another adventure :backpack:

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Regretfully, I’m out.
This was fun

It was a pain for my cheapskate self to get the paper only survival book… And SO is against physical books (and got rid of most of my bookcases!)
I will attempt to catch up on my studies and my backlog of digital unread books this year…

You guys are THE BEST
and I loved adventuring with you

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Yes, the paper only nature is quite limiting, but somehow makes me feel more adventurous :joy:

OMG put such horrors under a spoiler :see_no_evil_monkey:

yes!! I’m glad you managed to join one, it was great fun having you and everyone :hiking_boot::hiking_boot:

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So as much as I’d love to try this alternate thing SCRAP, if it’s paper only not really an option right now for me (still don’t know what the import fees/taxes are going to end up being) CDJapan still doesn’t even have good info yet. It’s one thing to say it’s going to be some percentage but there also may be a minimum, 10 or 20% of a couple of books might be tolerable. But if there is some minimum value they end up charging (potentially well above 20%) would just become super prohibitive to buy anymore physical from Japan. And while one could order from store locally, then it’s just going to end up costing even more money on top of that and dealing with the hassle of the back and forth from the store orders counter…no thanks.

I already have all the survival books so can start at anytime, but anymore physical books that have to be purchased from Japan are going to have to wait for now. Not averse to digital options if there are some for these though.

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Hmm, yes, I didn’t think about it but the US tariffs might be an issue. It might help if we could decide the next several books, then I would be able to place a bulk order, instead of ordering just 1-2 books at a time which isn’t feasible from Japan.

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Ah sorry folks I wasn’t thinking of that (face palm)

Since a lot of people have the full set of survival books, we absolutely can stick with those and vote on the order of the final three, and then continue with scrap after those? Or do just one in between as an interlude, but I don’t want to exclude a lot of people due to cost. The idea was really to test out the appetite for adding something else to the escape book mix

I’m happy for all thoughts, thanks for raising it both of you

Here in Germany I get charged 20% vat plus a fee on imports from Japan and yeah, it really makes importing these expensive. It gets charged on the book value + postage which is ouch. So far I time any other physical book orders with this club, if that’s possible for anyone else we can also time the club for that

I haven’t looked for digital scrap stuff… I bet some are, or at least I know there are app versions for some things they do that we could look into. I’ll have a look!

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anytime you can forget there is an orange stain on the world… enjoy it :smiley:

I’m all for digital if you find something, I buy digital from bw.jp (typically avoid amazon and never by kindle versions). Would be fun to try some other puzzles…if we don’t lose anyone along the way :palm_tree: :snowflake: :ocean:

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Put that horror under a spoiler! :joy:

I think I’m also quite interested in eventually reading a SCRAP book with the club, but because I already have a number of the サバイバル books I’d probably want to get through those first.

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I would be interested in a SCRAP book, so if you ever go into that direction you can tag me (only if you remember, of course)! I also have a few things I want to order from cdjapan sometime in the future anyway, so I wouldn’t mind… :eyes:

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If people have survival escape copies already, I could order the rest of those and then we would be good to go probably until next year, when we could maybe pick a few SCRAP books to try?

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I think SCRAP could be fun but I’m with the others on the waiting for a bulk order before buying physical books. I’d also quite like to finish the current series :saluting_face:

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Oh, that’s super neat that SCRAP might be an option. They collaborated with Capcom and released a Ghost Trick at-home escape game, if anyone’s ever heard of that video game. I translated it, and while there’s still some time before the scans get altered, anyone interested can grab the raw scans here. (Please note that the escape game contains spoilers for the main video game.)

Normally I’d be all for doing a SCRAP book next, but as others pointed out there might be cost factors to consider. :\ I don’t own any of the other サバイバル・ゲーム books at the moment, so I might sit out until we figure out how viable/interested people are in SCRAP.

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Thanks everyone for the votes and comments! I’m liking the ranked voting. The votes and comments are currently favouring finishing the サバイバル・ゲーム books, and I have to admit I didn’t realise so many people have all of them. I know of one more person who has 2 of the last 3 books :spider_web:.

Would it be premature to call the vote? Current majority (and expected precedent from the past) is to finish this series, and then after that, open the club up to nominations (any escape or choose your own adventure style book, eg SCRAP!). I’ll tag you @yukitanuki !

In that case I would start a vote to rank choices for reading the last three and advertise on the BBC and Natively children’s clubs to recruit more adventurers. :camel:

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Cool tidbit by the way!

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Which are the last 3 サバイバルゲーム books? I’ve only bought the one we just did, previously. And I am already tempted to buy a few more…
(I’m always easily tempted)

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whole series is here :

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Would be fun to have you again! Part of the adventure will be hiding your copy from SO :wink:

Follow shuly’s link - we haven’t done desert, Savanah or swamp - basically the ones with no readers :blush:

I just buy them one at a time to build the suspense each time :face_savoring_food: we’ll know sometime next week which one is next

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Well… I’ll wait until it’s selected, because it’s $25 to get a single copy off Amazon at the moment…

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I think I only have the ones the club hasn’t read yet. I ordered them off amazon.jp when I was there earlier this year and got them delivered to Family Mart :joy:

Since I was my own shipping, even if we only read one of them it was worth it for me, but I’d still like to read the others if the club is still game. :blush:

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I get it. I bought Pacific Ocean when I was in Japan, and it was only $5 from Amazon JP

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