MAIN ROUND FEEDBACK

Thank you for joining us for the 1-800-HOTLINE main round! We hope you all had a blast and that it was a fun and engaging experience. Although we won't be doing any other rounds, we'd like to know where we can improve as both mods and story writers. What did we do well this round? What could have been better? Feel free to submit and questions, comments, or concerns regarding the game. Comments are screened by default, but please let us know if you'd like to unscreen your comment.

If you would like to contact us privately, feel free to do so through Plurk @

hotlinemods, or contact either Blank

blankblankity or Everett

wolfnoir Again, thanks for playing!

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TAKEN

( Look at my face. We've met before.... )

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QUESTIONNAIRE

Feel free to provide as much or as little an answer as possible to the following questions.

IC Questionnaire
Name (block capitals):
Date of Birth:
Place and time of residence:
Current occupation:
Do you have any pre-existing health conditions?:
Are you a veteran?:
Do you have any outstanding convictions? If yes, please detail:
Have you or any of your loved ones experienced an event that resulted in your death?:
Date of Death (if applicable):
Do you believe in a God?:
If yes, which one?:
If no, why not?:
Do you like hurting other people?:
If no, elaborate:
Are you afraid?:
Are you afraid?:
Are you afraid?:

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APPLICATIONS

APPLICATIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED.

Deadline has been extended to 6/7.
For the sake of secrecy, we ask that you post your application in a comment and not share it with others. If you have any questions, feel free to message either of your mods,

blankblankity or

wolfnoir

OOC Info
Player name:
Age: 18+ only!
Player contact: Discord and plurk, preferred.
Timezone:
Reserve link:

IC Info
Name:
Age: Characters must be 18+.
Canon:
Canon Point: For the sake of this game, we would appreciate it if all characters are alive at the time of their canon point.

History: Wiki links are fine! If unavailable, please give a brief overview of the canon instead.
Personality: Please write up a few paragraphs about makes your character tick--their strengths and weaknesses, their greatest fears, their hopes and dreams, the things that will drive them to kill, so on and so forth. Please also make sure to detail why your character is here--whether it be because they've committed various crimes, and/or why they would consider themselves to be a "bad person".
Skills/Abilities: Write down what skills/special abilities your character has, if any (cooking, sharpshooting, etc). Magical or otherwise supernatural abilities will be nerfed upon the character's arrival.

Regains: Please list and write a short description of up to five material items that your character may regain through the course of the game. These items do not necessarily have to belong to your character, but they should have some personal significance to them. Please don’t include anything too big or excessively overpowered or complex.
Writing Sample: Write a sample of decent length showcasing your character's personality in the setting. It can be about them dealing with the day-to-day life in town, investigating a murder, so on and so forth. We will also accept threads from the Test Drive Meme. This must be at least a 12 comment thread, with six comments from your character.

Would you like your character to be a mole?: We cannot specify anything at this time, but if you would like to have a more involved role in the game's plot, please let us know! Please note that this would involve far more activity from you.
Would you like your character to be involved in a case?: If you want your character to specifically be a victim/culprit, note it here. Also note what sort of preferences you have towards being involved in a case, such as other people you want to be involved or week it should take place. We will do our best to accommodate you.
Any other notes/concerns about your character?:

<big>OOC Info</big>
Player name:
Age: 18+ only!
Player contact: Discord and plurk, preferred.
Timezone:
Reserve link:

<big>IC Info</big>
Name:
Age: Characters must be 18+.
Canon:
Canon Point: For the sake of this game, we would appreciate it if all characters are alive at the time of their canon point.

History: Wiki links are fine! If unavailable, please give a brief overview of the canon instead.
Personality: Please write up a few paragraphs about makes your character tick--their strengths and weaknesses, their greatest fears, their hopes and dreams, the things that will drive them to kill, so on and so forth. Please also make sure to detail why your character is here--whether it be because they've committed various crimes, and/or why they would consider themselves to be a "bad person".
Skills/Abilities: Write down what skills/special abilities your character has, if any (cooking, sharpshooting, etc). Magical or otherwise supernatural abilities will be nerfed upon the character's arrival.

