120th ♫ | it's hard to feel alive with a knife in your back

[phaiinein]

The Murder Game Meme



You know the script. You wake up in a place you've never seen before, with a whole bunch of complete strangers and there's a mysterious voice or a mascot or what have you ready to let you know how things are going to work around here.

The rules are simple: You're trapped here, with no hope of release or rescue. You've been provided with all the basic necessities you need to live comfortably, and all you have to do is settle down and live out the rest of your days here in peace. But if you can't do that -- if you're really so desperate to escape that you'll do anything -- then there's one teeny tiny thing you have to do first.

All you have to do is kill somebody.

But it's not quite that simple. Every death will be followed by a period of investigation, followed by a trial in which the survivors will attempt to solve the mystery and out the culprit. If the survivors guess correctly and out the culprit, the killer is executed and life goes on. But if the survivors guess wrong, then the culprit is free as a bird and everyone else is executed.

Even with the promise of freedom, can you really bring yourself to kill so many other people?

tl;dr: it's a murdergame meme. TIME TO HAVE A BIG OL' MURDERGAME BLAST.


Settings

1. High School A classic! Doesn't matter if you're too old or too young to be in high school -- you've been enrolled and the only way for you to graduate is to kill a fellow student. But hey, the faculties are nice!
2. Tropical Island Weren't you just hankering for a nice tropical vacation? No? Too bad! You're going to have a nice sunny vacation at the beach and if you don't like it, just kill someone and go home. Simple!
3. Prison It doesn't matter if you don't remember committing any crime; you've been tried and found guilty of something or other and now you can go ahead and rot away in jail. If you ever want to see the sunlight again, better put that criminal mind to good use and get rid of your inmates.
4. Mall A huge mall stuffed full of stores, places to eat and all the regular amenities like deadbolted doors and the threat of death. It's like Black Friday but even worse because you can't leave and all the rest of the shoppers might actually kill you for real this time.
5. City Holy shit, you've got the run of a whole city this time around! Maybe with all this room to keep out of each other's way, you'll be able to make sure no one starts killing people. But probably not.
6. Cruise Boat YOU'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER. The accommodation is all five star, even if there's no one around to act as wait staff. The only snag is that you still have this whole murder thing hanging over your head – but on the plus side, they have those little drinks with the umbrellas in, so...
7. Space Station THE FINAL FRONTIER... Maybe you're familiar with space stations like this or maybe all this future tech is fascinating to you. Not like it matters either way, of course, because you won't be getting out of here unless you lay down a murder on someone.
8. Wildcard! None of the above scratch your murder itch? Go wild and come up with your own setting!



Downtime

1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on.
2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other?
3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose.
4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with.
4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways)



PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME

1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it?
2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive.
3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating!
4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight?
5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other.
6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...?
7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home?
8. Wildcard YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO


OPTIONAL FUN

Lots of murdergames have in-universe public profiles for other characters to get the skinny on yours. If you'd like to fill one out to post with your toplevel, peep at the code below!

<center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</ul></center>

Comments

[repliacting]

[ Ever since she remembered her time at LoveNow, she's been purposely avoiding Ai. And now that she's remembered a lot more than that... yeah, this is definitely awkward.

She can't even look at the B-Komachi idol in the eye, even as she mentions Ruby and Aqua, feeling completely gutted and taking the first chance she gets to just make her escape and keep to herself. But you know what they say: it's a small world, and it isn't as if Akane can keep running forever.

Eventually, someone would die, and she'd have to face her in trial. So maybe she'll count her blessings that it's now that she has to, instead of later-- ]

Ah, sorry, didn't expect to see you here, Hoshino-san.

[ She forces the distance between the two of them by referring to her by last name along with the added honorific. ]

I didn't happen to interrupt...?

[ She just wanted to be in a large space to practice her acting, after all, she didn't expect that someone else might have wanted to do something similar. ]

[liedol]

[ In a lot of ways, having someone here who knows her has been a blessing and a curse. It keeps her grounded and in check, almost like having a director hovering around to make sure her lines are coming out right. On the other, it feels like a confirmation of failure. If Akane knows her the way she seems to, like a familiar ghost from the distant past, it means she failed at this second chance before it even got started.

It's almost enough to make you laugh. Or start screaming. One or the other.

She keeps on going through the motions, though. What else can she do? Smiling like a fool when her heart is bleeding clean out of her is her specialty after all. So when Akane comes wandering into the dance practice room their captor had so generously gifted them, Ai flashes her a grin.

It almost looks real. ]

You're not interrupting. And hey, this place is supposed to be for everybody, right?

[repliacting]

[ It's still so awkward...!

Akane finds herself laughing in a way that shows just that, and for someone as observant as she is, she can see the cracks in Ai's mask, even if she isn't going to call her out on it. Even if the instincts inside of her are screaming that she really, earnestly should hide herself away somewhere.

Except she's done enough of that for a lifetime, hasn't she? ]

W... Well, that is true, I suppose. I just don't want to be a bother with vocal warmups since those tend to be loud.

[liedol]

That's alright! It can't be any worse than the warmups idols do before a show. And a lot of them end up sounding pretty silly, too!

[ See! Nothing's wrong! If both of them pretend this is a normal conversation for long enough, maybe they can get out of this interaction unscathed!!! ]

What sort of vocal warmups do actors do, anyway? They must be pretty different from what idols need to do.

[repliacting]

I imagine that there are some things that are probably similar, but there are definitely some differences. There's always the common usage of tongue twisters to help with enunciation and speaking lines, for instance.

[ Clearly, if she talks about acting she doesn't have to talk about other things! It's probably fine! ]

[liedol]

Oh...! So that's what that's about!

[ She's playing up her surprise a little - she's heard other actresses giving that sort of thing a try when they were on set together and figured it must be something like that, but letting someone feel like they're getting to explain something new to you always works well. ]

So it's just like stretching and doing warmups so you don't cramp when you dance.

[repliacting]

That's basically it. Your voice is still a part of your body after all, so you need to take good care of it. If you misuse it by not warming up or doing things improperly, you might mess up your throat or you might be forced to take vocal rest.