The Radio Station

***The Radio Station** | 深夜放送* is a J-Horror video game about a man looking for answers about his brother's mysterious death. It was released on Steam for Microsoft Windows on October 30th, 2021.

## Synopsis

A man by the name of Masaki Onikawa who works at a local radio station has unexpectedly died one day. His brother Haruo is in so much distraught, that he can't help but try to find justice and investigate why his brother died all of a sudden despite having a promising career as a radio show host. However, as he continues to investigate, he discovers that Masaki may have died from something related towards the supernatural. And that his death was nothing out of the ordinary. Will Haruo be able to discover the truth?

## Gameplay

Halt! A crazy stalker has caught you lurking into dangerous territory! He is letting you know that you've reached the end of the spoiler free territory. If you don't want to become his victim and play the game first. Please leave now!
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

The game starts with the Haruo venting about his brother, Masaki Onikawa's recent death. He is upset and confused as to how it happened. He met his brother the other day, with his brother expressing happiness that his job as a radio host is now taking off. The police stopped investigating his mysterious death and claimed that it must have been a suicide. But Haruo doesn't believe so. He decided he will investigate and figure out what may have caused his brother's sudden death.

One night, Haruo decides to start his investigation. Haruo will grab his car keys and a flashlight before heading out into the night. But before he does so, he remembers a note that was given to him from the radio station owner and decides to read it. It reads:

After that, Haruo will head down to his truck and start driving to various locations within the mountains. The player is allowed to control the car and drive to four different destinations within the area. The player is also given a map to help guide them as well. It does not matter which destination the player heads to first, but this is the recommended guide:

Haruo can first head up to the radio station owner's house. There he will find the key inside the mailbox. Then Haruo can head back to his vehicle and drive to the radio station to unlock the door. While at the radio station, Haruo can pick up a 10-yen coin on the ground. Which is underneath the vending machine next to the front door. Haruo could also use the key to unlock the back door as well. He can choose to either explore inside the station first, or head to the right of the radio station to the storage shed. When Haruo decides to investigate the storage shed, he will notice from the window that someone is inside looking at the various monitors. But when he goes inside, the man is gone! But this doesn't discourage Haruo to continue exploring the place. Inside the shed, he will notice that one of the monitors on the shelf is a bit off. (The first one on the third shelf). He then proceeds to smash the monitor screen, where he discovers a cassette tape within the computer. But when he turns around to leave, he notices the man that was inside the shed is standing right in front of the door to the shed! But when Haruo tries to leave, the man quickly closes the door on him, and when Haruo opens it again, the man is gone! But nonetheless, Haruo continues onwards. When Haruo heads inside the radio station to look for clues. He is able to find a vending machine ticket inside the fridge and another cassette tape in the supply closet. Haruo can also find a tape recorder on a desk next to a flashing lamp. The player can choose whether or not to play the cassette tapes in the tape recorder at the moment. As the player can try to find them all before playing them. (There is a total of seven of them).

Regardless of what the player decides to do, Haruo will head back out to continue exploring. He then notices an area full of vending machines and decides to pull over there next. Haruo gets out of his vehicle and sees a UV Flashlight sitting on a table and grabs it. Haruo can switch between his normal flashlight and the UV flashlight. Upon using it, he notices a bunch of numbers written with invisible ink on one of the vending machines. The vending machine contains a bunch of cassette tapes. And the vending machine is giving Haruo a clue to let him know the numbers to get another cassette tape. The code is written in order based off the placement of the tapes inside the machine:

1 \_ 4
3 \_ \_

Haruo will then input the code: 4267 on the keypad and he will receive another cassette tape. But before he leaves, Haruo then goes over to one of the vending machines and uses the vending machine ticket to buy a meal. Then he notices a phone booth and decides to use the ten-yen coin on the payphone. A voice on the other end picks up and says:

Haruo will then look up and notices another cassette tape taped to the ceiling of the phone booth. He grabs it and heads back off.

Haruo decides to head off to the warehouse next, but when he was about to make a right at a t-intersection, Haruo hears the squeals of a wild pig who then proceeds to crash into his truck and unfortunately kills it.

Haruo arrives at the warehouse and goes inside. He notices there are six doors inside the warehouse. By using the UV flashlight, he notices that an invisible handprint is on one of the doors. As he continues onwards, he notices there are multiple doors in the warehouse with a handprint on each row of doors. This means that Haruo has to solve a puzzle to get to the end of the warehouse. As he must go through every door that has a handprint on it. The order is:

3, 1, 6, 2.

