It was during the development of Shinku no Chou, past midnight.
I wanted to add an event in which as you climbed and reached the top of the stairs a woman's severed head would be there and your eyes would meet, and we were doing checks on it. As you know, the viewpoint in this game follows the protagonist from behind.
Then, as you climbed up the stairs, little by little you began to see the head, and then if you went up further your eyes would meet! I wanted an event like that.
Before, I'd had a spiritual experience in which I gradually saw a woman's eyes, so this was my chance to make use of it.
When you actually stood on the stairs, the head would gradually appear, and then your eyes would meet with its, which really was scary.
I thought, "Oh, this is good,"... and then suddenly I noticed something. The woman's line of sight was towards the camera - in other words, she was always facing me.
I moved Mio left and right and the eyes would, although slowly, follow...
I asked the head programmer, who was working beside me, "The movements are really realistic; did you program it to move like that?"
But they just muttered, "No. I didn't do anything," without even looking at the screen.
The head model's eyes and head definitely were integrated, so this kind of control should have been impossible.
And yet it was always looking at me.
"This is amazing. It must have taken quite some programming to get it to move like this."
"No, I didn't do it. I didn't do it."
"But it's following me. Look."
"I didn't do it. I didn't do anything."
Hearing the commotion, people gathered around.
"Oh, take a look at this. Wow."
"It's so realistic!"
But the programmer said, "No, it's not following. It's not following."
...and stared intently at the monitor of their PC, trembling, desperately trying not to look at the screen.
Thinking what a great event it was I urged them to keep things as they were, but they outright refused, saying, "No, it's not following you. It's honestly not, so..."
At that moment, I heard from somewhere a voice moaning.
"Did you hear something?"
"No. I didn't hear anything."
The people who had gathered around looked at each other's faces as they listened.
The voice gradually became louder, its suffering seeming to increase.
"There's an old man somewhere around here..."
To me, it sounded like the groaning of a man pleading for help from under a futon.
"There's no one here! No one!"
The programmer wouldn't take his eyes from the monitor of his PC. Ignoring this, I gathered the staff in the room.
"Everyone, take a little look around. There's an old man around here somewhere."
After that, we split up and went looking but there was no way an outsider could've made it into the development room, and the area wasn't large enough for someone to hide in. We confirmed right away that no one was there.
Also considering the possibility that it may have been a mobile phone vibrating, or perhaps a broken Wii remote malfunctioning, we searched for anything like that but found nothing. Eventually, the moaning stopped.
The next day, the programmer deleted the head on the stairs. It was such a good set-up that I wanted it put back, but once it had been restored its eyes no longer followed you around, so it didn't feel as unpleasant as it had that day.
In the end, the event itself was removed, and became only a dream.
It was at the time when I was with the planning staff, sat around a table planning events we were going to be making.
The meeting had begun at 5 in the evening, and as it got close to 7 at night the meeting room gradually began to darken.
We finally arrived at our last topic to discuss, the scene in which Broken Neck Woman falls from the walkway.
We didn't know if we would be able to make her motions realistic and stick to schedule with programming, and so were talking about other subject matter that would be more convenient that we could do instead.
After a momentary silence, I said, thinking it would be good to use, "Maybe this person could fall from here..."
The moment I said it, I heard a distorted voice close to my left ear say, "Don't... ll..."
I heard the voice suddenly by my ear, and reflexively looked in the direction it had come from, asking the planner about it when I regained my senses.
"Did you hear that just now?"
"Yes, clearly. Things like this seem to happen a lot when you're around."
"To me it seemed to have come from here (the seat to my left)."
"It seemed that way. It was from around there. I couldn't tell what it was saying, though..."
"It seemed like it was saying no to something."
"Maybe we shouldn't do this event? It seems like she (Broken Neck Woman) doesn't like the sound of it..."
"No, no, I've wanted to do this for ages - let's do it!"
And with that we continued our discussion about how to implement the event.
When I remembered the words that had been whispered by my ear, it had sounded to me like it was saying, "Don't kill meeee..." so I think it may well have been her(?).
*
The strange events that occurred during creation of Zero ~Shinku no Chou~ were often experienced by people other than me at the same time, kind of like some sort of multiplayer. This game has the concept of "being scared whether alone or with company", and you can see for yourself how these countless strange incidents occurred along with this theme.