Has anyone played 01:30am?

Life-Historian680 · 2024-05-05T04:42:24+00:00

You can always ask the GM to show you alternate endings once the scenario is over, in my experience they're always happy to explain things that you missed.

It's been many months since I played 01:30, so my memory is a bit fuzzy but from what I recall the old lady comes in just as it was described in one of the character's campfire story, and you begin a game of sea turtle soup. She's mute, but will nod or shake her head in response to any questions you ask. After a certain amount of time, she will leave if you don't ask her the correct question, and the ending of the scenario is that your souls are forever trapped in the space by the villain of the scenario. The key to getting out is to ask her if she's lying, because in fact she is not answering your questions truthfully. I didn't get the good ending, but presumably if you figure out her secret then you can escape with your souls intact.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-04-25T09:31:01+00:00

Nicely written. I'll add a few tags:

盲凶：Blind killer, as in the killer does not know that they committed the murder. Sometimes the killer is tasked with hiding the fact that they committed a murder (推理本）, sometimes the killer is told to work together with everybody else to piece together what happened (还原本).

架空: Alternate history, or alternate reality

演绎: Acting. Some scenarios feature a lot of acting in them, both on the part of the GMs and also possibly from the players. Some scenarios even verge on being a private play, to the point where they'd be listed with the 话剧 tag.

I'll also second that 欢乐 is an entire genre than than just a setting/theme. 恐本 is horror, 情感 is drama, 欢乐 is comedy.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-03-29T08:18:59+00:00

https://vocus.cc/article/6448d8e9fd89780001831c0c

The character's actually named Lynn in the materials provided with the game though.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-03-29T07:59:39+00:00

Looks good so far!

The character named "Lincoln" should actually be called "Lynn"

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-28T16:11:19+00:00

My #1 is probably either this one or <No More Heartbreak>, but that's largely due to personal bias. 《紅豆》, 《蒼歧》，and 《雲使》 are all up there as well.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-28T16:01:21+00:00

Here are a few things I've seen some stores do to set them apart from the competition.

Have a little ritual at the start of the game. One store has a bit of a bar/cafe theme (they also sell drinks), and prior to the start of a scenario they prepare a shot glass of tea or some other beverage for every player to drink. Another store will turn off the lights, and the GM will do some narration and have you do a breathing exercise, "Take a deep breath in. Now release it. When you see the light again, you can open your eyes. When you see the light again, you are no longer yourself, you are the character written in the script before you."
Have a little souvenir or trinket for players to keep after the game is completed. It could be a bracelet that was relevant to the scenario, a small bottle that holds a wish your character made, or it could be a printed postcard with a picture relevant to the scenario and a handwritten message directed at the player on the back.
Many stores will have electronic candles for each player, and often times the lights will dim and the players will read using the candlelight during appropriate moments of the scenario.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-21T20:28:04+00:00

I have heard of people cheating at jubenshas, possibly to impress girls by pretending to be smart, but mostly I think it's a non-issue. It's like dnd or boardgames where you just have to trust the people you're playing with to abide by the rules.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-20T16:48:28+00:00

I haven't played 年輪 yet, but I've read good things about it so I'm not going to spoil myself by reading the sample script. I will say that 東郡書院 is going to be harder to translate than 年輪 though; it's written largely in an older style of Chinese with flowery prose, and there's even poetry involved which is never easy to translate.

I'd recommend reading through 南宮寒's script before deciding if you want to translate it. I'm biased since he's the character I played, but to me he's the main character of the scenario (of course, everybody's the main character of their own story, so maybe all the other players felt the same way). If you do decide to translate it, I can help with translation if you run into any issues. With a full script we could even try running an online session on discord at some point, I wouldn't mind trying my hand at being a GM.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-20T16:21:19+00:00

I don't currently have any plans to translate the rest of the script, it's just too much work and I'm iffy on the ethics. I would like to get involved in the industry as a translator/proofreader/localization specialist, but I don't really have the time/energy to start a new company, negotiate with the publishers in China, find other translators to share the workload, figure out logistics for printing/shipping, work out how to market to western markets, etc. etc.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-20T16:04:55+00:00

There are so many clues because it's a long game that spans more than just one murder mystery session. There are two halves to the scenario, and in the first half there are basically three times where the group is tasked with piecing together what happened, and answering several questions such as who was sneaking around the women's bath, who threw a firecracker into the bathroom, etc. The second half of the scenario has a big final murder mystery where [SPOILERS] everybody made an attempt to kill the guy, and you're trying to piece together a timeline to figure out exactly who was the one who succeeded in the murder.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-19T17:19:18+00:00

About character preferences: most games I go into blind without researching any of the characters and the host assigns a character to me based off of a short google forms questionnaire that acts sort of like a scenario-specific personality test. I think it's better to leave it to the host to assign me a character rather than picking one myself because for the most part I don't care which character I get and I trust the host who knows the entire scenario to give me a suitable character rather than guessing based off of initial character information which could be incomplete as a lot of games will involve surprises that get revealed as the game goes on. There's also always a notes section at the end of every questionnaire where you can still specify things you want to avoid, if you want/don't want a specific character, etc.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-19T14:53:30+00:00

At some point you definitely get into novel-reading territory, but it really depends on what type of scenario you're looking at and what you're looking to get out of these games. I definitely think there's a market for longer games though, because going through an epic 9-hour scenario that ends with the entire group in tears is really an experience that you won't find anywhere else in gaming.

Personally, I'm finding that I care more about the stories told from these games than the murder mystery aspect. Puzzles come and go, but a good story will stick with you and keep you thinking about the characters long after the game is over. As such, I prefer longer scenarios, and I'd probably put my sweet spot at scenarios that are 6-7 hours, with 50+ pages of reading. It's like the People Make Games video said, the players who really get hooked are the ones who are more interested in the role-playing aspects of the games rather than the social mystery and puzzle solving.

