i just loved the game so much!!! the whole atmosphere made me so immersed, i got shivers down my spine all the time. and god damn, the whispers... guess that i fell in love :D and btw im SO OBSESSED WITH THE HIDE AND SEEK SONG it made me go so AAAAAAAKDSLFJSDLDOKSLFDSA A A A !!!!!11!11 u know? totally addictive. hope to see it on some streaming plataform so i can play it on repeat a lot! thank you for this intense experience that is the hostage, i really loved it! and sorry if theres some mistakes on my comment, english isnt my first language but i really liked the game so i had to say something <3
Aww, thank you very much for taking the time to check the game out and then type up something so lovely! I really appreciate it :3
Hehe, the whispers are something I’ve been trying to poke into my projects for a while now :P Ever since the first time I listened to a drama CD years ago that used dummy head mics, I’ve been kind of obsessed with trying to create more immersive audio with the limited resources I have, haha.
So glad you liked the hide & seek song ^-^ that was probably my favourite version of the BGM to make!! It was also the version that caused me the most problems trying to make it, haha. I have a lot of vocal samples from the same singer, and I just love her voice so much x3
I haven’t had a chance to yet, but I will be putting the whole soundtrack on YouTube sometime this month :3 And the proper higher quality wav files will also be available to download for all supporters on Ko-fi & Patreon once the OST is out on YouTube, or for a $5 donation or something from the game page.
Thank YOU for playing the game + for all your kind words! <3 And you don’t need to apologise at all! Your English is fantastic! If you hadn’t said it wasn’t your first language, I never would have guessed :3
beautiful game as always!! so glad to see you back to making games and i hope you’re doing better, i had so much fun going through this when i finally got the notification :D
Thank you for your kindness as always <3 I am definitely doing better than I was a few months ago, cheers :3 It was really nice to get back into making something! I did spend a good while wondering if I would actually remember how Naninovel worked xD
Glad you enjoyed this one too ^-^ It was a labour of love as usual, with much coffee involved x3 I hope you’re doing well yourself and that you get to have an excellent August! :3
I loved this game so much; all the endings and the whole game design was so wonderful! I especially loved all the extra's and the 'troll' ending which was genuinely so sweet. I loved hearing your ramblings (you have a lovely voice btw), and the twist(s) in the game was fantastic. Thank you so much for creating and sharing this gem. :3 <3
Thanks so much for playing it & writing such a sweet comment ^-^ It might’ve only been a short jam, but I still poured my everything into it and put probably more hours into it than I should have, haha.
I’m always surprised to hear that anyone likes my ramblings in the extras x3 I feel so silly recording them xD but I’m a sucker for like DVD extras myself, so I try to put whatever I can in there :3 That’s very kind of you to say about my voice btw! I have pretty much always hated my voice x3 so that makes me even more nervous about speaking!
The red graphics brings me back to the days of the Virtual Boy (yes, I am ancient) and truly is such a cool and striking mix when brought into the world of visual novels. The atmosphere was nothing to scoff at either. Awesome work!! :) <3
I really wish I could say that that’s what I was going for, but I had to Google the Virtual Boy to see what you meant x3 I can certainly see why you’d say that anyhow, haha. I mean, according to what I read, I was alive when it came out, so I suppose that makes me ancient too xD We just didn’t have one in our house. My earliest gaming memories are of my parents having a Mega Drive, but I think the first thing I played on myself was my dad’s old Game Boy before eventually getting my own Game Boy Colour when I was old enough!
I mainly stumbled across the look for this project by accident while messing around with two-tone colouring and different sorts of old-school-looking filter effects, haha. Part of me wondered if it was a bit too weird to run with, but I thought it looked pretty funky so I couldn’t resist, haha.
Anyways, thank you so much for checking this out and for leaving such a lovely comment :3
I have to say, your O2A2 game is one of the ones that immediately caught my eye when I had a browse through the submissions page, and when I went and took a gander at the game page, I thought it absolutely sounded like my cup of tea, so I’m really looking forward to checking it out when I get a chance :3 I’m pretty sure I might’ve come across Pitstop in Purgatory at some point too and meant to add it to my list of stuff I wanted to play, but I must’ve been a doughnut and forgotten to at the time >.< Gonna go rectify that immediately!
