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.
DAMN MELANCHOLY YOU PUSHING OUT GAMES LEFT AND RIGHT😭😭
spoilers weeewooo
amazing as always! could not have predicted troll ending for the life of me lmao. ost's were all bangers as always~ it was also really creative to layer them! please stop making yourself do so much for a 10-day jam good lord 😭😭
xD Well, I’m trying my best, haha. I always end up feeling like I’m really behind on things though and never doing enough x3
Hehe, I had to do it! Glad you enjoyed it ^-^ And super happy to hear you like the OST as well!!
Yeeeah, I think if I do O2A2 again next year I might try to calm down, haha. I always push too hard during jams and then end up feeling like I need a holiday x3 It's hard to control myself at the time though cos most of the time, when a jam starts, I just get really hyper xD
Its alright to take a breaks! your works always feel so well thought out and gameplay is always smooth, your doing more than enough. im sure everybody appreciates the hard work you put in all your games.
its okay if you get hyper during jams, thats understandable. everythings so new and exciting it can get hard to do so little 😭just remember to take a long break after, so you dont get burnt out!
i loved this game as always your games are the best!!,honestly at firts i was really scared because of the main menu, the creepy face :O, it give me chills, then the voices, the characters!! amaizing games as always, i really really love the stuff you make, you are the best :D
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BANANA
a little question, but, does this has anything to do with unkown from solipsism realms? the relationship portrait of the main character and the host seemed like the relationship between anathema and unkown or at least it reminded me of him, the way he talked, and act towards the player!! sorry if its a silly question!!
by the way, the extra ending was so funny :D, it made me laugh a lot, i didnt expect that twist honestly hahaha, love your games a lot, take care Mari!! (if i can call you that, if not im sorry ;_;)
by the way i love your rambles <3( sorry if i make you uncomfortable, please tell me and i will never do it again ;_;)
<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
I want to start this review by saying this game is an instant 10/10, I played a few of your games already and they all are pretty good and fairly different but I wasn't expecting THIS.
Been having a great time with O2A2 games so far and how creative people get, and even tho I played the DX potato version I have to say you really milked those limitations.
The spooky main menu and all around redness combined with a creepy and yet alluring (and talented of course) voice made very easy for me to have a great time while trying to piece the story together, the multiple loops throw me out for a while but I love when games play with me as much as I play them.
Last but definitely and absolutely not least, THAT ending, you know which one YEAH THAT ONE is the absolute best ending I have ever experienced, it made my brain kickflip 180 and fulfilled all my dreams, in my mind is canon and will live inside it forever.
Finally, I really appreciate the extras, it is really nice to hear directly from developers about how it is working on game jams and coming with ideas for games, I wish more devs included a section like that.
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!
Glad you enjoyed this one too! The title of your video made me smile :P Thanks for playing it as well and for always being so awesome ^-^ And cheers for encouraging folks to check it out too! Unfortunately, I think you got what I would say is probably the most boring ending on your first go, haha. But it was interesting to see that you did that tiny minigame first go cos I imagine a lot of people wouldn’t even think to click the first time, let alone successfully keep going with it cos the timer to click gets shorter with each one :3
I guess this is sorta minor spoilers about mechanics, so I’ll put it below!
SPOILERS
Just so you know about the repeated dialogue, I only did that to take advantage of the O2A2 rule that allows you to repeat blocks of text without counting towards the 1000-word limit if you do it via code, haha. Hopefully, it wasn't too irritating! Basically, the script is chopped up so that it plays in different orders, making new sentences from the same 1000 words, purposefully withholding some lines as it drip-feeds information until the full script plays in its entirety in the original intended order x3 It’s pretty weird and kind of repetitive, I know, haha. Though, the VA actually does different takes of some of the repeated lines in the version you played, so they are delivered with a different tone. But yeah, not something I’d normally do, just figured I’d give it a go for the jam :D
Dam i realized even my comment is kind of a spoiler also so i will put some space and say there is a spoiler below sort of!
