Mass hallucinate a haunted arcade machine in JUNJI ITO PINBALL

What if there was a pinball cabinet themed after the works of celebrated horror manga artist Junji Ito? What if it existed at some point in the late ‘90s or early 2000s but has almost entirely disappeared? What if records of such a machine, with its half-remembered, black-and-white spiral graphics, were beginning to bubble up to the surface again?

Well, there’s not. And it hasn’t. Unless you’d like to pretend with a group of people larping as internet sleuths in JUNJI ITO PINBALL. This latest brainchild of Alfred Valley (Thousand Empty Light, Lay on Hands, Dungeon Pulp) is hosted entirely in the comments of an itch.io entry. Where a game’s PDF files normally reside is instead a screenshot of a Reddit post, a JPGed-to-hell screenshot of the titular pinball machine, and text file instructions for participating. 

Players are encouraged to adopt certain roles with prescribed behavior. Sleuths debate information and accounts presented about the supposed pinball machine and should present evidence (“real or doctored”, the instructions mention) to back up their criticism. Speculators fixate on the physicality of the machine itself — how it looks, acts, and plays in the real world. Spreaders concoct both myth and memes in an attempt to entice others from the outside to join the game. Whatever position a player takes, one common instruction is to seek out fellows with a similar agenda and combine efforts. The output emulates message board culture, complete with ingroup/outgroup behavior. There’s already infighting.