Call of the Sea
Call of the Sea is a ghost made by Zichqec for ゴーストマスカレード5. It is a story-focused ghost, with the premise that the user is listening to events unfolding on the other side of the shell. It is primarily a passive experience, with the only interaction from the user being to start new stories when the current one ends. There are 3 stories in total, which will play in a predetermined order.
The stories are left vague and up to interpretation, but do have an underlying horror theme. Click to reveal spoilers.
Table of Contents
Features
- 3 different stories, each lasting ~1 hour at the default talkrate.
- Until all stories have been completed, they will play in a specific order and cannot be skipped through.
- 3 different conch shells to see.
Story mechanics
Call of the Sea has 3 different stories, each lasting ~1 hour at the default talkrate of 3 minutes, and each with an associated conch shell graphic. Stories take the place of the usual ghost idle dialogue mechanic. So, when a story begins, a new part will be said every 3 minutes (at the default setting) until the story is complete. When no story is active, the conch will output random “ocean sound” dialogues instead.
New stories begin when the ghost is opened, or when the user clicks the “Pick up a new shell” option in the menu. When the ghost is booted, if there was a story in progress when it was last closed, it will restart that story from the beginning. If no story was active, it will start the next story in the sequence. The “Pick up a new shell” option in the menu is only available when no story is active, and will start the next story in the sequence.
The user cannot prompt for the next part of the story and must wait for it to play on its own, though they can repeat the last section by pressing “R” or clicking the “Repeat previous” button in the menu.
Changes after all stories are complete
Once the last story has been completed, the mechanics change somewhat.
- Upon booting, if no story was active when the ghost was last closed, a new story will be chosen at random.
- Conch shells will also be picked at random, so that any story can display any shell.
- The user will be able to prompt for new dialogues with the “Next” button in the menu, or by pressing the “T” key.
- The “Pick up a new shell” option will lead to a submenu, where the user can pick which of the 3 stories to play.
- The “Pick up a new shell” option will always be available, even if a story is in progress.
Balloon
Call of the Sea uses the balloon Beach Day Gone Wrong, a beach/ocean themed balloon where the text starts at the bottom by default and “bubbles” up to the top as the balloon is filled with text.
Gallery