LOL well that's understandable, the console was like a huge flop basically, the only thing truly memorable about it is the unique graphics XD though they look way better in your game than on that actual machine LMAO
You're very welcome! <3 <3 <3
And oh, wow!! ;_; That's so sweet of you! I'm very glad to hear that and I do hope you'll enjoy the game(s) when and/or if you get to try them out! :) <3
Oh dear x3 well, at least it had a memorable quality I suppose, haha.
Took me longer than I hoped to actually get around to playing anything because, as usual, there’s never enough time in a day T_T but I did finally get to experience Guidelicious just now in a little break I gave myself, and I bloomin’ loved it :D More on that on your page though, haha. Oh, but I guess if I'm gonna say this, it's probably better to do it here rather than putting potential spoilers on your page sooo...
KIND OF SPOILERS BELOW
Gotta love those loops :P I had such a big grin on my face when I discovered we'd used a similar sort of thing in our projects there, haha :3
I mean, your mind is definitely great, not so sure we can say the same about mine xD Mine is just made of blancmange or something x3 Still, thank you more :D
PHENOMENAL O2A2 SUBMISSION. the way you were able to create such an immersive game with so few assets is unbelievably impressive!!! i'm absolutely in love with everything about it---art is amazing, va was phenomenal, and writing is Evocative. thank you for making and sharing!!
I’m not gonna lie, I very nearly cried when I read this x3 Thank you so much for taking the time to check out the project and for writing such a sweet comment. That really means a lot.
And as a side note… how on earth have I never come across your games before?! I just had a peep at the pages and they look incredible!! They’re all going straight on my list of stuff I really need to play at some point, haha. Actually, I need to look at everything that was submitted to otome & josei jam this year still because I kinda completely missed it and I imagine there are a lot of amazing games there :3
it is a well deserved comment!!! i have been recommending your game to everyone i know LOL
and omg thank you so much q.q alaris is very much an outdated version right now that i am frantically trying to update with my new art and writing style LOL but intertwine is my newest game that actually has a Very Similar game mechanic to the hostage that you might like HAHA!! if you end up checking it out i hope you like it ahh! i’m still very much thinking about your game and how much i loved it >< (and yes the otome jam entries were phenomenal this year!!)
Aww, that’s so kind of you <3 I’m terrible at social media and stuff cos it just stresses me out, so anything like that is super duper helpful ^-^ hopefully if anyone does check it out they won’t be disappointed xD
Ahh, fair enough about Alaris! I will keep that in mind and go with Intertwine first then :3 I’m even more intrigued now you’ve said that :P I’m pretty sure I will love it though going by the page :D
I really should do what my brother keeps telling me to and just have 1 day off per week where I don’t work on anything and I just play stuff from my giant list so I can actually start getting through it, haha.
He was literally just having a go at me for that the other morning xD My backlog has gotten pretty out of control cos even just my one for VNs I wanna play has reached over 100 things on it now I think >.< and that’s not including all non-VN games on my normal gaming backlog, haha. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how to properly overcome the guilt of playing things without beating myself up for not working on things T_T Part of the problem is also feeling weird about gaming in the day though, haha. I dunno why, but I just really prefer to do it at night, in bed, if possible x3 I think maybe it’s like an immersion thing cos I’m the same with reading a regular book!
Kind of scared to actually browse the otome jam page cos I feel like it will just make my backlog even bigger x3
I immediately jump into this page to download your game when gmail sent me the notification about Melancholy released a new game. and it was so damn gooddddddddd!!! KEEP YOUR HEAD UP QUEEN!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCHHHH
Aww, thank you so much ^-^ That’s extremely sweet of you! And I’m really glad you liked it :D It might be a short one, but it was a labour of love, haha. <3
Is it a full-on crash with the game closing, or just a freeze where you can't advance text anymore? If it's a freeze, sadly, that's pretty common if you're playing one of the versions with video sprites, but you can fix it on the spot by rewinding text 1 line (left arrow key or mouse scroll wheel up). It will keep doing it though, sadly. The only way I could find to prevent it was to play on auto-mode or make sure not to click through the text too fast >.< It's my first time using video sprites, and it seems they're what cause the issue.
