That's awesome that you enjoyed the game :D 

Hehe, yeah, I had to include a bit of a curved ball as a special bonus in the director's cut :P

Cos the whole time I was putting together the jam version, I just had that ending in the back of my mind, but I knew it wouldn't fit with the original 1000-word limit for the jam, haha.

I'm glad you had fun with the extra surprise! And I'm super happy you liked the game in general ^-^

Thanks so much for checking out the game + leaving such a lovely comment <3

PS. Your English isn't poor at all :3 I could understand everything you said perfectly :D

Depending on which version you downloaded, you might not be able to access it >.<

You need to have the 'director’s cut' version for all endings to be available, as there is an extra ending in the director’s cut that isn’t in the O2A2 version.

If you’ve got the director’s cut version, did you try following the walkthrough guide here? https://melancholy-marionette.itch.io/the-hostage/devlog/567737/walkthrough-guide

It tells you how to get all the endings :3

Glad you had fun with it :D I’ve heard soooo many good things about Slay The Princess, but I haven’t checked it out yet >.< my backlog of games I wanna play is stupidly long at this point T_T haha. Just for VNs it's 100+ games... if you start adding RPGs in there too, well, it's a lot worse >.<

You’re not the first person to say that the Linux version is a bit weird x3 Someone recently played a different one of my games (Sapphire Snowe) and said that some of the UI and stuff was odd on the Linux version. Like the hotspot for clicking on stuff wasn’t central or something, but the game was still playable, thankfully.

I’m glad you were still able to enjoy the game at least :3 I don’t own a Linux system, so I have no way of testing on anything other than Windows :( I wish I knew what it could be that makes stuff come out weird on Linux though! Cos all I do is export Windows first for testing, and when I’ve done lots of testing and am satisfied that stuff is working how it’s supposed to, that’s when I then go and export a Mac & a Linux build to upload too.

Tbh not many people download the Linux versions, but I figured I’d keep exporting them anyways! :3

Thanks so much for checking it out anyhow ^-^

Also really glad that you enjoyed the game :3 Thanks so much for playing it and leaving such a sweet comment!

I’m actually working on a project atm where I’ve made an OST with sort of similar vibes to this one, haha + the project is quite dark, atmospheric, and ofc, includes yandere romance again x3 haha.

Hoping to release a demo/part 01 for the otome version for otome jam at the end of June! But will be making a full version that includes more options for choosing the MC’s gender & masc or fem romance the same as in The Hostage ^-^

If you happen to like the voice actors in this project, they both also play a main character in one of my other projects called Tunnel Vision :D 

Hope you are having a great month so far :3

Thanks for checking out the game! I’m glad you enjoyed the OST ^-^ It was a lot of fun to make!

I’m guessing you might be the same person who posted on the tracks on YouTube, but I will still answer in both places just in case it isn’t, haha. 

I would love to have this OST and all my other OSTs on Spotify :3 Sadly, like with adding games to Steam, it costs money to put music on Spotify T_T

However, I am looking at potentially getting an FLCloud subscription sometime later in the year, and as part of that subscription, you get free distribution on platforms like Spotify! The only catch is that if your subscription ends, the tracks will immediately be removed >.< So I’d kind of be stuck subscribing forever, haha. 

But yeah, hopefully, sometime later in 2024, I will try to get all of my music on Spotify :3

In the meantime, the tracks can either be streamed on YouTube, or downloaded from the game pages for a $5 donation (or downloaded from the supporter page for anyone who donates on Ko-fi or Patreon) :3

Hehe, happy to hear it :D He absolutely smashed the role and then some, haha. If you happen to be a fan of his voice, he also played a main character in my Spooktober Jam game, Tunnel Vision and did an epic job with that character too x3

Thanks for checking this one out and leaving such a nice comment! :3

To be fair, being scared is pretty fun :D I’m a total adrenaline junkie when it comes to stuff like that x3 The silly thing is, I can go to scare attractions not jump once, same with horror movies, but video games really get me for some reason >.<

Aaaaanyways, I guess this one isn’t all that scary really x3 The page makes it look a lot worse than it is, haha. I hope you ended up having fun with it anyhow :3

Glad you had fun with it :D Thank you so much for checking this one out and for leaving such a nice comment! :3

Hehe, Philip is an incredible voice actor :D I’m very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with him on a couple of different projects :3 I don’t know if you’ve played Tunnel Vision or not yet, but he voices a main character in that too ;P

Aww, you’re so sweet x3 Well, I’m really glad that you like my stuff and thank you very much for playing my games <3 I think I remember you commenting on Yandere Heaven a while ago actually!