Upon entering the last door, Haruo notices another room and decides to go there. But he notices a person right in front of the door who tip toes to the left. When he checks to see who the person was, the person disappears! But he does find a voice recorder lying on the ground and decides to pick it up. However, upon exiting the warehouse, he sees a mysterious black car parked next to his truck. The car quickly drives off before Haruo can find out who it was. But nonetheless, he decides to follow the car and see where it goes. After following the car for some time, the car eventually crashes at a trash area. Haruo gets out of the car to go and investigate, and he notices that no one was ever in the car! But he does find another cassette tape on the car's window. Haruo decides to explore the area for a bit and notices a group of rats feeding on some garbage bags. He decides to give the rats the food he bought earlier, and the rats move out of the way. Upon opening the garbage bag, he finds another cassette tape. Haruo then decides to leave the area and head back to either another destination (if the player hasn't collected the other cassette tapes) or the radio station. But upon going back to the t-intersection, the car starts making a scratching noise, and then the car comes to an abrupt stop. Then without warning, Haruo looks behind and notices the silhouette of a figure sitting on the trunk of the car before disappearing! Luckily, the truck starts back up again, and Haruo is able to drive away.

At this point, Haruo has retrieved 6/7 cassette tapes. Haruo can use the tape recorder inside the radio station to play the tapes.

Within each cassette tapes, Haruo will listen to his brother Masaki host a segment called: "Masaki's Horror Story". Where he will read a horror story that was sent in by one of their listeners. This is what happens in each of those tapes:

### Tape #1

Masaki Onikawa will greet the listeners for chiming in and explain what "Masaki's Horror Story" is about. He then goes on to read a story that was written from a listener named: Toko. It reads:

### Tape #2

As soon as Haruo puts in Tape #2, the sound of something falling from the supply closet is heard. Upon closer inspection, a bunch of boxes and a computer monitor fell off a shelf from the supply room.

Just like with the first tape, Masaki will greet the listeners and will read another horror story for them. Masaki ends up reading another story from Toko that reads:

It is worth noting that when Masaki says the line: "It was the face of her best friend." The audio becomes distorted for a few seconds, with the audio sounding more demonic.

### Tape #3

Just like with the previous tapes, Masaki will greet the listeners for chiming in and ends up reading another story written by Toko. Masaki admits it's nice to be reading stories from her and is excited to read this one. The story goes as follows:

When Masaki starts reading the sentence: "When I said that the nurse glared at me and disappeared." A loud static noise is heard through the audio recording. But stops after he says: "As I learned later, the second basement floor was the morgue.". Finally, when Masaki reads the last sentence, the audio becomes distorted for a few seconds before going back to normal. Then the tape ends.

### Tape #4

Just like with the previous tapes, Masaki will greet the listeners as usual before reading another story that was written by Toko. Masaki is curious to know what Toko has in store since she has become a regular. The next story goes as follows:

Masaki however stops for a second because he notices that the writing style was different and wanted to make sure it was Toko who wrote it. He then continues:

Masaki stops again as he notices that the letters "T, and O" in the word "doctor" were capitalized and comments how weird that was placed there. He continues afterwards:

The audio becomes distorted with the audio sounding demonic once Masaki reads the sentence: "At that moment, I felt that something was coMIN.". Once again, Masaki stops reading and points out the letters "M, I, and N" are capitalized in the word "coming". He continues afterwards:

At the end of the recording, the sound of a lightbulb breaking is heard.

### Tape #5

As soon as Haruo plays the 5th tape, a loud tapping sound is heard. When he goes to investigate the noise, he sees the spirit of a lady with long black hair, a yellow dress, along with a pale and disfigured face looking through the office window from the outside! Haruo goes to investigate but the spirit is nowhere to be found. He goes back inside to listen to the tape.

Just like with the previous tapes, Masaki will greet the listeners for chiming. He sends his gratitude to the viewers listening as the feedback has been massively positive. He notices the story is once again by Toko. But to his surprise, Toko doesn't mention who the story is referring to. Masaki wonders about this, but decides to read it, nonetheless. The story goes as follows:

Masaki stops reading the passage like the previous tape after noticing the letter "o" in the word "no" was capitalized. He feels a bit weirded out by this since the previous story also had random capitalized letters in words. But he decides to continue as he doesn't want to stop reading.

