You wake up locked in a room. Really, given the history of the game, this shouldn't surprise you. You're immediately partnered with a girl named Phi, your name is Sigma. Cute. The proctor of the extremely Saw-like game is a projected bunny on a screen that talks, and calls itself an AI by the name of Zero Jr. (since Zero Sr. would be the gamemaster, and the one who created Zero Jr. to proctor the game. Zero Jr. flat out tells us that its creator is masquerading as one of the nine players of this, the latest Nonary Game). Going over rules and controls and "how did I get here" and "who are you" and "what is this watch on my wrist" takes seemingly forever, since you already know that you're not going to get any actually helpful answers, and let's just escape this tiny room already. I guess that's just my recent re-play of the original 999 kicking in there.
Room is easily escaped, except now each room has a safe with two passcodes, one that opens and gives you the key to leave, and one that will open to give you a golden file of information. Usually the second passcode is more difficult to find, and though I poked and poked at the room, I couldn't figure out how to get the second passcode and had to leave the room without it. For now. I assume I'll be coming back.
Outside, we find ourselves in a creepy warehouse, complete with creepy message written in blood (or red paint, they never actually said which) on the wall. Zero Jr. has a projection screen on the wall where he explains more rules: the nine door right next to him is the only exit, only people with more than 9 bracelet points can go through, it will only open once, if you break rules, the bracelet injects you with poison and you die, etc etc. It's really very complicated, I'll explain in more detail if necessary later.
The other people playing the game are:
Alice and Clover, both from the previous 999 game
Tenmyouji, an old man, and apparently his grandson Quark
Dio, some kind of circus ringleader
Luna, conservatively dressed typical meek girl
and K, requisite memory-erased large fellow, strangely completely encased in armor that he can't remove, and we cannot see his face.
Right off the bat the suspicion is high, not about the other players, but about the game. Nan notices and complains that my character, Sigma, isn't voiced, while everyone else is. He's aggravated, of course, because he's spectating, and only hears blocks of silence when my character is supposed to be talking. It raises a flag, along with some comments by the other people in the game. I think even my character is not who he thinks he is, or at least, does not appear or sound the way he thinks he does. Sigma thinks he's a 20-something year old college guy who was kidnapped on Christmas day, 2028, but now that the doubt has been cast, it could be any year, and Sigma could be old by now. This is reinforced a bit later when they find some cold-sleep chambers that could store bodies indefinitely.
The players are divided into color schemes and either pairs or solos, and compelled through something called 'chromatic doors' that correspond to colors. Using real RGB here, so red-green-blue, and then magenta-cyan-yellow for mixes. Regardless, it boils down to picking one of the three doors: magenta, cyan, or yellow. For this playthrough I chose yellow. After escaping the subsequent room, all players return to the original tiny rooms to play the secondary game that Zero Jr. calls the Ambidex Game. Basically it's Prisoner's Dilemma, where you choose to either Ally or Betray the player(s) you went through the colored door with. Since Phi is part of my 'pair', we must vote as a unit and either receive or be docked points together. (+3 if betraying an ally, +2 both ally, 0 both betray, -2 get betrayed) She launches into a long explanation of why game theory says you should always choose Betray, but I know game theory too, lady. If your default is Betray, then sure, your points don't ever go down, but nobody's points ever go up, either. Although zero bracelet points supposedly means death, no one's getting out of here if nobody ever chooses Ally. So I over-ride her objections and choose Ally. Of course our partner/opponent Alice chooses Betray, and we're down to 1 bracelet point (everyone started with 3). Another round of this could kill us. Phi is displeased.
Clover and K voted to betray Tenmyouji
Dio and Quark allied with Luna
All bracelet colors and pairings shuffled so we had new partners. The next set of doors is down an elevator on Floor B, but we have quite a bit of time before they open, so everyone elects to do some thorough searching of all the available rooms, which are now unlocked.