To be fair, confusion and bewilderment at the various endings in this is a very understandable reaction, haha.

The director's cut is actually the full version of the game x3 It was supposed to be short because it was made for a game jam where the idea is to make a short game in 1 week with lots of restrictions (like 1000 words limit, 1 BGM track, 1 character, etc.) So there won't be any updates to this particular project.

Thanks so much for checking it out! Happy holidays :3

Glad to hear it! Thank you so much for checking it out ^-^ Also, loving the name, haha. The only thing that could possibly be better than a crafty sheep... is a crafty goat x3

Hope you get to have happy holidays! :3

<3 <3 <3 Thanks so much for playing it & happy holidays!! ^-^

That’s great to hear! :D So glad you enjoyed it :3 Thanks for playing!

Sorry my reply is so horrendously late >.< I've been really struggling with everything lately, so I'm badly behind :(

Thanks so much for checking out the game! Really glad you had fun with it :3

Oh, don't worry, it wasn't broken, that was intentional, haha. It was a bit of an experimental concept in general cos it was made for a jam with heavy restrictions (1000 words limit, 1 BGM track, 1 character etc.) and you had to make it within 1 week.

There were cheeky ways you were allowed to bend certain rules though, and one of them was that you were allowed to repeat blocks of text via looping back to them using code (and not have it count towards the 1000 words limit), and so that gave me the idea to basically chop up the script so that it formed different sentences rearranged in different ways while drip-feeding new lines each round - Then have the full script play out in its intended order in the final round.

I did think it would probably come across as somewhat tedious, haha. But I wanted to give it a go and see how far you could push the restrictions of the jam for the fun of it x3 So yeah, I can totally see why you would say that! I can imagine it gets kinda annoying and probably also confusing at times, haha.

But yeah, had this been a normal game made outside of the jam restrictions, I definitely would've done things differently x3

I'm glad you had fun with it despite that though! :3 Hope you get to have happy holidays!

Woo! So glad you enjoyed it ^-^ Thanks for playing it! Hehe, I’m such a sucker for bloopers, I honestly wish everything came with bloopers xD I find my rambles so cringy x3 but as long as at least 1 person gets something out of em, I’ll keep recording em, haha.

So glad you think so! Thanks so much for playing this one as well <3 And that means a heck of a lot regarding the soundtrack! I don’t really get all that much feedback on my original soundtracks compared to other aspects of my projects, but attempting to make them brings me so much joy, haha. I’d like to hope I’ve improved since I started trying to work on music!

Actually, I’ve made a complete OST for the spooktober jam project I’ve been working on throughout September, and I feel genuinely proud of it, haha. I reckon it might be my most cohesive one so far in the sense that it sounds like a proper score or something rather than just a bunch of random tracks thrown together! I tried to link a lot of the tracks together with repeating motifs and stuff like I did with the one for The Hostage, but I feel like it comes across better in this Spooktober project with it being a longer game that required more tracks :3

That’s nuts to me that you’d have the Bitter/Sweet tracks playing like that, but I’m extremely honoured ^-^ Your comment as a whole almost brought me to tears of joy x3 I just really love trying to make soundtracks, haha, so it means a lot that you’d think so highly of them <3 I love it so much that I kind of wish I could do it as a job or something, haha. I’m also kind of exhausted from taking on so much work for spooktober jam, and was thinking that maybe next year, rather than leading a project, I might just try and join a team as a composer instead! I dunno if anyone would want me though, haha.

Hehe, believe me, I couldn’t get that damn wah ba baduh outta my head xD I both loathe and love it at the same time! It felt like a perfect fit for the scene though x3 I’ve made 2 vocal tracks for the spooktober project that aren’t as catchy as that one, but hopefully still decent! It’s an opening and ending theme, and I actually like them more than any of the other vocal tracks I’ve made so far! I also made a track that was ridiculously fun to work on, but when I played it to my brother, his only comment was, why does it sound like the Pirates of the Caribbean have gone to an EDM rave? xD It fits the scene though, damn it x3 Hoping to release the project later today anyhow!

But yeah, thank you for all your kind words! It really means a lot :3

Aww, that means a lot <3 I’m such a sucker for atmosphere in stuff, so it makes me a very happy bunny to hear that I managed to make a decent one for this :3 Especially when it was under such restrictive circumstances, haha. I was really worried the whole thing would wind up coming off as kinda empty and hollow with all the restrictions and such!