Masaki stops reading again after noticing the letter "s" in the word "was" was capitalized. He then continues reading:

The audio becomes distorted for a few seconds after Masaki reads that sentence. Masaki also points out that the letter "h" was capitalized in the word "everything". He continues reading:

Masaki notices the letter "e" is capitalized in the word "unhappiness." He admits that it's hard to read some of the words if they are capitalized. He continues:

Masaki doesn't point out that the double "l's" in the word "all" was capitalized. But he does notice a note at the bottom of the page, it reads:

As Masaki says that sentence, the audio echoes. Masaki is confused by this and wonders if the letters have something to do with it. He lets Toko know that if he is able to find the letter, he will read it next time.

### Tape #6

Just like with the previous tapes, Masaki will greet the listeners for chiming. He tells the viewers that he uncovered the letter that Toko wanted him to read out loud that was sandwiched between some documents. Masaki points out that the letter has a title this time, unlike the previous letters. He wonders what the story could be and decides to start reading from the title. But as soon as he starts reading the letter, the tape ends abruptly.

Now knowing what may have caused Masaki's mysterious death, Haruo decides to find the letter. He quickly goes inside the radio station's office and finds the letter underneath some documents. A sticky note is written on it, it reads:

Upon this point, the player is left to decide the outcome of the game.

## Endings

### Ending #1

If Haruo decides to read "The Darkness of Tonako" out loud without grabbing the tape recorder, the room will quickly fill up in a pool of blood as soon as he finishes reading the poem. Then, a demon proceeds to rise out of the pool of blood while making demonic grunts and squeals. The demon then points at Haruo and with a swift hand motion, it drags Haruo into the pool of blood. With the demon seemingly taking him to hell or drowning him in the pool of blood. He is then jump-scared by the same demon before the screen cuts to black along with a monologue.

The monologue at the end is then told in the perspective of Haruo's fiancée. She is upset that Haruo had mysteriously died all of a sudden and wonders how and why it happened. After finding out that Haruo was looking for answers on what happen to his brother, she decides she will investigate on how Haruo died.

### Ending #2

If Haruo decides to read "The Darkness of Tonako" out loud and record himself with the voice recorder while reading the poem, the room will quickly fill with blood. And the same demon will rise out of the pool of blood while making demonic grunts and squeals, just like with the first bad ending. But unlike the other bad ending, Haruo will quickly warn everyone in the voice recorder that no one should read the poem, as anyone who does will die. After finishing that sentence, the demon points at him and drags him down to hell or drowns him in the pool of blood. A jump scare occurs again as the screen cuts to black.

This time, a message board is seen with various users discussing about the urban legend of the cursed "The Darkness of Tonako." poem. With some users telling others how the poem is cursed, and no one should read it. Others dismiss the urban legend as a hoax, and other users claimed that someone (possibly the police) discovered the voice recorder Haruo had and found his recording of him reading the poem. The users still continue to discuss the poem to this day about whether or not the poem's curse is true and wonders what could happened if they do read it out loud.

### Ending #3

**\*The player is required to do an additional step to get this ending. \***

If Haruo decides not to read "The Darkness of Tonako" out loud. He will instead try to find the additional 7th tape, which may give him the answers that he needs.

Haruo will go back outside to investigate and notices a radio tower behind the radio station. But as soon as he gets closer, he notices a person on top of the tower who proceeds to jump off in the act of suicide! He goes over to where the person jumped off and discovers that the entrance to the tower is locked. He finds a key on the ground right in front of the fence door and uses it to unlock the door. However, upon opening the door, the person disappears! Haruo then decides to investigate the area. He discovers a pair of trash tongs sitting next to one of the legs of the tower. And while he couldn't find anything on the woman who jumped off, he does decide to climb up the radio tower to continue his investigation. Luckily, he discovers the 7th tape at the top of the tower. But the tape is reversed and therefore incomprehensible. Haruo then leaves the area to find a way to fix the broken tape.

Haruo decides to drive back to the trash area and discovers that there is tape deck that is behind a locked door. Since he was able to grab the trash tongs, he uses it to grab the keys that were sitting on top of the tape deck through a small hole on the side of the other room. He unlocks the door and places the tape and is able to reverse the tape. He then drives back to the radio station and decides to play the final tape. He discovers that the tape contains the audio recording of his brother Masaki reading the "The Darkness of Tonako". The story goes as follows:

After Masaki finishes reading the poem, the audio becomes distorted, becoming completely incomprehensible. However, he does hear the muffled screams of his brother as someone, or something attacks him. Then the tape ends. Now realizing that the poem was the cause of his brother's death, he decides to take the paper and bring it to the police station the next day.

