LSD: Dream Emulator the cursed game *story*

Spoiler:

A few years ago, while searching on /x/ for Paranormal or Creepy games, I came across an obscure Japanese Playstation game, called "LSD: Dream Emulator." Despite the game releasing in extremely limited numbers, many ROM sites had it available for download. Naturally, I downloaded it, converted it, and started playing.
Unfortunately, the ISO was corrupted - or incorrectly ripped - as I couldn't get any further than the title screen and, when I did, all I saw was a mess of color and heard a strange fuzzing sound, like radio static. I tried re-downloading the ISO multiple times, trying it from different websites, but every single one was the same. Strange colors, fuzzy static sound. I tried posting questions on various gaming sites, but hardly anyone had heard of the game and even less had played it. I learned that the game had a cult following, both here and in Japan, and I eventually found a small yahoo fan group, dedicated to the game.

I posted a question, asking if anyone had managed to get the game working on emulators, and a few days later, I received an answer.

"Hi. I was one of members of the ripping group who released the LSD rip. We managed to successfully rip the game, but we have never managed to get it working on emulators, only the original hardware."

By this point, I had practically given up on it. I didn't have a Playstation console, and my attention span was short, and I had long since moved on to other things, like Eversion, and Yume Nikki.

Then, earlier this year, LSD was released on the Japanese Playstation Network. I remembered how much I had tried to play it, even browsing eBay a few times, in the vague hope that a cheap copy surfaced.

So, I made an account, bought a JPN PSN card, and purchased the game, and after downloading and installing, I began playing it. The Playstation logo came up as usual, but with SCEI instead, as it was a Japanese game. There was no copyright screen, but they had removed it from several other games as well.

The intro video started playing after that. Different colored words bounced across the screen, spelling out "Thespian Linked Dream" multiple times (Apparently this is what LSD stood for).

I pressed the circle button, and the game went to the title screen. There was no "Press Start" screen, it just went straight to a screen with 4 or 5 options. Start, Save, Load and Options.Above Start, there was a line of text, telling you what Day you were on. It displayed "a DAY 01"

I chose Start.

One thing I had learned from the Yahoo group, was that the first Day always started in a Japanese House, with three floors. The contents of the house were random. The entire game was played in a First-Person view.

I walked along the hallway I started in, and walked into a Bookcase, and the screen faded to white. That's the strange thing about this game, you can't interact with anything. Walking into anything moves you to a new area, which the game calls "Linking".

The white faded away and I was in a field. I couldn't see very far into the distance, because every area had fog a few feet ahead of you. The graphics were also basic, with most having no texture to them. I walked onwards, eventually bumping into a tree, which sent me to another area.

This time, things had gotten a bit more sinister. I was in a dark city, standing on a metal pier. A boat loomed in the fog, out on the water, and lamp posts lit the streets. I walked down into the road, and came across alleyways. Graffiti covered some of the walls, strange multi-colored eyes staring out at me. Then I heard a noise and the screen flashed quickly. I turned around.

Just behind me, a man had appeared. He was wearing a grey hat and a long trench coat. He was walking slowly towards me, almost gliding across the ground.

I tried to walk backwards, to get away, but my controller wasn't responding, and he was getting closer.

For a split-second, two red dots glared out from under his hat, then the screen flashed again.

This time I was back in the house.

Something had changed, though.

The textures of the walls, were replaced with pictures of real violence. Women being raped, children torn apart, Cannibalism, Torture, a Japanese man breaking his own fingers with a hammer.

As I moved through the house, the pictures slowly began getting worse and the music began distorting and slowing down. The corridor was longer than it was before and it was getting darker.

I knew what was at the end.

He was.

I moved onwards, the bile rising in my throat and fighting the urge to vomit, as the pictures began escalating into terrible levels of obscenity and violence. A few steps forward, a man removing a young boy's legs. A few more, a pregnant woman cutting her own fetus out. Further still, a gang of men cut a cow to pieces, wrapping the internal organs around their bodies. Closer to the end, people being forced to eat the corpse of a child, vomiting as they eat parts of him.

Finally, I reached the end of the corridor.

The screen faded to black and a line of text appeared on the screen.

oharaweb.jp

I wrote the link down quickly and a few seconds later, the game faded to white again, and returned to the title screen.

This time, the status said "D dAy 00"

I tried to choose Start again, but the game wouldn't let me continue. I restarted the PS3, and the status went back to "a DAY 01."

Before I played it again, I tried the link. It still worked, and a page came up, filled with Japanese writing. Further down the page, there was a picture of the Gray Man, as he normally appeared. I can't read Japanese, but one of my friends could.

He lived in Japan for a few years, so he could read and speak the language fluently. I copied the writing down and called him up.

After he showed up, I spent the next few hours telling him what had happened. Obviously, he didn't believe me. Who would?

But he still agreed to take a look at the writing on the page.

Despite several tries, I couldn't get the web page up again, so I handed him the copy I had made.

He glanced at it for a few minutes and then suddenly turned white. He handed it back to me and sat down on the couch.

He said nothing for 5 minutes, then he told me what it said.

"If you are reading this, well done.

You have seen the man as he is.

What he did to me as I slept, as I

dreamed his dark nightmare. You have

also seen it. Those violent images

were him. He had no form, only the

dream man. He caused all this, those

events in the images, he took those

innocents and possessed them. He made them

do it. He made me make that game.