And I’m so glad you like the soundtrack too ^-^ It was sooo much fun to make!

Thank YOU for playing it and taking the time to write up such a kind comment :3

Hehe :3

Woo! I love that you describe it as trippy, hehe. Tbh, a lot of the weird mechanics and stuff were just me experimenting with how far I could push the limitations and cheeky exceptions within the jam rules, haha.

I did kinda wonder if the sections of repeated dialogue would become tedious >.< But I wanted to try it out cos the rules stated you could repeat blocks of text via code and they wouldn’t count towards the total word limit. When I finished the script, I realised it was sort of possible to chop up a lot of the dialogue an rearrange it while still having it make some kind of sense xD So I thought, screw it, let’s see if we can do something with this, haha.

I know some people have said they found it quite irritating, and I can’t say I blame them xD But I’m glad that other, like yourself, found it interesting in some way :3

It was certainly an honour to get to work with such talented voice actors! They were so brilliant to work with that I asked them both if they would team up with me for spooktober jam this month :D So both of them are voice the masculine and feminine voice options for one of the characters in my spooktober game that I hope to release later today ^-^ They’re both doing different sorts of voices, so it’s pretty fun to hear how versatile they are!

I’m a happy bunny to get a chef’s kiss, haha. That means a lot! I hope you ended up having fun with the other endings too ^-^ Thanks so much for playing!

So glad you liked it! Thank you so much for taking the time to check it out and leave such a sweet comment <3

Sorry I’m so slow to reply >.< Just been super-focused on Spooktober Jam this month x3 It wasn’t the wisest idea to do O2A2 and then go straight into prep for Spooktober without a break, but there ya go xD Hoping to release the project later today though, so the main thing is we made it :D 

Thanks so much for playing this one too! ^-^ Really glad you had fun with it and it means a lot that you like the OST! Working with the voice actors on this one was so great that I asked them both if they wanted to team up for Spooktober as well, and we did, hehe.

Hooray for jam :P

Thanks for always being so awesome <3

You can listen to the soundtrack on YouTube now if you want to :3

x3 well, I’m glad you had fun with it ^-^ Thanks for checking it out!

Aww, well, hopefully, it managed to meet your expectations! x3

Really glad you like the voice acting :3 Both VAs are sensational in this ^-^

Hope you have fun with it <3

Glad you enjoyed the game and thanks so much for playing <3

I used to include resolution options in my projects, but I stopped for the most recent couple of releases just because no matter what I did, the UI always seemed to be messed up one way or another in any other resolution than the one I designed it in :( haha. Which is weird because there’s a setting that’s supposed to make it auto-scale. That did sort of work in some ways, but never perfectly, so I figured it was better to just force one resolution than have options where it’s messed up >.< The problem is, I’m not a coder, so I don’t know how to fix these things T_T haha.

Aww, thank you so much for being so sweet and for playing this one too <3

<3 Thanks for checking this one out too + for all your kind words ^-^

Yeeeeah, this one looks a lot scarier than it actually is x3 haha. I mean, I guess it’s still pretty creepy, but it’s not like scary horror filled with jumpscares or gore, just the usual psychological stuff I like to do :3 

To answer your question, (which isn’t a silly one at all btw cos I can totally see some similarities!) this is completely unrelated to any of my other projects, including SR :3 The character in this was mainly inspired by me playing Fire Emblem Three Houses, loving Jeritza, but wishing there was more content for him x3 So I just wanted to make something with a character that was inspired by Jeritza pretty much :3 while hopefully still having them come across as their own character.

Glad you liked that extra ending too :D It was a lot of fun to make, haha. 

You’re more than welcome to call me that if you want to :3 I don’t mind at all! In fact, a few people already do call me that, so it’s all good :D 

And you have nothing to worry about cos you don’t make me uncomfortable at all :3 It’s just really nice to hear that you’ve had fun with my projects ^-^ It really does mean a lot to me that anyone even plays them in the first place, and it’s even more appreciated when anyone takes the time to type out a lovely comment <3

Aww, that’s so sweet of you <3 Haha, well, I always appreciate you playing my stuff, and it’s even nicer to hear that this one was unexpected :D 

I still need to play more O2A2 games myself cos there are soooo many that look amazing!!