The next part of the ending tells the rest of the story through the perspective of a police officer.

After Haruo gives the officer both the tape and poem as evidence for the cause of Masaki's death. The officer decides to give the tape a listen. However, the tape doesn't have any audio recorded! Haruo becomes distraught over this and quickly leaves, but not before telling the officer that the poem is cursed and to not read it out loud. The officer is confused and wonders if the poem is truly cursed or not. That's when a younger colleague comes over and asks him about the poem. After the officer tells him about the poem, the junior laughs of the thought of a "cursed poem". And tells him to read it out loud. Even though the officer doesn't believe in the supernatural, he is hesitant to do so. Because of this, the junior grabs the paper and reads the poem aloud. At first, nothing happened, and the senior officer was relieved. But all of a sudden, his colleague screamed and collapsed on the floor and died. The officer claims his colleague never came back and also notices that the poem was gone as well. He then wonders to himself what the poem was about.

## Controls

* WASD - Move the protagonist around.
* Mouse - Look Around.
* Right Mouse Click - Interact.
* Esc button - Options.
* Tab - Inventory.
* Shift - Run.

## Characters

* Haruo - The main protagonist and the brother of Masaki Onikawa. After discovering that his brother mysteriously died one day. He decides to go out and investigate on what happen to his brother after the police gave up on the investigation.
* Masaki Onikawa - A radio talk show host and the brother of Haruo. He hosts a segment called: "Masaki's Horror Story" where he reads a story submitted by the station's listeners. His mysterious death leads to the events of the game.
* Toko - A listener who is known to send in horror stories to Masaki Onikawa to read during the horror story hour at the radio station. Her letters mostly reflect on her, relatives, or friend's life. Her letters start to get suspicious as capitalized letters start to appear in her letters and even asking in all capital letters if Masaki found her letter. It's possible she may have had a trouble life with her family and friends all suffering with misfortunes. She eventually grew lonely and eventually lost everyone she loves. She eventually created, "The Darkness of Tonako" to get revenge on the world for bringing her a lot of misfortunes and bad luck and even leaving her all alone. There's a possibility she may have been an entity or has association with the supernatural as she is able to trick people into reading the poem, only for them to die under mysterious circumstances. She can also be considered as the game's main antagonist.
* Hashimoto - The radio station owner. He leaves a spare key in his mailbox in case a worker can't get in the station.
* Haruo's fiancée - She is the fiancée of Haruo. (Name unknown). She becomes distraught when her Haruo mysteriously dies. After finding out that Haruo was looking for answers on his late brother. She decides to investigate what happened to Haruo. (This only happens in the first bad ending). She is never heard from in the other endings, but it is presumed that she investigates Haruo's disappearance in the second bad ending despite it not being implied.
* Senior Officer - A police officer (name unknown) who is only mentioned in the good ending. In the good end, the outcome is told in his perspective. After Haruo's investigation, he heads to the police station the next day and tells him about the cursed poem that killed Masaki. He doesn't believe him due to the audio tape's audio being missing. But he does grow suspicion after Haruo left the station and questions whether the poem's curse is real or not.
* Junior Officer - A police officer (name unknown) who is only mentioned in the good ending. After Haruo leaves the station in distraught, the junior officer comes in to find the senior officer looking at the poem. He decides to read the poem when the senior officer didn't. Unfortunately, he dies moments later after reading "The Darkness of Tonako.".
* Storage Shed Spirit - A male spirit who was seen checking the monitors in the storage shed. He disappears when Haruo enters the shed and reappears in front of the door before closing it on Haruo.
* Warehouse spirit - A spirit who haunts the warehouse. He/she appears at the final door before shifting to the left and then disappearing. It is unknown what his/her purpose was, but it is most likely that she was added to scare unexpecting players.
* Female Spirit - A spirit who is seen from the office window at the radio station who was tapping and peeking through the window. She only appears when Tape #5 is playing. When Haruo goes outside to investigate who she is, she disappears. The spirit is that of a lady with long black hair, a yellow dress, along with a pale and disfigured face, and hollow eyes. It is unknown who she is.
* Evil Spirit - A spirit that rises out of the pool of blood if Haruo decides to read "The Darkness of Tonako" out loud. The spirit will squeal and make demonic grunts and points at Haruo before forcing Haruo into the pool of blood. Most likely drowning him or sending him to hell. The spirit is most likely that of a girl, with her entire body being gray and black and pale looking. She has a white bob style haircut, a gray face with hollow eyes, a large gaping mouth, and a long white dress. There's a possibility she may be Toko. But it is unlikely. She is one of the main antagonists of the game.
* Suicide Jumper - If Haruo decides to go to the radio station's tower to find the 7th tape, he will see a lady jumping off the tower in an act of suicide. The person who jumped off the tower bears a resemblance to the female spirit that Haruo sees when the fifth tape plays. So, it is likely that this was her.