GRAYGRAYGRAYGRAYGRAYGRAY" As he finished, he stood up, grabbed his coat, and said "Whatever you saw in that game, don't tell me anything about it." Then he left.

The next week, he went back to Japan. I couldn't touch another console after that. I destroyed the PS3 and replaced my computer.

A few weeks after he left for Japan, I got a call. He had killed another man, then committed suicide.

The man he had killed, Osamu Sato, was the lead designer on LSD.

(If you guys are wondering, this game actually DOES exist.)


Continuation:


Hello. Have you ever heard of a game called "LSD"? No? Good. Make sure it stays that way. I had always wanted to play that game. The idea of playing through a man's dream diary in video game form was appealing to me. But, with dreams, come nightmares. I still can't fully explain what happened in that game, and to be honest, I don't want to. My mind recoils in horror when I try to remember the images I saw, the violence and the depravity far beyond normal human imagination. At the end of that hallway, I saw an internet link. I had been unable to read japanese, but my friend could, and did. And he had paid dearly.
It had been 2 weeks since my best friend had returned to Japan, and brutally murdered a man, then slit his own throat. The media coverage in Japan was huge. An english man purposely travelling to Japan to kill a native? They ate it up. After a five week inquiry, my friend had been deemed to have no motive, and was simply slated as insane.

Shortly after, his body was returned to his family, and a funeral was arranged. I was invited of course, but I wouldn't go. I couldn't. I blamed myself for this whole thing. If I hadn't downloaded that game.. but it was far too late now. I kept the whole LSD business a secret from his family. I didn't want any of them suffering the same fate as my friend.

The day of the funeral came, and went. A few days later, I visited his grave.

"James Andrew, 1979-2011, taken before his time".

Seeing his grave, gave me some perspective. Why had this happened? And for that matter, how? I had been the one playing the game, yet I was practically untouched, well, except for the nightmares.

Not long after my friend had left, the nightmares had began. They always started the same way. Standing in that fucking Japanese house, a replica of the beginning of the game. I looked around nervously, expecting the Grey Man to appear, however, he never does. The nightmare ends shortly after, but each consecutive time, the house is a little more aged. Floorboards start to rot, windows smashed, TV broken, or gone. It's building up to something, I know.

On my friends grave, I decided my plan. I would find out who had placed that "Message" in the game, and why.

Back home, I realised I was more alone than I had ever been. How was I going to do this on my own? I couldn't read Japanese, let alone speak it. What would I do if my investigations led me to Japan? So, it was with a heavy heart, that I called Marcus.

Marcus was one of my other friends. He was exactly like James, heavily experienced in the Japanese language, and highly informed about all forms of Japan's culture.

I started to think of what to say. "Hey, Marcus! You know James? It's my fault he died! Want to help me find the imaginary ghost of a PlayStation game?" No. I couldn't be straight with him, at least not at first. I'll get him to come over first, and then deal with the truth when he was here.

I called his mobile. It rung a few times, then he answered. "Hello? Nick?" His voice was heavy with sorrow. "Marcus, could you come over? I need to tell you something." "Couldn't you just tell me over the phone?" "No. It's about James." "I'll be right over."

He pulled up in his car 20 minutes later. I let him in, and he slumped down on the sofa almost immediately. I spent the next hour telling him everything about the game, about the images on the walls, the internet link, the grey man and James leaving for japan after reading the message. Listening quietly throughout, he finally spoke up. "It sounds like bullshit, but I can't help but feel there's something to it. Do you still have the message written down?" I fished the paper I had wrote the translated message on, out, and handed it to him. He read in complete silence, eyes scanning the page. "This is the message? It sounds like some crappy horror story." He said, throwing the paper onto the coffee table. "You said he read this, and then left?"

"Yeah."

"I just read it, and I don't feel any different."

He was right. The message had no effect on him, nor me. The more I thought about this, the more I started to realise. The message only has any effect when it's in Japanese. Marcus agreed with me, theorising that since the game was never released in english, the message was never intended to be read in english.

Over the next few hours, we searched the internet for any reports of other incidents involving the message. We found nothing. After checking the wikipedia page, we discovered the dream diary the game was based off, had been released as a book about the same time as the game. After finding a somewhat expensive copy, we bought it, and waited.

A week later, the book arrived. I sat on the sofa, listening as Marcus translated for me.

"1997, June 04. I've been having that dream again. He tells me things about himself now, about what he was before this. Genzo Kurita. That was his name. He tells me of the horrible things he did, the rapes, the murders, the random acts of violence he committed against innocents. Finally, in 1952, he was caught, and executed in 1959. He whispers to me, that death did not stop him, that he has killed more since. I will not sleep tonight."

We sat in silence afterwards. After a few minutes, Marcus broke the silence. "All the other entries were normal. That was the only one like that." He said, staring at me in disbelief. "Who is this "Genzo"?" I said. Neither of us could offer an explanation. A quick search of Wikipedia offered an explanation.

Genzo Kurita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Genzo was real. As we read the page, I noticed coincidences. Genzo had killed eight people. I saw no less than eight deaths in the pictures in the game.

Marcus and myself are going to Japan in a week. We need to find Hiroko Nishikawa, and ask him about his dreams, and Genzo. I hope I can write another update when we arrive.

Spoiler: