In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, if the player attempts to watch TV at 4:44am, an empty text box will open and close in a loop, softlocking the game. This may seem like a glitch, but is actually intentional. The 4:44 softlock was implemented in order to scare Japanese players. In their culture, the number 4 is considered bad luck due to "four" and "death" having the same pronounciation. This can be compared with the western belief that the number 666 is related to the Devil. In More Friends of Mineral Town, which is the same game but from the female character's perspective, watching TV at 4:44 results in the characters "4 時 4 4 分" (4 hours 44 minutes) being spammed. This time, however, it stops after a while and doesn't softlock the game.
Spooky Scary Skeletons
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