## Urban Legend

The Radio Station is heavily based off the Tomino's Hell urban legend. The urban legend goes like this:

Tomino's Hell is a cursed Japanese poem about a Tomino who dies and falls into hell. The poem was originally created by a popular poet named Saijō Yaso in 1919. Who was well known for his work on children's songs and stories. He had written the poem for his book: *"Sakin"* (Gold Dust). It is believed that he wrote the poem after the death of a family member, with the possibility being his sister or father.

It is stated that one should never read the full poem out loud. If one were to do so, the person who read it will either become ill, get hurt or injured in an incident, have misfortune, or even die. Most people who do try to read the poem out loud have admitted to feeling ill or uneasy within the halfway mark. It is also believed you will be drag down to hell, where you meet an insufferable fate. The poem became first gain attraction in 1974, when a movie called: "*Denen ni Shisu"* (Pastoral: To Die in the Countryside) was released. Director Shūji Terayama admitted to taking inspiration from the poem while making the film. When he later died, people suspected that the poem had something to do with his death. There were also rumors that a female college student who also read the poem died by suicide. However, in 2004, Japanese poet and author Yamota Inuhiko. (Who was often mistaken as the original creator of the poem). Mentioned in his book: "*Korogaru Ishi no you ni*” (The Heart is Like a Rolling Stone).

***“If you by chance happen to read this poem out loud, after you will suffer from a terrible fate which cannot be escaped.”***

This ultimately led the poem to become an urban legend, with many people believing that reading the poem will kill you and advised others not to read it.

The poem (in English) goes like this:

younger sister’s breathing fire
while sweet little Tomino
just spits up the jewels.
All alone does Tomino
go falling into that hell,
a hell of utter darkness,
without even flowers.
Is Tomino’s big sister
the one who whips him?
The purpose of the scourging
hangs dark in his mind.
Lashing and thrashing him, ah!
But never quite shattering.
One sure path to Avici,
the eternal hell.
Into that blackest of hells
guide him now, I pray—
to the golden sheep,
to the nightingale.
How much did he put
in that leather pouch
to prepare for his trek to
the eternal hell?
Spring is coming
to the valley, to the wood,
to the spiraling chasms
of the blackest hell.
The nightingale in her cage,
the sheep aboard the wagon,
and tears well up in the eyes
of sweet little Tomino.
Sing, o nightingale,
in the vast, misty forest—
he screams he only misses
his little sister.
His wailing desperation
echoes throughout hell—
a fox peony
opens its golden petals.
Down past the seven mountains
and seven rivers of hell—
the solitary journey
of sweet little Tomino.
If in this hell they be found,
may they then come to me, please,
those sharp spikes of punishment
from Needle Mountain.
Not just on some empty whim
Is flesh pierced with blood-red pins:
they serve as hellish signposts
for sweet little Tomino.

## Trivia

* As stated above, the game is heavily based off the cursed Japanese poem: Tomino's Hell. A poem where if one were to read it, the reader will either die, fall ill, or experience a massive amount of bad luck.
	+ However, the poem in the game is titled: "The Darkness of Tonako". It was most likely renamed to avoid copyright.
	+ However, when Masaki is reading the poems that Toko wrote, the capitalized words that he points out spells out Tomino's Hell.
* There's a possibility that the spirit that drags Haruo into the pool of blood is Toko. As the game implies that she is either an entity or someone who has connections to the spiritual world. But it's unknown if it's true.

## Gallery

Official Picture on Steam #1Official Picture on Steam #2Official Picture on Steam #3Official Picture on Steam #4Official Picture on Steam #5