Regains: Please list and write a short description of up to five material items that your character may regain through the course of the game. These items do not necessarily have to belong to your character, but they should have some personal significance to them. Please don’t include anything too big or excessively overpowered or complex.
Writing Sample: Write a sample of decent length showcasing your character's personality in the setting. It can be about them dealing with the day-to-day life in town, investigating a murder, so on and so forth. We will also accept threads from the Test Drive Meme. This must be at least a 12 comment thread, with six comments from your character.

Would you like your character to be a mole?: We cannot specify anything at this time, but if you would like to have a more involved role in the game's plot, please let us know! Please note that this would involve far more activity from you.
Would you like your character to be involved in a case?: If you want your character to specifically be a victim/culprit, note it here. Also note what sort of preferences you have towards being involved in a case, such as other people you want to be involved or week it should take place. We will do our best to accommodate you.
Any other notes/concerns about your character?:

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r1,
reserves

MAIN ROUND RESERVES

EDIT (5/28) - Reserves are now open to the general public! Anyone is free to reserve, whether or not they are on any of the mods' plurklists. Deadline has also been extended to 6/7.

Reserves for HOTLINE's main round will be Thursday, May 23rd at 12 PM EST. Players will have a week to submit their application, and applications/reserves will close on Friday, May 31st, 11:59 PM. The actual round will begin Sunday, June 2nd. Murders will occur the first week of the round. Further information on the game's schedule can be found in the game FAQ.

Reserves will close after 20 reserves, or on Fruday, May 31st if the cap is not reached. The minimum number of people the round can run with is 14 people. Proxy reserves are allowed.Characters that were previously in the mock round can be apped by the player who RPed them.

The application for the round can be found here.

To submit a reserve, you MUST reply to a mod-posted comment once 12 PM rolls around. If you choose to change/retract your reserve, please comment on the post instead of deleting it! Deleting stuff may cause some confusion on our end.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Feel free to reach out to your mods,

blankblankity or

wolfnoir

Player Name:
Player Contact: (plurk or discord preferred)
Character Name:
Canon:

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r1,
regains

REGAINS

In the corner of the convenience store, there’s a bunch of dusty gacha machines with opaque, brightly-colored plastic capsules. A crumpled piece of paper has been taped to the front and reads in scrawled handwriting “OUT OF ORDER”. If you try to put in a quarter, it just eats it. But if you insert one of those weird tokens that you found in your room and turn the crank, it spits out a capsule that fits in the palm of your hand. Upon opening the capsule—

—You now have an item in your possession. The capsule is nowhere to be found. How lucky that the convenience store had this in stock.

What are these gacha machines?
Every time you insert a token and turn the crank, an item will pop out. These can range from things usually found in such toy capsule machines to things from one's home dimension. Every so often, tokens will show up in your character's pockets. None of the workers in the convenience store will acknowledge that these machines actually work.

How do we earn tokens?
ICly, it's a mystery. OOCly, tokens are awarded for every 10-comment thread (5 comments per person) between player characters you submit here. The only threads you cannot submit are those that take place during investigations, trials. and motive announcements. Threads with NPCs and ghosts are eligible for coins as well, but these threads must take place in public (i.e. you can't submit any letters/private threads with the host for coins). You can also use your AC threads to redeem tokens.

How do they work?
A token earns you a play on the slot machine, and every coin earns you a gift. This may be one of your regains, somebody else's regain, or a piece of junk. This is all determined by RNG (there are two item groups, regains and misc. items. each item in those groups has an assigned number. we roll first to see if you're getting a regain or a misc. item, and then we roll to figure out exactly what you're getting.)

Do the threads I use/my coins have to be from this week?
Eligible threads never expire. For example, you can still submit week 1/intro log threads long after those periods end.

Can we use our coins to opt out of death rolls?
Nope. Death comes for us all, buddy.

My threadmate turned in our thread already. Do I have to turn it in too to get a coin?
Yes.