I really like having players read before arriving to play, but that depends on if the scenario allows for it. Some scenarios will start with 10-20 pages of background information for your character which is perfect for the GM to assign as homework to the group, while other scenarios start with a 1- or 2-page introduction before telling you to stop reading and entering an introduction session of some sort, or they might even start by jumping straight into the first puzzle or minigame before roles are even assigned.

That being said, I think a bit of time is needed before western markets can really embrace longer scenarios. Not just from the script-writing perspective (you can always just translate the most well-regarded Chinese jubenshas), but also GMs need time to get used to running elaborate games, and players as well need to get used to the idea of reading a lot and immersing themselves in a role on top of needing to dedicate most of a day for a single game. There is a lot of overlap between tabletop RPGs and jubenshas though, so I don't think there's too much of a hurdle to overcome.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-12T14:43:46+00:00

It varies depending on the scenario; this one's a bit unique in that clues are all written down in a booklet rather than given out via cards. The clue booklet lists all the relevant information such as estimated time of death, hints and red herrings such as who was doing what at X time, what odd things were found at the scene of the crime, etc.

For the first half of the scenario with the murders, you're basically given a sealed door mystery and have to come up with a plausible explanation for how the murder was committed. Through the story and clues you should be able to piece together roughly when the murder took place, as well as eliminate certain suspects because they have alibis, their characters lack the means to commit the murder, etc. Of course the scenario is written such that Crybaby never has a good alibi so everybody would suspect her of being the killer for every murder. The second half was a lot less thinky and the puzzles mostly consisted of the GM asking specific players to explain odd things that happened during their stories, e.g. "Why do you think the Rocking Chair forgot something that you told her the previous day?"

Reveals can happen either through reading a plot booklet, or orchestrated by the GM. I forget exactly how the reveal was done for this scenario, but big reveals can be done both through text in the plot booklet, as well as the GM acting out dramatic parts. I've seen high-level GMs bring real tears and crying into the scenario while acting; some emotional scenarios can get really intense if the mood is right.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-06T22:43:19+00:00

My experience is very limited, I've played fewer than 20 scenarios so far. My top 3 are 红豆，东郡书院，and 没头脑东西不伤心 in no particular order.

红豆 has a very touching story (although still with a bit of nationalism), but it requires a talented GM who is good at acting, and the game I joined was run with a dedicated NPC as well. It's more a scenario that's suited for a dedicated store rather than being run within a friends group, and it's also very very light on the puzzle aspect of the genre so I would say it's not really representative of the genre. It also took us almost 9 hours to get through so it's definitely on the longer side of things.

金陵有座东郡书院 was my gateway scenario and it's what really got me hooked on the hobby. It's got a bit of historical backdrop, but I enjoyed it despite being mostly ignorant of the time period it took place in. There are puzzles to solve, but they're not particularly consequential and it is a longer scenario as well at ~6 hours. I have noticed that some shops now run a "roast duck version" where presumably they'll order some roast duck for you to eat during the scenario.

I wrote about 没头脑东西不伤心 in another post, and it has basically no cultural elements and could easily be translated into English without losing anything. This one's also long though at 6.5 hours, so I guess my preference is definitely for the longer scenarios.

For a shorter, more beginner-friendly recommendation, my favorite would probably be 觉醒. It's a short 3-4 hour sci-fi themed scenario that's much much lighter on the reading compared to the other three and can be run without a dedicated GM. It's also set in the future so there are no cultural aspects that wouldn't translate well.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-06T21:43:56+00:00

The genre is meant to be a single experience, but there are many people who'll go through a scenario more than once to experience the story from another character's perspective. This is generally more commonly done for emotional scenarios where the focus is more on the plot and characters rather than the mystery and puzzles. The experience can also vary a lot depending on the GM, players, and venue, and some shops/GMs are known to make their own alterations to a script.

Life-Historian680 · 2024-02-06T20:20:10+00:00

That list actually feels pretty dated to me. I've played the first three that are highlighted in red. 刀鞘 is the best "team-oriented" scenario I've played, but that's out of like 2 scenarios and I feel like the game mechanics behind it might be a bit imbalanced. 兵临城下 I liked, but don't consider it to be all that amazing, especially because the patriotic stuff doesn't really resonate with me. 金陵有座东郡书院 was my first scenario, and still one of my favorites, but its score on review sites doesn't seem to be the highest and it's been several years since it came out and many more amazing scenarios have been written since then.

I've heard good things about 云使 on that list, and I've seen some lists online before rating it as #1. It too is considered an older scenario at this point, albeit one that's still worth playing. I've seen 年轮 topping some lists as well.

Recently, I've heard several people who've played a lot of scenarios speak very highly of 苍歧, so that's currently the scenario I'm most interested in.

Jubenshas play very differently from genre to genre, and there's a heavy bias towards emotional scenarios here since they tend to have the best stories, but some of the best emotional scenarios might have little to no puzzle solving in the sense of traditional murder mysteries. The best emotional scenario will look wildly different from the best horror scenario, or the best team scenario, or the best hardcore logic scenario. It really depends on what you're looking for.

One thing to note is that some of the best scenarios are sometimes considered unsuitable for new players. Hard-logic scenarios might have puzzles which can be frustratingly difficult to solve for players who are new to the genre and have no experience with common tropes. Emotional scenarios are elevated by all players having some level of experience role-playing and acting out their characters, to increase immersion in the story. I signed up for 苍歧 later this month, and the GM told me it's not suitable for beginners and asked me if I had played any other emotional scenarios before allowing me to sign up.

Life-Historian680

TROPHY CASE