Losing Sleep Over Toshimitsu Takagi
Hate is a subtle word that I could come up with to describe the way I feel about Toshimitsu Takagi right now. Since yesterday, I have done nothing but obsess about solving the twisted riddles of his equally demented flash games. In case you’re scratching your scalp with questioning thoughts (“Who the heck is that Japanese guy?”), let me give this background check: Takagi is a guy behind web-based mystery games like the Crimson Room and the Veridian Room. Takagi’s games basically challenge players to figure out how to escape the blasted rooms by searching for hidden clues. Players would have to rely on their creativity and the all-essential IQ to couple the clues together to unlock the mysteries bound in the rooms, and eventually, open the door knob for sweet freedom. It’s basically CBS’s Crime Scene Investigation meets sushi and bad English. And trust me; it’s so easy to get hooked.
My hate affair with Takagi’s creations started when an officemate sent a mail with the link for the Crimson Room. Along the mail was this message:
There are 13 items hidden in this room that you’ll need to find in order to let you get out of this room. If you found:
(a) 0-6 items à Your IQ is very low; you’re a total idiot!
(b) 6-8 items à Your IQ is low; you’re still an idiot!
(c) 9-10 items à Your IQ is in the normal range.
(d) 11-12 items à Your IQ is high; you’re a slice above average.
(e) 13 items (and found and you get out of the room) à Your IQ is very high; you’re a genius! J
I’ve always fancied flash animated games, and sensing that the Crimson Room sounded rather simple to accomplish, I accepted the challenge. After a frustrating hour of just trying to find the missing battery and attempting to open the secret vault on the wall with a secret number combination, I almost smashed my computer to smithereens. Even if I was close to losing my cool and sanity, I finally finished the game with a self-imposed tap on the back after ninety minutes. After that, I was not modest about my “achievement.” I visited the cubicles of my officemates who were also obviously agonizing over the game and gloated at how brilliant I was to solve such a mind-bending game.
Still intoxicated with feelings of quasi-intellectual superiority, I decided to play the next level, the Veridian Room. The mechanics of the Veridian Room are similar to that of the Crimson Room except that the former is much spookier with the presence of an adult skeleton sprawled on the floor. The objective, I think, is to trap the disgruntled spirit of the dead guy in a mystical box before the player could escape the room.
I soon realized that the Veridian Room is way, way harder that the Crimson Room. Because of this, I teamed up with my self-proclaimed techie officemate (QPT) to solve the game since after all, two heads are better than one. We swear that we have figured out the single problem that prevented us from trapping the dead guy’s soul in the box. Except that one crucial problem came along: the frigging game has bugs! For some reason, we could no longer retrieve one crucial item, the lighter, hidden beneath the trash can. With no lighter, we could not burn the incense and the hair strands to complete the ritual required in the game. After numerous reboots, the stupid trash bin woudn’t lift up despite our frantic clicks of the poor mouse. We finally gave up at around eight in the evening, or around thirteen hours since we stepped into the office. We can’t believe our misfortune over that measly bug and felt like like rubbish, rotten meat, and carpet lint, all at the same time.
As I end this blog post, I’m fighting really hard to resist the urge to get back to the Veridian Room. After what I’ve gone through yesterday, it’s no longer worth it to even make another attempt. And while I’m at it, I think I’m starting to hate Toshimitsu Takagi even more. I hope he gets locked up in a real-life room with all the psychotic twists and loopholes that goes in my mind. I hope it takes him eons to figure out the how to make his escape. I hope his entrapment will make him feel like a helpless claustrophobe with a puny brain. I hope he loses sleep over some stupid bug and suffers for it. I swear; I hate his guts. It would certainly take a lot of Cheetos and Reese’s peanut butter cups to make me get over this.