How do threads with more than two people work?
In order to be able to redeem a thread, your character has to have contributed the minimum 5 comments normally in a standard coin thread. For instance, in order for all parties to be able to submit it, a 3-person thread has to be 15+ comments with at least 5 from each person, a 4-person has to be 20+, etc. Any participant with at least 5 comments can submit it for coin so long as the thread is at least 10 comments total.

The character I was threading with died. Can I still get paid for interacting with them?
Absolutely! Dead characters cannot redeem coins.

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locations,
r1

LOCATIONS

( Gotta know where you are on the map, don't you? )

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mock trial

mock trial feedback post

Thank you for joining us for the 1-800-HOTLINE mock trial! We would like to know how we did with this week, and how we can improve for the main round. This is our first time modding a murdergame, and we'd like to be able to make this experience enjoyable for everyone. Feel free to submit and questions, comments, or concerns regarding the game.

If you would like to contact us privately, feel free to do so through Plurk @

hotlinemods, or contact either Jeff

jeffurson or Everett

wolfnoir

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mock trial locations

THE PALMS MOTEL

A buzzing neon beacon in the night, the lone stop on a long stretch of highway; the Palms Motel is your 'home' away from home, at least for the time being. With two floors, and a parking lot outside, and a pool in the back, you've got all your basic needs covered - so long as you don't want peace and quiet at night.

Ground floor

Parking lot

Your standard parking lot, with a bright neon sign looming overhead. No vacancies, huh?

Lobby

Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby...you can get yourselves some snacks from the vending machine, but the main attraction here is the front desk. The receptionist should be there to provide whatever services you need during the day, but when he's not, don't worry! There's a wealth of pamphlets to occupy your time; maps, tourism guides, self-help fliers, take-out menus...plenty to amuse yourself with! A radio sits on the desk, though the sound travels throughout the rest of the hotel. Pretty powerful, for the little thing it is.

Rec Room

Where the fun is! A well-worn carpet lines the floor, but its hard to see for all the stuff in here! There's a pool table in the center, a couch, a bunch of beanbags of varying colours and materials, even a T.V! It's an old boxy thing, though it can be wheeled around on the stand that keeps it up. Good luck trying to watch anything but public access.

Gym

Why not make the most of your time here with some physical self improvement? There's a couple of weights, a yoga ball, and a treadmill. That should be enough to sculpt yourself into an adonis.

Pool

Smell that chlorine? That's right, here's your very own semi-public pool that you can share with the strangers here! You'll have to shower off in your own room and bring your own towel, but at least there's a handful of deckchairs. If you don't have a swimsuit, why not try the lost property bin?

Dining hall

Perhaps "hall" is a bit generous. It's just a room with an assortment of tables in it, square, seating about 4 people each. There is, apparently, catering for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You could take the food up to your room but that's a little antisocial now, isn't it?

Laundry room

Need to wash out some stains? You've found just the place! A handful of washers and driers sit in this windowless room, the fluorescent lights bathing it all in a sickly green glow 24/7. With no clocks or markers around, it's hard to remember what time you went in, or how long you've been there, or who you were before...

1st floor

Rooms

There's 25 of them in total, all featuring an en-suite bathroom and each are outfitted the same; a rather uncomfortable single bed, scratchy blanket, a small tv, and a bedside table kitted out with a phone and a bible in the drawer. All the essentials. If you dig around some more, you can find two twenty-dollar bills in the desk. They must be yours, right?

interest check

This is the official interest check page for HOTLINE, a short-run murdergame based loosely around Hotline Miami. If you would like to know more about this setting, please direct yourself to the FAQ/rules page!

You don't have to be on either of the mods' plurklist to fill out this interest form--if there is significant interest in this game, we will consider opening it to the public.

Currently, we're looking to start sometime during April/May, though this may change based on interest. A start date will be announced later after taking into account the schedules of the moderators and potential players. If you have any further questions, please direct them to either Jeff

jeffurson or Everett

wolfnoir. Thank you very much!