Hehe, yeah, I didn’t know if maybe chopping up the script, rearranging it, and trying to drip-feed it in different orders while withholding some of the lines until the final stages of the game was gonna result in something that was maybe too repetitive or just read strangely >.< but I figured, screw it, I’ll give it a go and just see how it turns out xD If it hadn’t been for seeing that it was within the rules to reuse lines provided you did so through code rather than writing them again, I doubt I would have even thought to do it in the first place! That’s why I’ve wanted to participate in O2A2 for years, cos the limitations really get your brain going on what you might be able to get done with all those restrictions in place, haha.

I feel like despite having all the limitations, O2A2 is really freeing in a weird way cos I felt like it was more acceptable to go with a minimalist style, whereas outside of O2A2, I’d never really think to do that because I’m a very detail-oriented person x3 And sometimes I have ideas for games where I wind up dismissing them because I can’t flesh them out enough or I feel like they’d be too short to be entertaining, but then with O2A2, they’re supposed to be short, soooo, suddenly it feels acceptable, haha. I just wish I hadn’t disregarded so many of those lil ideas in the past cos if I’d kept em and written some notes, they could’ve been used for future O2A2 jams T_T

You're totally right though with what you said in your video cos the voice acting really does make it! When it's 100% dialogue like this, it just wouldn't be the same without amazing voice acting, and I'm so incredibly lucky to have been able to work with Philip and Emilie on this :3

Also, appreciate your love of the audio changing ears on certain lines :D It's the main reason I always tell people to wear headphones x3 because I always try to put at least a few in-ear lines in all of my games, haha. It might be a teeny tiny feature, but I'm a sucker for neat little audio tricks :P anything that helps boost immersion is a big + for me, haha. I wish I could do true 3D sound, but that's kinda impossible without supplying voice actors with dummy head mics, so faking it with in-ear stuff will have to suffice x3

Not gonna lie, it’s a big relief to hear you and a few others say that you like that extra ending xD Because it wasn’t part of the initial plan in my head, haha. It kinda just popped up and kept bugging me while I was trying to brainstorm the overall idea. I kept swatting it away saying to myself, nooo, it’s too silly, get in the bin x3 but in the end, I had to do it because it wouldn’t get out of my head x3 and since I knew I wanted to make a director’s cut version anyways in order to have a femme version of the character, I figured, ah well, might as well have it as a bonus ending for that, haha. And, of course, it gave me an excuse to make extra music tracks xD 

Also glad to hear you like that sorta stuff in extras too :3 I will always be a sucker for bloopers, but if there’s a director’s commentary on games/films, I will lap that up too, haha. Any sorta bonus content like that I always love to consume if it’s there cos for me, it often makes the pain of finishing playing a game or watching a film that I liked a bit less painful to leave behind if there’s extra stuff to watch/listen to, haha. It kinda sucks that those DVD extras-type things seem to be disappearing from Blu-ray discs nowadays, and just generally not even there on digital downloads >.<

Speaking of extras, I figured I'd respond to something you said after listening to the O2A2 challenges ramble about BGM just in case you might find it interesting, haha. You mentioned about possibly having 1 long bgm track that's like a few different songs stitched together, which is something I initially thought I might be able to do too, but the expanded rules explicitly state that you're not allowed to do that x3 It says that if it's multiple tracks in 1 like a medley or a megamix, or has clear shifts/phases to a different sound, then it's not allowed T_T So yeah, that was another of the many reasons I felt the need to make a director's cut cos I also wanted to make multiple versions of the 1 main track, haha. The O2A2 version does only have 1 bgm track in, but there are 6 (technically 7 if you count the reversed one) in the director's cut because I had waaaaay too much fun doing different mixes of the original one xD

Anyways, thank you so much again! You’re always so lovely, and your videos always make me smile :D + really appreciate that you leave stuff out and tell folks to go check it out themselves ^-^ Hope you do get a chance to make something for the jam one year!

Aww, well, thank you for doing that and for checking out the project! Much appreciated :3 Happy you had fun with it :D

Glad you enjoyed it :3 Actually, you missed 1 ending cos you were playing the director's cut version :P hehe. The O2A2 version has 3 endings, so you were right there, but the director's cut one has 4 endings. The one you didn't see is probably the shortest, least exciting one though, so you didn't really miss much, haha. I'll say what leads to it under a spoilers thingy below!

Anyways, cheers for playing and I hope your poor voice gets some quality recovery time x3 Also, I really appreciate you mentioning about rating itch games btw! Cos I feel like a lot of people probably still don't know you can do that since it's not super clear on the site, haha.

SPOILERS BELOW

The one you didn't get is the one that happens if you successfully click on the heart enough times :3