You’ll find a brand new article, by one of the authors of Rule of Rose, in which official explanations are given to mysteries not explained in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter!

I’m happy to learn that I had figured out some of them. But other explanations come as a big shock to me!

I need a little time to digest it all. Then I’ll give my reactions in some blog-posts as soon as possible.

—This was an April Fool’s Day post—

This writing is located on Gregory’s desktop.

I think it says “Emma Wilson” at the top of the page. Does anyone else think so? It is easier to make out the “W” of Wilson if you realize that the “W” is written with the middle lines not coming to a point at the top but rather crossing each other.

Can anyone make out any of the rest of what is written? It would be great if this provided a clue as to why Gregory’s wife is not around.

Can anyone with an emulator manage to get a clearer photo of this?

~~~
UPDATE!

Comment-maker Zen Maiton found a clearer (and shorter, and reversed) version of this writing on one of the desks of Hoffman (found in the Headmaster’s Quarters), the desk which has a phonograph and the P. A. equipment on it. The first letter of the last name can be clearly seen to be an “M”, and not a “W” as I previously thought, so the name cannot be Emma Wilson.

It is probably about a woman named Emma, not married to Gregory, who was two-timing Gregory for Mr. Hoffman!

I’m just kidding with the two-timing statement above.

It seems likely to me now that it is just a meaningless generic example of writing repeated several times in the game to minimize labor and expense for the game-makers (something seen before with wall cracks, etc.)

Thanks, Zen Maiton! Good job!!!

It really is amazing that I’ve kept at this for so long. It really is a tribute to all you excellent comment-makers who keep me interested and entertained with the things you have to say. Thank you all!!!

That wiki is kind enough to link to me, and I expect that there may be many fans of my site that contribute to the wiki. I certainly don’t like the idea of hurting the feelings of any of my fans. And I’m sure the contributors to the wiki mean well.

I will link to pretty much any Rule of Rose fan-site (with the one notable exception being any site of the person sometimes known as SyberiaWinx). But I really don’t like the idea of linking to any wiki that attempts to sum up the plot or characters of Rule of Rose, because I think that there is a grave danger of closing people’s minds to the mysteries of the game by the presentation of information as factual which actually is not. This is a big problem specific to Rule of Rose, because it has many mysteries, uncertainties, and misleading elements built into the game.

Going to the wiki yesterday, the first and only article I read was on Gregory Wilson, and I needed to go no further in order to be much dismayed. Some problems are rather minor and don’t matter much, but others are—in my opinion—quite serious.

Let me focus on the most serious problems. Quoting the wiki:

after an illness brought the death of his beloved and only son, Joshua, he fell into depression and went insane.

First of all, we don’t know that an illness brought about the death of Joshua. The idea that Joshua was ill at all came from Gregory’s journal, but we don’t know whether the “Joshua” mentioned there was actually his son or not. I personally favor the hypothesis that the “Joshua” written about by Gregory was actually Wendy and that the illness described by Gregory is Wendy’s illness (the illness of Wendy can be seen as a clue to support this hypothesis). If so, then Joshua might not have been sick, and might have died from other causes.

We don’t know that Gregory’s insanity came about because of Joshua’s death, it could have been the other way around, that Joshua’s death came about because of Gregory’s insanity. We don’t know. If Joshua wasn’t sick (see above), many possibilities open up.

But let’s assume for a moment that the “Joshua” written about by Gregory WAS his son. If so, the kidnappings mentioned in the news article occurred BEFORE Joshua’s death. If Gregory was responsible for those kidnappings and probable deaths of children (and I think it is very highly probable that he was responsible—the entire issue of the kidnappings was over-looked in the article, by the way), then wasn’t he arguably insane BEFORE Joshua’s death?

Any way you look at it, this wiki sentence is obscuring the mysteries of the game, not helping to make the mysteries clear.

Other, lesser problems are so numerous in the Gregory Wilson wiki article that it will take me two or more follow ups to deal with them all. If this article is typical (and it wouldn’t surprise me if it is, as I picked it randomly) I fear that the wiki unintentionally does more harm than good for the fans who visit it.