Interest Form:
Player Name:
Character Considerations:
What is your preferred start date?: (Mid/late April, May, June)
Likelihood of joining:
Questions?:

TEST DRIVE

> Hello, you have reached the 1-800-HOTLINE Test Drive. We are currently unable to take your call. Whilst we put you on hold, feel free to play around for a while...

***
( Read more... )

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MOCK TRIAL RESERVES

Reserves for HOTLINE's mock trial will be Wednesday, February 20th at 12 PM EST. The actual mock trial will begin Sunday, February 24th. An investigation and trial will take place Friday and Saturday, respectively. The purpose of the mock trial is to emulate a week in the actual game and give players a taste as to what the pacing will be like.

Joining the mock trial does not reflect an obligation to join the actual game, nor does it guarantee a spot in the actual game. Reserves will close after 20 reserves, or on February 24th if the cap is not reached. The minimum number of people the mock week can run with is 12 people. Proxy reserves are allowed. Character restrictions are outlined in our game FAQ.

To submit a reserve, you MUST reply to a mod-posted comment once 12 PM rolls around. If you choose to change/retract your reserve, please comment on the post instead of deleting it! Deleting stuff may cause some confusion on our end.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Feel free to reach out to your mods,

blankblankity or

wolfnoir

Player Name:
Player Contact: (plurk or discord preferred)
Character Name:
Canon:

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FAQ / RULES

You wake up in a motel room, the air conditioning unit rattling and humming quietly to fight off the haze of humidity and heat seeping in through the window. Neon light filters in from the buzzing sign outside. The day is lost to you; but that's the least of your problems. Despite the confusion, the panic, despite everything, all that matters to you is picking up the phone.

> You have one (1) new message.

FAQ
What is this game?
1-800-HOTLINE, or HOTLINE is a single-round murdergame inspired by the Hotline Miami series. Characters will find themselves waking up in a dilapidated motel in the ever-pleasant █████ , USA. Each character receives a mysterious package, a threatening note, and a phone call...turns out, somewhere out there knows exactly who they are - and most importantly - what they have done. These crimes, kept secret, are held over their heads in exchange for a single task: murder one of your fellow captives. Succeed, and the slate is wiped clean, and you're free to go. As the days go by, more mysterious messages arrive on their answering machines, and the situation just seems to keep getting worse...

Initially, characters will ICly not know that other characters have also been ordered to kill people. Up to 20 players can participate, with the game running with a minimum of 15 players.

It is important to note that this game deals with themes of unreality, paranoia, manipulation, violence/gore, and body horror. We ask that you please carefully consider this before apping.

So, how does this work?
Daily threading and tags will take place in a weekly mod-posted log. Players are both welcome and encouraged to put up their own logs for their own events. Every Friday, a murder will be committed, and a investigation log will be posted for the players to investigate these deaths. On Saturday, a trial log will be posted. After the players vote for a suspect, an execution will be posted for the culprit on Sunday morning.

It's important to note that there will not be a "host" in the traditional sense of murdergames, though there will be several important NPCs that will interact with the characters throughout this game.

How long will this game last?
Depending on how many people participate, we estimate that this game will last from 4 to 6 weeks. Murders will start on the first week. Please plan accordingly.

When are reserves/apps opening?
Reserves will open Thursday, May 23rd.
Applications will open Friday, May 24th, or, if reserve cap is hit, as soon as possible on May 23rd.
Applications and reserves will close Friday, May 31st, with apps being processed a day or two before.
The game will start Sunday, June 2nd. An intro log will be posted that day.

Is there a character cap?
There is a strict canon cap of two characters per series. We don’t want your character to be surrounded by too many familiar faces, after all! We will be counting different installments of part of the same series. For example, a Persona 4 character and a Persona 5 character would fill the Persona canon cap.

How do I app?
You'll need to put in a reserve, and then write an application for your character. Reserves will close if we hit the 20 character cap. As this is an invite-only game, you'll have to be on either Jeff or Everett's Plurk list, or vouched for by someone on their Plurk lists. If this is the case, you must put the player's Plurk vouching for you in your reserve.

