Play sinister situation
The Hostage's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #69 | 2.828 | 4.000 |
| Enjoyment | #95 | 2.298 | 3.250 |
| Overall | #95 | 2.386 | 3.375 |
| Concept | #102 | 2.298 | 3.250 |
| Use of the Limitation | #102 | 2.121 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Melancholy Marionette (I wrote and created the game by myself, but I teamed up with a couple of voice actors to voice the character :3) Llu's masculine voice = Philip Kraaijenhof (https://linktr.ee/flappetapcc) Llu's feminine voice = Emilie Brewer (https://emilievoiceacts.com/)
Software used
Unity + Naninovel
Use of the limitation
I suck at trying to explain things, but I feel like I was able to incorporate 'multiple applications' in a few different ways. Firstly, there is 1 character, but that 1 character has 2 sprites & 2 different voice actors with exactly the same lines. Secondly, I have used loops within the script so that certain sections of text/lines are reused several times in different orders to create different sentences. Thirdly, I created a BGM track that has several variations. That 1 BGM track is used throughout the game, with the variations of it playing at different points of the game. And finally, the last one would kind of be spoilers for the story, so I will just say that one of the endings could also kind of fall into 'multiple applicaions' haha.
Cookies eaten
Hmm, 0 cookies actually, which is a shame! I have consumed numerous other sweet treats though xD I had some peanut butter cheesecake yesterday! Mostly though, I have been eating protein mousse as a treat snack, haha.
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Comments
The game froze at a random point, so I tried to save the game and restart it, but it froze on the save screen too <:o) Despite that little hiccup, cool aesthetic and premise, and great voice acting.
Cheers for checking it out + for the kind words :3
You don’t have to answer this, but out of curiosity, were you playing one of the versions with the video sprites/backgrounds, or one of the potato versions with the static pngs? :o
I only ask because I’m aware of the freezing issues that appear to be caused by the video sprites (but have no idea how to actually prevent it from happening T_T) whenever text is prompted to advance before the text has fully revealed or before the entirety of a voice line has finished playing, BUT, I’m not aware of any freezing in the potato versions, so it would just be good to know if it’s happening in the potato versions too, haha.
The main reason I made the potato versions and made those the recommended downloads was because I discovered pretty last minute in the jam that the original video versions ran like crap on the family potato laptop x3 And I already knew that the video sprites were causing weird random freezes even on my half-decent PC, so I made separate versions that removed all of the video files completely and replaced them with pngs. I had really hoped that that solved all of the issues by just having static images, and while I did get to run through each Windows version of the potato png builds a few times before the jam was over, I didn’t get to test as extensively as I would have liked. And, as always for Mac and Linux, I have no way of testing them at all >.<
Went for the no-potato Director's Cut, Windows version. I have a good PC build, so that shouldn't be where the problem lies. From the sound of it, it must be something in the code.
No idea how you're coding these functions and in what order things run, so this is a totally generic and random bit of advice from the top of my head, but if things potentially freeze up because something moves on before something else is correctly finished, maybe (if you're not yet) work with co-routines that yield until things elsewhere have finished up? It's not like the game crashes, it doesn't technically "freeze" in that sense, it just doesn't do anything with my input at those points.
Yeah, so it must still be with those darn video sprites then >.< It was my first time using video ones instead of regular ones, haha. The problem is, I'm not a coder, that's pretty much why I got Naninovel in the first place :( So when random stuff like this happens that doesn't usually happen, I'm pretty clueless, haha.
I noticed something had changed with the way you implement voice acting in general because, prior to updating Naninovel, I was able to inject sprite expression changes mid-sentence and it was all lovely and smooth. The voice line would play, and the expressions would change as it played. Now if I do that, it pauses playback of the voice line the moment it reaches an expression change command even if the expression change includes a skip/no wait command >.<
Anyways, it's not your problem to figure out so I will try to shush my rambling x3 I appreciate you taking the time to reply though :3 I'll have to dig around and ask in the Nani support to see if they might know what's up. Cos I essentially have no control over how voice lines play beyond attaching them via the inbuilt auto-voicing system, and that seems to be the main thing causing conflict with the video sprites.
As you say, it's not like it's even a proper crash or freeze for me either >.< It just prevented input when I was testing. Rewinding text by 1 line also seemed to temporarily fix it for me until it did it again, haha. Every time, I was able to resume gameplay by just rewinding 1 line of text, but I mean, that's not practical for a player to have to do :( It kind of means I might as well have just made the whole thing without the video sprites in the first place since anyone not playing a potato version is just gonna get frustrated with it >.<
That was pretty cool.
Cheers! Appreciate you taking the time to check it out :3
Disturbing and hypnotic in equal parts, an experience that you don't know whether it unsettles or discomforts you. I loved the script, the music, the voice acting, the designs... practically everything. I must say, to provide some feedback, that I didn't fully understand the decision-making process; I think it should be clearer and more easily identifiable for the player. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Congratulations!
Thanks so much for checking it out and for all your kind words! I really appreciate it :3
I can totally see where you’re coming from in regards to the choices. Normally, I would include more to go off of, but because this was also made for O2A2 Jam and they said that any text on player choices also counted towards the word limit, I was more brief than usual >.< Still, I could have expanded on it for the Director’s Cut version at least and it just completely skipped my mind, haha. Probably cos I gave myself too much to do as usual and wound up panicking trying to get it all finished in time for both jams like a silly sausage! I suppose it’s something I can do in an update at some point though. Cheers for bringing it up :3
Also, I’m really looking forward to checking out your game when I get a chance btw! The cover and page caught my eye right away when I was looking through everything submitted to the jam :D
Haha, I completely understand, don't worry. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of your games because your proposal has been my favorite so far among those I've tried ^^.
I'll be waiting for your feedback! The truth is, we ran out of time. It's the first time we've created a game together, and we are total beginners, so we couldn't complete all the features we had in mind for the game, but we'll finish it and keep updating it. Thank you for everything!
Oh, man, well, that means a heck of a lot :3
I’m hoping to get a chance to play more stuff sometime this week, with any luck, on Friday once I’ve gotten some chores outta the way, haha. There’s so much I want to check out and never enough time to do it >.<
That’s rough though running out of time, but still, if it’s your first time making stuff together, at least you managed to submit something:3 That’s a victory in itself, especially if you guys are total beginners. I would never have guessed that at all from the page because it all looks extremely well put together! Making anything on a tight deadline is always gonna be a challenge, when you’re learning stuff on the go too, it’s like adding an extra level of difficulty, haha. As you say though, you can always work on it more casually now and get it to a point that you’re all happy with :D The main thing is that you started it in the first place!