The easiest fix is to abandon the regular director's cut version and download the potato director's cut version cos that replaces all video sprites with png ones and eliminates the freezes! :3
If it's a full-on crash where the game closes though, I have no idea what would cause that cos I tested it loads on both my PC and our family potato laptop, and it never crashed once T_T
Interesting :o And now I need to add that to my giant backlog of things to play xD Jeritza from Fire Emblem Three Houses was actually one of the big inspirations for this :3
Edit: Actually, hang on a minute, I did play FFXIV xD Like waaaaay back when it was in beta or something. Then it got taken down and eventually relaunched. I remember transferring my PC account to PS4 on the relaunch and then just not playing it because I preferred the old version before it disappeared >.<
xD I hope it's not disappointing x3 Depending on what your computer is like, you might have trouble with any of the versions using video sprites. The whole time I was testing on my PC, things were fine, and then I tried it out on our family potato laptop, and the video sprites made it run like absolute crap, haha. Laptop instantly heated up and almost burned my leg >.< So I decided to make an emergency potato version that swaps all the video files with pngs to make sure it would work for as many people as possible :3
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i just loved the game so much!!! the whole atmosphere made me so immersed, i got shivers down my spine all the time. and god damn, the whispers... guess that i fell in love :D and btw im SO OBSESSED WITH THE HIDE AND SEEK SONG it made me go so AAAAAAAKDSLFJSDLDOKSLFDSA A A A !!!!!11!11 u know? totally addictive. hope to see it on some streaming plataform so i can play it on repeat a lot! thank you for this intense experience that is the hostage, i really loved it! and sorry if theres some mistakes on my comment, english isnt my first language but i really liked the game so i had to say something <3
Aww, thank you very much for taking the time to check the game out and then type up something so lovely! I really appreciate it :3
Hehe, the whispers are something I’ve been trying to poke into my projects for a while now :P Ever since the first time I listened to a drama CD years ago that used dummy head mics, I’ve been kind of obsessed with trying to create more immersive audio with the limited resources I have, haha.
So glad you liked the hide & seek song ^-^ that was probably my favourite version of the BGM to make!! It was also the version that caused me the most problems trying to make it, haha. I have a lot of vocal samples from the same singer, and I just love her voice so much x3
I haven’t had a chance to yet, but I will be putting the whole soundtrack on YouTube sometime this month :3 And the proper higher quality wav files will also be available to download for all supporters on Ko-fi & Patreon once the OST is out on YouTube, or for a $5 donation or something from the game page.
Thank YOU for playing the game + for all your kind words! <3 And you don’t need to apologise at all! Your English is fantastic! If you hadn’t said it wasn’t your first language, I never would have guessed :3
beautiful game as always!! so glad to see you back to making games and i hope you’re doing better, i had so much fun going through this when i finally got the notification :D
Thank you for your kindness as always <3 I am definitely doing better than I was a few months ago, cheers :3 It was really nice to get back into making something! I did spend a good while wondering if I would actually remember how Naninovel worked xD
Glad you enjoyed this one too ^-^ It was a labour of love as usual, with much coffee involved x3 I hope you’re doing well yourself and that you get to have an excellent August! :3
I loved this game so much; all the endings and the whole game design was so wonderful! I especially loved all the extra's and the 'troll' ending which was genuinely so sweet. I loved hearing your ramblings (you have a lovely voice btw), and the twist(s) in the game was fantastic. Thank you so much for creating and sharing this gem. :3 <3
Thanks so much for playing it & writing such a sweet comment ^-^ It might’ve only been a short jam, but I still poured my everything into it and put probably more hours into it than I should have, haha.