Reserves are mandatory to submit an application. If all the reserves fill up before you can get in, message us and we’ll put you on a waitlist. If any spots open up before applications/reserves close, we will message you and ask if you still want to reserve. If you are somehow unable put in a reserve at the time they open, you can ask another player to post a proxy reserve for you. Within a day of someone posting your proxy reserve, you must reply to them to confirm it. Otherwise, we will open up the spot for other players to reserve.

Characters are first come, first serve. No exceptions. If a conflict occurs, we will ask the second person to change their reserve.

Are there any restrictions on characters I can app?

Due to the nature of this game, characters must be 18+. There is no maturity clause. We will also not be accepting “looks 12, is 1200” types of characters.
Characters must either have committed criminal act(s), or view themselves as a bad person. This is integral to the plot, and we ask that you please carefully consider your character choice and how they would fit within the setting before apping to this game.
However, with the above rule, we would like to request these acts are not in the nature of sexual abuse (e.g, the character is a rapist or a pedophile). This is out of consideration for the player comfort, and we would like to avoid these topics becoming plot-relevant.
Characters must be humanoid. Nonhuman humanoids are allowed, though in terms of heightened senses/extra functions, they will be nerfed to be on the same level as a human. Anything extra the character needs to survive that comes with their species will be handled on a case-by-case basis (on whether it will be provided for them or if they won't need it).
At this time, we will not be allowing OCs to be apped to this game. Sorry!
No cops. Yes, we're serious. The reason for this will become apparent later.

Are our characters going to get masks?
They sure are! Each character will be given an animal mask and a weapon, which will either be a melee weapon or a gun of some sort. Whether or not you use this weapon for murder is up to you, but each animal mask has an associated ability with it, though they will also have additional...effects. We encourage players to be creative with these abilities and to use them in interesting ways.

The abilities only apply to the characters when they wear the mask and the after effects tend to linger for a few hours. It's mostly psychology. Probably.

What does a general week look like?
This game operates on a unique IC day/night schedule in which each OOC day is equal to a twelve-hour period ICly. The following is an example of a regular week:

Monday - Day 1 (6 AM to 6 PM)
Tuesday - Night 1 (6 PM to 6 AM)
Wednesday - Day 2
Thursday - Night 2
Friday - Day 3, Investigation
Saturday/Sunday - Night 3, Trial/Execution

Because of this schedule, each location will also have hours that the player characters can access them. We encourage our players to take full advantage of the city night life!

What happens during investigations/trials?
On Friday, one or more bodies will be found by the players. An investigation will then commence over the next few hours in a search for clues that were laid out by the people involved in the case.

On Saturday, 12 PM EST, the trial will commence, and players will determine who among them is guilty of murder. Players will use the evidence gathered to determine who committed the crime. When the trial reaches a certain point, characters will vote on who deserves to be executed. Whether or not the characters vote for the actual culprit or "incorrectly", the person they've convicted will be killed. Unlike most murdergames, players do not automatically bad end when they do not vote for the culprit, leaving opportunity for player-directed justice. However, we still encourage people to create cases that can be solvable.

What does activity check look like?
Activity check will take place every week after every trial, and must consist of at least two six-comment threads with two different characters, or twelve comments total from your character. Additional activity can be used to regain items. We encourage players to go above and beyond this activity, as certain aspects of this plot will require more player participation. Failing activity check more than once will result in your character being killed off earlier. If you have any issues with handing in activity, please contact your mods!

Are our characters allowed to regain items?
Yes! Extra comments can be turned in to regain items from home as well as some select 80's...stuff.

In the corner of the convenience store, there’s a bunch of gacha machines with opaque, brightly-colored plastic capsules. A crumpled piece of paper has been taped to the front and reads in scrawled handwriting “OUT OF ORDER”. If you try to put in a quarter, it just eats it. But if you insert one of those weird tokens that you found in your room and turn the crank, it spits out a capsule that fits in the palm of your hand. Upon opening the capsule—

—You now have an item in your possession. The capsule is nowhere to be found. How lucky that the convenience store had this in stock.