Sorry.

Future comments relating to the trade demo finds should go here rather than to the Fortyfourth Month-iversary comment thread. And comments or links already placed there can be re-posted here without any worries about redundancy.

Thanks BrYaN55! Thanks Grandpaf! I look forward to exploring and discussing all the new Rule of Rose clues coming to light!

~
From a comment posted by BrYaN55:

Anyway, I was finally able to upload the actual demo on my server, so if anyone is interested in it, you can download it here:

http://www.quebecgamers.com/dossiers/rule-of-rose-trade-demo/index.html (go to the bottom of the page and click on “Download”) For whatever reason, the direct link leads to a 404 page.

Files contained in the archive:
Rule of Rose [Trade Demo] [NTSC-U] [SLUS-28063].mdf
Rule of Rose [Trade Demo] [NTSC-U] [SLUS-28063].mds

Please, feel free to upload it anywhere you want and share it too! And don’t forget to let us know if you find something interesting like a debug room or anything else!

Gregory Wilson has many large wooden crates in his basement marked “British Antarctic Expedition 1907″.

The Wikipedia entry for “List of Antarctic expeditions” names only one expedition for the date 1907: the Nimrod expedition.

Among the crew of the Nimrod expedition there is no mention of the family name “Wilson”. There was an Edward Adrian Wilson who was offered the post of chief scientist and second-in-command, but he declined the offer. I haven’t come across any Cardington connection to Edward Adrian Wilson, or any of the Nimrod expedition crew, nor of anything else relating to the expedition (but I haven’t done an in-depth investigation).

There were some crates from the Nimrod expedition left behind in Antarctica, with some news coverage in recent years with respect to recovering Scotch whiskey and brandy from these crates for analysis. The recovery of these crates occurred years after the making of Rule of Rose, but I expect that there was likely some knowledge available (before the making of Rule of Rose) of crates left behind by the Nimrod expedition. I don’t know how to connect this to the story of Rule of Rose.

I’ll leave it to the readers of this blog to see if any of you can make sense of these Antarctic expedition crates in Gregory Wilson’s basement. Post your ideas and/or findings in the comments-thread, please.

Good luck on your efforts!

Note: Comment-maker Pegee was the first to find out about the Nimrod expedition crates left behind in Antarctica. Good job, Pegee!

The only cause for worry is that I once tried to move Rule of Rose Mysteries to another, totally different host, and finally gave up because the move couldn’t be made to work. Hopefully, this move will be achievable. It might help that it is a move within the same host-provider. If it doesn’t work, I’m not sure what options I will have. So wish us luck on this!

As usual, this month-iversary comment thread is the best place to put comments that are off-topic, or when you don’t know the most appropriate comment-thread to use.

On a personal note, I’ve had a bit of a self-image challenge: a top front tooth parted ways with me on Friday and I don’t have the financial resources to make repairs (at least not in the near future). Ah well, nothing to do but bear it with a hole-y grin! No use crying over spilt milk (as the expression goes).

I’ve previously written about the piles of leaves in the attic in these blog-posts:
Some Mysterious Piles of Leaves in the Attic (Part 1)
Some Mysterious Piles of Leaves in the Attic (Part 2).

Now, thanks to Jay, we have a picture of one of the two piles of leaves that are side-by-side in the attic (see above). I wish we had a lot more pictures of this area, because there are a lot of objects in this area (I haven’t noticed an obvious clue among them, but maybe others will). Pretty please, Jay, may we have some more pictures of this area and the objects here?

One indication that this area is important is that this area is lit up brightly, whereas most of the other areas–in the part of the attic that can only be accessed in “The Funeral” chapter–are dark. I think that this is an indication that the game-designers want to encourage us not to overlook this dead-end nook.

It is also worth considering that these leaves would have had to have been hauled up many flights of stairs to be brought to the attic. That is a lot of work, and I think it suggests that there is an important purpose.
~

~

In the above picture, there isn’t a whole lot to analyze. There looks like there is a speaker (or an electric heater?) on the wall behind Jennifer’s head. The only new thought that has occurred to me is that the rafter looks like it would be plenty sturdy and convenient for use as a gallows.