This article is written by Yun Ji
If you can handle a case through sound, can you find the ultimate truth? Released in March 2019, "Mystery Pursuit" attracted a large number of players with such a "sound detective" system, and all the sounds of the game are combined with the narrative of the radio drama and the game, plus the plot content of benguet reasoning, so that there are still people chasing the game team to play with the new DLC. There's another question that players have been talking about so much that even today there's no officially definitive answer, and that's the question — who are you?
The problem comes from the game's fifth case, the last question in the mental hospital, where the "guide" in the game will guide us through the reasoning of the first four cases with "sound detective" and tell us that we need to find out who the real psychosis is here and who the "old ghost" is. After completing these two events, the "bootstrapper" will ask us off the computer screen, who are you? In order to sort out the final question of "Doubtful Case Pursuit", I will first popularize the TAT test and explain the answers I believe in a layered way, which may have more personal views, please browse rationally.
The TAT test, also known as the subject matter test, is similar to the way of "looking at pictures and speaking", which is a time-consuming method of applying psychological projection techniques to compile personality. Simply put, let the subject give a more explicit meaning to the picture with a vague meaning, and through the guidance of language, the subject is free to narrate what he thinks on the original basis. But in fact, the subject will unconsciously express his personality and inner thoughts, and the researcher can analyze the content of the story and capture the clues to understand the specific inner world of the subject.
From the beginning of the game, "I" was also experiencing something similar to this TAT test. It's similar because the woman sitting across from it calls it the sound detection system and tells us that she hopes that "I," as a detective, can use this system to complete a test and help them solve difficult cases. We easily cracked the first four levels, because with the help of the sound detection system, everyone's voice and even the linguistic motive for the crime can be easily deduced. This is a test seen from the perspective of "me", and outside the screen we know that each of these cases has a standard answer, and you can even use the exclusion method to know who did what without even listening to everyone's voice.
What is even stranger is that "I" heard a huge "noise" between the third case and the fourth case, and the woman said that it was because of the side effects caused by the use of sound probes, and "I" would slowly get better as long as I stopped using it. But I believe that at this moment, you should be like me, doubting the truth of this woman's words, but the "I" who is locked up in the small black room with the woman in front of me can't say a word, and the only thing I can do is to continue the sound detection mission and end the test.
After completing the fifth case, "I" finally came to the end of the test, but the woman asked me another question, which was said earlier, who are you? Thinking that she called "me" a detective before, then choosing a detective is the right choice for "me" to stick to her heart. The woman was very happy and congratulated "I" for passing the test, just as I opened the door and walked out at a relaxed pace, there were familiar voices around me, they were all interrogating one-on-one, we players could find that "I" was in a police station similar to an ear, and the attentive little friends could also find "you're the next" written vaguely on the white floor near the earlobe until the screen was black and the game was over.
Is "I" a detective? Obviously this answer becomes uncertain, because from beginning to end we are following the woman's guidance to choose, if she said a lie in it, then we chose the detective ending, which is to put "I" into the serious side effects of the vocal probing system, and the woman did not guarantee us how long the serious side effects would be good.
In order to find the truth, we need to go back to the fifth case again to sort out the development of everything. Because women have told us that the fifth case is a case that has not yet been solved, many people will lose themselves in this place. But the two questions in the fifth case have a "standard answer" in hand, and the only difference is the question of "who are you?" If the detective represents sticking to his heart, then the other options should be to lose themselves, the woman will be disappointed, and then a pair of hands will appear blindfolding "me". But the truth is that we can also choose the identity of "No. 68", but this No. 68 is the same as other options (the detective is mentioned by women from beginning to end) from the mental hospital of the fifth case. So I assumed that "I" was Number 68 to speculate.
If I were "No. 68", the plot of the fifth case would begin with No. 68 smashing Dr. Stone (with an ashtray), jumping out of a window and escaping from a psychiatric hospital, and No. 68 never appearing from beginning to end. Miraculously, there was also an ashtray on the table in the room where we were staying with the woman, but it was clean and there was a cigarette on it that no one was moving, so what was the meaning of this cigarette here?
Continuing to observe what happened in the mental hospital, we can find that in addition to the old ghost who wanted to make an explosion before the police found him and fled here, there was also the side line of the 68th escape and the mental patient who wanted to fight the doctor and did not want to be tested by TAT again. We can also learn from reporters that this psychiatric hospital will brainwash people with TAT tests, make people forget their past, and get a "new identity". Combined with the correct answer given by the woman who is mentally ill, you can know that what the reporter said is all true, and 44% of the mentally ill people are normal. In addition to doctors and policemen, the only people left are actors, Uncle Zhan, Mai Ye, and reporters who are normal people, and there is an extra quota, which naturally can only be attributed to No. 68.
Continuing to choose No. 68 as the final identity, we will have two choices, one is to take medicine to continue treatment, and the other is to smash the woman with an ashtray and run away. The first consequence, as you and I can guess, is definitely to forget these things after taking the medicine, and then conduct a sound probe test; the second consequence may be to escape, maybe to be caught again, but it doesn't matter anymore, because we can see a nurse rush in through the third perspective and call the woman a stone doctor. All these assumptions become plausible.
The theme song we hear every time we enter the game and the music that Dr. Wang brainwashes the painter in the mental hospital, as well as the music used to hypnotize people in the later DLC that mentions the fake black-faced Guanyin who escaped from the Mystery Research Institute are exactly the same (maybe the game team dug a bigger hole, but the truth can only be known until the new DLC or the second part). The detective ending becomes a good ending at this point, but not a convincingly true ending. Only if I am Number 68 and a normal person can connect the game before and after. It also perfectly explains the answer to this question.
"Mystery Pursuit" is a suspenseful game that combines benguet reasoning and radio drama, although it reduces the difficulty of solving puzzles a lot, but in the final foreshadowing is buried well, it is easy to make people think about it. But whether you choose Detective or No. 68, it's the player's own choice, and I'm just going to expand on what I think is the most reasonable answer. After all, I still want to see what the ending of "I" will be.