Help! I’ve never participated in a murdergame before/reading large chunks of text is hard sometimes/I don’t know what character to app!
We have put up a test drive meme for people to get into character and practice interacting with other people at their leisure.

Additionally, there will be a canon mock week, with reserves opening Wednesday, February 20th, and the actual week starting Sunday, February 24th, complete with murder and trial. This is mostly to demonstrate how murdergame mechanics work and for players to evaluate if they want to participate in the actual round or not.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to message us! You can contact either Blank @

blankblankity or Everett @

wolfnoir

RULES

Be respectful. Treat your fellow players the way you want to be treated. Although this game is based around a fairly gruesome concept and focuses especially on the characters being bad people, we also know that some people may be uncomfortable or even triggered by certain kinds of content. Please respect people’s boundaries, and if you’re unsure, always ask first if someone is okay with threading something. We expect our players to communicate with each other and treat each other in a civil manner.

We will not tolerate harassment/drama/bigotry of any kind and we WILL kick you from the game if we see this behavior. If you have a problem with someone OOC, please report it to us. Nothing ruins a game like a bad attitude. Please feel free to contact the mods about any concerns, and we will do our best to take action.

Keep in mind that your character is likely going to die, and we ask that you come into the game prepared to play with that possibility. There are only a small handful of characters that survive each round. As a result, please do not come into the game with the mindset/attitude of trying to "win".
Content warnings will be strictly enforced. Due to the sensitive nature of this game, it will be required for all players to warn for any particularly triggering content in their tags (i.e: suicide, sexual assault, abuse, body horror, pedophilia, incest). Ultimately, a murdergame should be fun for everyone involved, and we would like you to take consideration for your fellow players.
IC =/= OOC. You are not your character. Do not bring OOC drama into threads or be unnecessarily uncooperative or hateful because you do not like a specific player. In addition, comments and remarks about your character are not necessarily aimed at you, the player. Do not take things said about your character personally.
Don’t give out spoilers. If you were given a role or any sort of classified information, please don’t reveal it to other players. Part of what makes this game fun is figuring out what each character knows ICly or figuring out who the culprit is. This rule does not apply to information that is not known to everyone IC but is known to everyone OOC.
Don’t metagame. For those unfamiliar with the term, metagaming is essentially using external knowledge to influence the actions of an ingame character. For example, gathering information from characters who are supposed to be dead and using that information in a trial, or learning who the culprit is before the murder and berating that person IC. It’s not fair to the other players, and sucks the fun out of the game.
One character per person. Enough said. If we catch you trying to sneak in with another character, we will permanently ban you from the game.
Please remain active. Because murdergames rely on the participation of the players, we ask that you provide us with two six-comment threads that week for activity check. If you miss activity check twice, we will be forced to remove your character from the game. We know that schedules can get hectic, so if you have a conflict that otherwise prevents you from meeting this activity check, please let us know. If you find that you need to exit the game early, let us know and we’ll arrange to have your character killed off appropriately.
Players must be 18+ due to the nature and themes of the game. Additionally, no smut is allowed. Sure, you can get away with general discussion of sex/NSFW jokes/sexual implications, but leave any actual smut to PSLs outside of the game.
This game is invite only, so you must be either of the mods’ plurklists or vouched for by someone on them.

Do not force CR or ships. If someone doesn’t want to ship with your character, or does not want CR with them, this will be respected. We would rather any opt-outs with threading with characters be brought up to both the mods and the player in question, rather than just avoiding them. There will be no questions asked. Any players violating such requests will get a warning, and then a ban if it continues.
Communicate with us! If there are any questions, concerns, or issues that arise, we want to know and do our very best to address them.
Mods get the final say. We are open to criticisms and comments, and will do our best to cater to our players needs. However, we reserve the right to reject applications for reasons other than writing quality. We also reserve the right to say “no” to any player plans.