CIRCLE YOU, CIRCLE YOU GAME? (KAGOME, KAGOME)

I'd be careful about assuming that a premise that's frightening for five minutes and thirty seconds can be stretched to the length of a full game and still be as effective. (and I wish people would stop resorting to music boxes and children as an easy way of scaring people. it doesn't really... work. what scared you about this? was it all the people telling you you should be scared, I wonder?)

I think that if people want to create effective horror, they should try to avoid typical horror trappings like haunted orphanages and creepy children and nazi scientists and supersoldier programs. we know what to expect from them. horror is the process of forcing someone to face the unexpected when they aren't ready to do so, and so you as a horror developer need to push yourself not to rest on the same cliches you've seen used before. it's lazy and insulting to the player. (not that your typical scarecam celebrity doesn't do a great job of looking like an idiot on his or her own.)

e: that creepypasta was dumb, so it's science time: the cumulative process of aging (scientifically called "senescence") is thought to be caused primarily in humans by an imposed limit on the number of times a single cell may replicate itself by division. if you think of a cell's chromosomes as a tape recording, there exist at either end large blank spaces known as telomeres -- these areas exist as a means of preventing gene degradation. when a cell divides, a small portion is lost, and the telomeres grow shorter, until they eventually become too short and the cell is no longer able to replicate itself without damaging its chromosomes. when this happens, the cell no longer divides and simply dies out. the number of times a cell may divide before this occurs is called the Hayflick limit, and it has a purpose: by occasionally culling a cell population, the body lowers the extent to which damaged genes can be replicated. many things are capable of damaging our DNA and altering the information, and the presence of telomeres lowers the chances that this damage will accumulate and develop into cancer.

as the cells of children have their telomeres largely intact, cell division and replacement occurs quickly and efficiently. as a person grows, however, the number of cells still within the Hayflick limit slowly dwindles, leading to the formation of wrinkles and other signs of aging as the body is no longer able to replace its dead cells quite so easily. the skin loses elasticity, the heart and lungs begin to strain, the eyes develop cataracts, and the joints grow brittle. it's funny that our bodies protect us from cancer by killing us a different way, isn't it?

there have been experiments in lengthening expended telomeres, but the science is still in its infancy. gene therapy and infusions of telomerase have been shown to reverse the signs of aging in lab mice to an extent, but the relationship between telomeres and aging are not yet fully understood and it's uncertain whether the science would have the same effect on a larger and more complex creature like a human. there are species of animal with telomeres that actually lengthen as they age, and species with telomeres that don't change at all, and the length of a particular species' telomeres has not been determined to be proportional to its lifespan in any conclusive way. additionally, it's thought that removing the Hayflick limit would result in vastly increased incidences of cancer, as it would halt the culling of cells completely -- even ones carrying damaged genetic information. immortality, at any rate, is simply not on the table no matter successful these experiments are -- the body is worn down by more than just itself, and preserving the telomeres (or removing an imaginary "killswitch") would only be removing one of the ways the world slowly kills us.

("killswitch-ectomy"? seriously?)

A song does not equate a game. At any rate, this song isn't scary enough to be taken seriously. Am I a robot, then? Nah, I've seen more horrifying things.

I do agree though that the story setting has the great potential to be converted into a horror game. The song reminds me of Corpse Party, a great example of a horror game. And that game was originally made in RPG Maker (RPG Maker 95, if I'm not wrong). Why not try that out for a start? :)

It was creepy but creepy doesn't equal scary or frightening. It's more disturbing.

That said, the circle circle song has been alluded to before in games. Or at least, the idea of a circle and guessing who's behind you. - Hello Terranigma with Bloody Mary's 'children'.

If you think it's a decent idea, then use it.

I could see it as a hidden mystery idea - something like, a family living together with a lot of children. A friend of one of the kids is invited over to sleep the night and when they wake up, find no-one around. They explore and soon realise that all the children were adopted from an old orphanage or that the house is an orphanage, but no one knows about it...

Even cliche stories can be awesome if given the right details, though.

author=Mr_Detective
Though, the name Kagome usually reminds me of that girl from Inuyasha first. :D

Exactly what I thought of.

Yeah, the song wasn't really that scary, and that's coming from someone who gets scared at the occasional thump and bump or gets freaked out by some cliché creepypasta.

Anyway, a game based off just that seems rather... empty to me. Basically I second what mawk said about a five and a half minute video being able to be stretched to a full game. Although, don't get me wrong, that could be done...

Edit: The song doesn't freak me out, but the creepypasta... oh god... I'm not reading that ever again...

Now I can't get "Kagome, Kagome" out of my head...

Actually, I have been very interested in the game, and I am currently in the process of making a game surrounding the legend in WOLF RPG editor. Since I do not understand Japanese, a friend of mine is translating the program for me, while another friend of mine is making the illustrations since I am a horrible artist. I am doing the rest. It should be out around October 2014 or sometime next year.