I just came to comment cos I felt the same way lol. Love this game so much I just played it all again!! Cool to see a vid for this but isnt the thumbnail thing kind of a major spoiler for what is maybe the funnest ending? Sorry im not the vid police I kno I should just shut up cos its not my place to say. Just i keep seeing random spoilers in vid previews and thumbnails lately and it really ruined a couple games for me so was thinking of that. If I saw your comment befpr playing this it would make a lot of the mystery just gone and that would suck . Lucky for me I already finished it last week lol
Secondly, weeeeell, you're not wrong really x3 I guess it kinda depends on how much attention people are paying to that sort of thing, but yeah, I can see how it would accidentally spoil stuff cos people might see the screenshots all black and red, then see that thumbnail and be like, hang on a minute, that's not the same... what's going on here?
Which isn't too bad if they just think that in passing and then carry on, haha. But if they study the image for long enough, then yeah, spoilers >.<
With any luck, people who are wanting to check out the game will just download it and play it before looking at comments or something x3
Oh nooo!!! I didn't think about it that way! I think ima change the Thumbnail asap! I'm sorry if I was one of those people who ruin the game and also, I'm a youtuber and to me your opinion matters . How else am I going to grow silly. Don't sale yourself short love
You didn’t have to cos it wasn’t that big of a deal x3 but still, it’s super sweet that you did :3 Tbh, I hadn’t thought anything of it myself until I read that other comment. I didn’t wanna ignore the person who wrote it because I realised they technically had a point, but at the same time, I didn’t think it was bad enough to ask you to change it.
I don’t think it’s a problem I’ve ever come across personally cos if I’m looking at playing something here on itch, I generally read the page and decide just from that whether to download or not, and leave reading/writing any comments until I’ve finished the game. I guess I can see how it could become an issue though if you’re the type of person who prefers to read comments first or who watches a lot of stuff on YouTube, haha.
Thank you! I just don't want to ruin the game but thank you for that. I know it's hard sometimes as a youtuber not to upset anyone but if i can change something that to me isn't that big then i'm okay with it
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
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 love the game, and the voice acting is excellent too!! I do think adding a resolution setting would be helpful, though.
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.
DAMN MELANCHOLY YOU PUSHING OUT GAMES LEFT AND RIGHT😭😭
spoilers weeewooo
amazing as always! could not have predicted troll ending for the life of me lmao. ost's were all bangers as always~ it was also really creative to layer them! please stop making yourself do so much for a 10-day jam good lord 😭😭
xD Well, I’m trying my best, haha. I always end up feeling like I’m really behind on things though and never doing enough x3
Hehe, I had to do it! Glad you enjoyed it ^-^ And super happy to hear you like the OST as well!!
Yeeeah, I think if I do O2A2 again next year I might try to calm down, haha. I always push too hard during jams and then end up feeling like I need a holiday x3 It's hard to control myself at the time though cos most of the time, when a jam starts, I just get really hyper xD
Thank you for all your kind words <3
Its alright to take a breaks! your works always feel so well thought out and gameplay is always smooth, your doing more than enough. im sure everybody appreciates the hard work you put in all your games.
its okay if you get hyper during jams, thats understandable. everythings so new and exciting it can get hard to do so little 😭just remember to take a long break after, so you dont get burnt out!
Another very cute game!! Love your content as always!!
Aww, thank you so much for being so sweet and for playing this one too <3
i loved this game as always your games are the best!!,honestly at firts i was really scared because of the main menu, the creepy face :O, it give me chills, then the voices, the characters!! amaizing games as always, i really really love the stuff you make, you are the best :D
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BANANA
a little question, but, does this has anything to do with unkown from solipsism realms? the relationship portrait of the main character and the host seemed like the relationship between anathema and unkown or at least it reminded me of him, the way he talked, and act towards the player!! sorry if its a silly question!!
by the way, the extra ending was so funny :D, it made me laugh a lot, i didnt expect that twist honestly hahaha, love your games a lot, take care Mari!! (if i can call you that, if not im sorry ;_;)
by the way i love your rambles <3( sorry if i make you uncomfortable, please tell me and i will never do it again ;_;)
<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
Been having a great time with O2A2 games so far and how creative people get, and even tho I played the DX potato version I have to say you really milked those limitations.
The spooky main menu and all around redness combined with a creepy and yet alluring (and talented of course) voice made very easy for me to have a great time while trying to piece the story together, the multiple loops throw me out for a while but I love when games play with me as much as I play them.