I’m always surprised to hear that anyone likes my ramblings in the extras x3 I feel so silly recording them xD but I’m a sucker for like DVD extras myself, so I try to put whatever I can in there :3 That’s very kind of you to say about my voice btw! I have pretty much always hated my voice x3 so that makes me even more nervous about speaking!
Thank you for checking it out and being so sweet!
I'm a simple man; i see marionette post a new game, i clicked it.
I can't believe i'm immersed with such a short game, but this one nailed it. Can't wait to see another games from you!
:D Thank you for the kind words and support! Glad you had fun with this one!
The red graphics brings me back to the days of the Virtual Boy (yes, I am ancient) and truly is such a cool and striking mix when brought into the world of visual novels. The atmosphere was nothing to scoff at either. Awesome work!! :) <3
I really wish I could say that that’s what I was going for, but I had to Google the Virtual Boy to see what you meant x3 I can certainly see why you’d say that anyhow, haha. I mean, according to what I read, I was alive when it came out, so I suppose that makes me ancient too xD We just didn’t have one in our house. My earliest gaming memories are of my parents having a Mega Drive, but I think the first thing I played on myself was my dad’s old Game Boy before eventually getting my own Game Boy Colour when I was old enough!
I mainly stumbled across the look for this project by accident while messing around with two-tone colouring and different sorts of old-school-looking filter effects, haha. Part of me wondered if it was a bit too weird to run with, but I thought it looked pretty funky so I couldn’t resist, haha.
Anyways, thank you so much for checking this out and for leaving such a lovely comment :3
I have to say, your O2A2 game is one of the ones that immediately caught my eye when I had a browse through the submissions page, and when I went and took a gander at the game page, I thought it absolutely sounded like my cup of tea, so I’m really looking forward to checking it out when I get a chance :3 I’m pretty sure I might’ve come across Pitstop in Purgatory at some point too and meant to add it to my list of stuff I wanted to play, but I must’ve been a doughnut and forgotten to at the time >.< Gonna go rectify that immediately!
LOL well that's understandable, the console was like a huge flop basically, the only thing truly memorable about it is the unique graphics XD though they look way better in your game than on that actual machine LMAO
You're very welcome! <3 <3 <3
And oh, wow!! ;_; That's so sweet of you! I'm very glad to hear that and I do hope you'll enjoy the game(s) when and/or if you get to try them out! :) <3
Oh dear x3 well, at least it had a memorable quality I suppose, haha.
Took me longer than I hoped to actually get around to playing anything because, as usual, there’s never enough time in a day T_T but I did finally get to experience Guidelicious just now in a little break I gave myself, and I bloomin’ loved it :D More on that on your page though, haha. Oh, but I guess if I'm gonna say this, it's probably better to do it here rather than putting potential spoilers on your page sooo...
KIND OF SPOILERS BELOW
Gotta love those loops :P I had such a big grin on my face when I discovered we'd used a similar sort of thing in our projects there, haha :3
Well you know what they say, great minds think alike! ;) Mweh heh! And also thank you so, so much!!!! <3 <3 <3
I mean, your mind is definitely great, not so sure we can say the same about mine xD Mine is just made of blancmange or something x3 Still, thank you more :D
PHENOMENAL O2A2 SUBMISSION. the way you were able to create such an immersive game with so few assets is unbelievably impressive!!! i'm absolutely in love with everything about it---art is amazing, va was phenomenal, and writing is Evocative. thank you for making and sharing!!
I’m not gonna lie, I very nearly cried when I read this x3 Thank you so much for taking the time to check out the project and for writing such a sweet comment. That really means a lot.
And as a side note… how on earth have I never come across your games before?! I just had a peep at the pages and they look incredible!! They’re all going straight on my list of stuff I really need to play at some point, haha. Actually, I need to look at everything that was submitted to otome & josei jam this year still because I kinda completely missed it and I imagine there are a lot of amazing games there :3
it is a well deserved comment!!! i have been recommending your game to everyone i know LOL
and omg thank you so much q.q alaris is very much an outdated version right now that i am frantically trying to update with my new art and writing style LOL but intertwine is my newest game that actually has a Very Similar game mechanic to the hostage that you might like HAHA!! if you end up checking it out i hope you like it ahh! i’m still very much thinking about your game and how much i loved it >< (and yes the otome jam entries were phenomenal this year!!)
