I LOVE your theory
Bada knows his way around bc it’s stated that he’s a massive horror nerd (somewhere at the beginning of the manhwa) so he knows all of the cliches and tropes that happens in them. Horror isn't that difficult to figure out it’s literally just a bunch of overused formulas with scary soundtracks so I don’t think he’s the real player. Even if they’re in a game right now surely they have a life before all of this and Bada probably has a hobby that involves a lot of horror media
I was thinking that maybe Bada is such a massive horror nerd is because he was the developer and idk if they all remember their lives before this, I think that would be interesting to know how much they actually remember, since so far they haven’t given a n indication I don’t think, like they don’t ever talk about what they did before they went on the trip, like nothing about how they should have never gotten into the car in the first place or stuff like that, uke hat I mean?
do you think all of them are real people ?
Rn I do think they are real people, I can’t say for sure since this manhwa doesn’t give that many info and that’s what makes it a good read, keeps you curious, it gives leverage for the author to decide and add any kind of twist or element into the story bc the readers aren’t given any kind of clues or “dots” to connect (yet) not until later on as the story progresses so rn I’m going to believe Bada and everyone else are all real people who are stuck in some kind of paradox
Given that the main attraction with the characters is the mystery behind them it’s normal for them to not talk about their past (writing-wise), it’s not like they have the leisure or nor thought to do so either. When they’re not “playing” their attention is only on their supposed hiking/tourist trip and they’re friends too they already know a lot about each other’s lives so thinking in their perspective, the only conversation I would’ve had with friends that I already know, would be our activities in this mountain. And even if they are aware of their surroundings when they go back to being ”players”, they’d be too busy avoiding the killer and looking for clues to be talking about their pasts.
And with Bada being a horror nerd, it doesn’t mean that he’s a horror game dev but that is also a possibility. I’m just saying that him being a game dev while stuck in a horror game is too easy of an answer. A horror nerd can be just anyone who spends a lot of time watching horror movies and playing horror games then analyze them for fun. When I said horror is easy to figure out, I mean it, it’s literally just tropes on tropes on tropes and any horror nerd can pick up any flag/clue/sign and could guess where the next jumpscare is or what scary scene will happen next.
*too easy of answer, at least after all the clever writing so far, I’m just hoping or expecting something that would blow my mind something that I haven’t even thought instead.
To be honest, I think they're all trapped in the game like Sword Art Online, haha.
I thought maybe they were all beta testers.
Reading your theory makes me think a bit, maybe they knew each other outside the game.
Trapped in the game just like in SAO is also plausible, but imo making the whole thing to be something like a “oh it wasn’t real” type of deal feels, idk kinda cheap, but I can’t deny the possibility either. I’m leaning more towards with the game existing as a supernatural distortion of reality, given that there is also a few mentions of demons and rituals all over the mountain.
My theory is that the mountain itself is like a limited area where the paranormal things happen, like the opposite of whatever a “haven” is, you enter it then unknowingly start the chain of events and you can’t escape until you defeat the final boss/solve the mystery kind of deal. If Bada had some kind of factory reset and reverted back into being an NPC *after* his tape went missing, or maybe even broken (we don’t really know what seungchan did afterall), what if everybody else’s tapes were broken too or at least removed from the speakers, would that just make them start all over again with their data erased but still stuck in the game or like Bada would they also have a factory reset too where they’re no longer aware of the game.
They did start *outside* the mountain, what if by some miracle they turned back and went home without knowing the game at all. The first time they actually tried this failed but that’s bc they already know and started the game. But I don’t have any evidence for that too, Idrk what’s gonna happen, authors like these troll me all the time
Ooh, I really like your trapped in the mountain paranormal theory! It reminds me of the game Oxenfree where they’re kinda trapped in a time loop, maybe they are in a video game but what if it became haunted or something? Like the video game itself is possessed or something and trapped them there so that’s why they can’t escape even when they’re outside of the mountain because they’re already technically trapped? So like instead of it being like their brains are stick in the game like SAO, it’s they’re souls instead?
I’ve been thinking about a theory that maybe Bada is actually a player and everyone else are just NPCs, bc so far it seems like no one knows how they ended up in the game, but from the very beginning Bada already knew how to play it and the mechanics going on and horror video game stuff that everyone else wasn’t as familiar with, bc they keep calling Bada a NPC, but how do they know that he’s actually one since in the beginning chapters Bada thought it was the other way around, where everyone else was NPCs, and maybe the reason why he can’t kill the serial killer is bc he’s actually the developer so he can’t directly interfere with the world, compared to NPCs who are meant to exist in it, idk maybe I’m totally wrong haha