Last but definitely and absolutely not least, THAT ending, you know which one YEAH THAT ONE is the absolute best ending I have ever experienced, it made my brain kickflip 180 and fulfilled all my dreams, in my mind is canon and will live inside it forever.
Finally, I really appreciate the extras, it is really nice to hear directly from developers about how it is working on game jams and coming with ideas for games, I wish more devs included a section like that.
Keep up the good work!
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!
Glad you enjoyed this one too! The title of your video made me smile :P Thanks for playing it as well and for always being so awesome ^-^ And cheers for encouraging folks to check it out too! Unfortunately, I think you got what I would say is probably the most boring ending on your first go, haha. But it was interesting to see that you did that tiny minigame first go cos I imagine a lot of people wouldn’t even think to click the first time, let alone successfully keep going with it cos the timer to click gets shorter with each one :3
I guess this is sorta minor spoilers about mechanics, so I’ll put it below!
SPOILERS
Just so you know about the repeated dialogue, I only did that to take advantage of the O2A2 rule that allows you to repeat blocks of text without counting towards the 1000-word limit if you do it via code, haha. Hopefully, it wasn't too irritating! Basically, the script is chopped up so that it plays in different orders, making new sentences from the same 1000 words, purposefully withholding some lines as it drip-feeds information until the full script plays in its entirety in the original intended order x3 It’s pretty weird and kind of repetitive, I know, haha. Though, the VA actually does different takes of some of the repeated lines in the version you played, so they are delivered with a different tone. But yeah, not something I’d normally do, just figured I’d give it a go for the jam :D
No Worries i figured it was for some reason, and yeah didnt know what i was doing with the heart thingXD but still loved the game!
Breaking lurk to say i love this!!! Even tbo its short its probably the best game ive played so far this year ^^ very good job keep it up!!
Aww, well, thank you for doing that and for checking out the project! Much appreciated :3 Happy you had fun with it :D
Dam i realized even my comment is kind of a spoiler also so i will put some space and say there is a spoiler below sort of!
I just came to comment cos I felt the same way lol. Love this game so much I just played it all again!! Cool to see a vid for this but isnt the thumbnail thing kind of a major spoiler for what is maybe the funnest ending? Sorry im not the vid police I kno I should just shut up cos its not my place to say. Just i keep seeing random spoilers in vid previews and thumbnails lately and it really ruined a couple games for me so was thinking of that. If I saw your comment befpr playing this it would make a lot of the mystery just gone and that would suck . Lucky for me I already finished it last week lol
Firstly, thanks so much for replaying it :D
KIND OF SPOILERS BELOW
Secondly, weeeeell, you're not wrong really x3 I guess it kinda depends on how much attention people are paying to that sort of thing, but yeah, I can see how it would accidentally spoil stuff cos people might see the screenshots all black and red, then see that thumbnail and be like, hang on a minute, that's not the same... what's going on here?
Which isn't too bad if they just think that in passing and then carry on, haha. But if they study the image for long enough, then yeah, spoilers >.<
With any luck, people who are wanting to check out the game will just download it and play it before looking at comments or something x3
Oh nooo!!! I didn't think about it that way! I think ima change the Thumbnail asap! I'm sorry if I was one of those people who ruin the game and also, I'm a youtuber and to me your opinion matters . How else am I going to grow silly. Don't sale yourself short love
You didn’t have to cos it wasn’t that big of a deal x3 but still, it’s super sweet that you did :3 Tbh, I hadn’t thought anything of it myself until I read that other comment. I didn’t wanna ignore the person who wrote it because I realised they technically had a point, but at the same time, I didn’t think it was bad enough to ask you to change it.
I don’t think it’s a problem I’ve ever come across personally cos if I’m looking at playing something here on itch, I generally read the page and decide just from that whether to download or not, and leave reading/writing any comments until I’ve finished the game. I guess I can see how it could become an issue though if you’re the type of person who prefers to read comments first or who watches a lot of stuff on YouTube, haha.
Thank you! I just don't want to ruin the game but thank you for that. I know it's hard sometimes as a youtuber not to upset anyone but if i can change something that to me isn't that big then i'm okay with it
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
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