Aww, that’s so kind of you <3 I’m terrible at social media and stuff cos it just stresses me out, so anything like that is super duper helpful ^-^ hopefully if anyone does check it out they won’t be disappointed xD
Ahh, fair enough about Alaris! I will keep that in mind and go with Intertwine first then :3 I’m even more intrigued now you’ve said that :P I’m pretty sure I will love it though going by the page :D
I really should do what my brother keeps telling me to and just have 1 day off per week where I don’t work on anything and I just play stuff from my giant list so I can actually start getting through it, haha.
He was literally just having a go at me for that the other morning xD My backlog has gotten pretty out of control cos even just my one for VNs I wanna play has reached over 100 things on it now I think >.< and that’s not including all non-VN games on my normal gaming backlog, haha. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how to properly overcome the guilt of playing things without beating myself up for not working on things T_T Part of the problem is also feeling weird about gaming in the day though, haha. I dunno why, but I just really prefer to do it at night, in bed, if possible x3 I think maybe it’s like an immersion thing cos I’m the same with reading a regular book!
Kind of scared to actually browse the otome jam page cos I feel like it will just make my backlog even bigger x3
Hiya Melanie. Congrats on the new game release! :)
If you wanna chat, you know how to reach me.
I immediately jump into this page to download your game when gmail sent me the notification about Melancholy released a new game. and it was so damn gooddddddddd!!! KEEP YOUR HEAD UP QUEEN!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCHHHH
Aww, thank you so much ^-^ That’s extremely sweet of you! And I’m really glad you liked it :D It might be a short one, but it was a labour of love, haha. <3
Acting was really incredible. Did the female voice route and she nailed the lines. Great work, always excited when I see a new project from you.
I wholeheartedly agree with you ^-^ Both voice actors totally blew me away with their amazing performances :D
Thanks for your kind words <3
It keeps crashing on me after the line 'you won't break me" kn the directors cut:(
Is it a full-on crash with the game closing, or just a freeze where you can't advance text anymore? If it's a freeze, sadly, that's pretty common if you're playing one of the versions with video sprites, but you can fix it on the spot by rewinding text 1 line (left arrow key or mouse scroll wheel up). It will keep doing it though, sadly. The only way I could find to prevent it was to play on auto-mode or make sure not to click through the text too fast >.< It's my first time using video sprites, and it seems they're what cause the issue.
The easiest fix is to abandon the regular director's cut version and download the potato director's cut version cos that replaces all video sprites with png ones and eliminates the freezes! :3
If it's a full-on crash where the game closes though, I have no idea what would cause that cos I tested it loads on both my PC and our family potato laptop, and it never crashed once T_T
thank you >.<
No worries, you're very welcome :3
Anyone play FFXIV? Because this is basically Zenos and Fem-Zenos, kind of love it.
Interesting :o And now I need to add that to my giant backlog of things to play xD Jeritza from Fire Emblem Three Houses was actually one of the big inspirations for this :3
Edit: Actually, hang on a minute, I did play FFXIV xD Like waaaaay back when it was in beta or something. Then it got taken down and eventually relaunched. I remember transferring my PC account to PS4 on the relaunch and then just not playing it because I preferred the old version before it disappeared >.<
new game by Melancholy? I click, im a very simple woman.
Looking foward towards giving this game a try.
Hope you end up having fun with it :3
WHEN I TELL YOU I RAN
<3
A new game by Melancholy? I'VE NEVER BEEN QUIQKER TO CLICK ON SOMETHING!!!
xD I hope it's not disappointing x3 Depending on what your computer is like, you might have trouble with any of the versions using video sprites. The whole time I was testing on my PC, things were fine, and then I tried it out on our family potato laptop, and the video sprites made it run like absolute crap, haha. Laptop instantly heated up and almost burned my leg >.< So I decided to make an emergency potato version that swaps all the video files with pngs to make sure it would work for as many people as possible :3