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Maesika's Hide and Seek's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #68 | 4.382 | 4.800 |
| Visuals | #133 | 3.834 | 4.200 |
| Overall | #136 | 3.378 | 3.700 |
| Music | #142 | 3.286 | 3.600 |
| Voice Acting | #147 | 2.008 | 2.200 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Content Warnings
Blood, Blood and Gore, Violent References, Language, Sexual Themes
Log Line
A kid home alone one night decides to try a game found on the Internet involving summon spirits. Use your cell to help you locate that doll before things get worse!
Team Credits & Cast
Scott Kinoshita/Grumpy Old Milk/Smik
Is your submission created with the Light.VN visual novel engine?
No
Does your submission contain Boy's Love content?
No
Does your submission contain voice acting?
No
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Comments
Alright, some of those jumpscares definitely got me lol. The build up and tension with the zooms and everything felt really well done. I love the direction you took with the story, and that's all I'll say cause I don't want to spoil it for anyone :) Great Job!
Thanks very much! I think House in Hellworld has the better story but I'm glad you found this one enjoyable all the same. There's also a hidden ending if you enter a certain name in for the doll, I don't know if you found that one. The endings aren't drastically different yet but I've gotten some feedback and I do plan to polish this one a bit later. (Right now I'm laid up)
I haven't gotten that ending yet, but I'll give it a shot. I'll take a look at House in Hellworld once I get a chance to. Looking forward to seeing a polished ver. for this one!
This was spooky! I definitely enjoyed the jumpscares, that slow zoom in to the reveal, the timing, the sounds. I really like the art style too, it's not too much detail or too little. The monsters all look so good! I love their design, really good in terms of both idea and execution. The fact that the monster appearances and doll's hiding place are both random really made me want to try out different paths; I wanted to see all the monsters frankly.
At one playthrough I returned to the kitchen and after the line "..salt water, just in case." it jumped to "You involuntarily try to..." line but I hadn't selected anything to give me a fright and make me start choking. It's a minor detail but thought to just let you know.
I've reached a couple of endings (hmm, how many are there?) and really enjoyed them. It's hard to think of any suggestions to improve the VN aside from the above line point... Maybe getting someone to just proofread in future? I spotted a few small grammatical errors, but honestly they're so minor. This is a really good VN, I hope you're proud of your achievement here; doing the jam solo, especially with so many endings, is no small feat! I liked it a lot; hope it gets more attention.
Hi there -- thanks very much for playing! There are a few variations on the endings, your cell phone provides a clue as to whether or not the doll is in the room. I'll have to look into what could cause you to choke on the salt water prematurely.
There's a secret ending involving what you name the doll, and the other endings are dependent on leaving the door unlocked. Your character has a hidden fear level, and in retrospect it's not obvious enough. A lot of the shortcomings were a combination of lack of time and running out of energy as I'm also working on doing an enhanced version of "House in Hellworld" my first VN.
Ah okay. Is the secret ending the one where she reveals her name? (I got to that one) (OK imma move the rest of my response to the discord lol)
LOL, I definitely need a walkthrough for this one! But seriously, it was such an amazing experience—definitely shouldn't have played it at night though...
From what I've heard a lot of people have trouble getting other endings in the game. I'm going to avoid posting any spoilers for a little bit, but observing how your cell phone behaves is critical to seeing the other endings. There's not a huge difference between them visually as I ran out of steam, but I'll update it later with more information. Thanks for playing it! Also sorry for the spooks, I'm not affected by horror anymore so I really don't know how intense people find things in my games.
I love the mix of creepypasta lore with a Raggedy Ann doll. The jump scares were well done! I got the Accident ending - and this reminded me of every auntie I've ever had. Good job!
There's currently a few variations of the endings and the game can be completed with luck in very short order. The "Accident" ending is probably the most common ending because it's based off a hidden mechanic in the game. I'm glad you enjoyed it, if you have any criticisms feel free to let me know. I know it's a jam and we've all been under tremendous pressure but at the same time one can't learn without finding out about one's mistakes.
If you continue deving the game maybe shade in some of the jump scare comic-book-like-square art, change up the music per room you explore, customize the GUI a bit more. I thought the phone was unique and would do well to be flushed out more for interactivity. Also, make more things explorable per room!
Having the phone act as more of a "You're getting warmer" mechanic could be cool too. Like: the cellphone stays on screen the whole time and those animations show if you're "closer" to the doll or not when you enter a room. Maybe even make the choices be selected from the phone itself or a built-out/stylized soze panel on the screen.
Or consider adding a health mechanic where you run into more traps or wrong locations and you lose health. I'm thinking like how resident evil visualized health. It could be a static image or series of images that animate on screen with a repeat line.
"Or consider adding a health mechanic where you run into more traps or wrong locations and you lose health. "
Funny you mention that but there IS a health mechanic and you got the "Accident" ending because you ran out. The music changes subtly depending on how much health (horror points) you have left. Leaving the lights on for example costs you horror points because the ghost forces them off, giving you a scare.
I had originally planned on making the phone something you could manipulate and hover over interactable objects before checking them, but I ran out of time and energy. The cell does tell you when you're in the doll's room.
Part of the game's problem is that the mechanics are maybe too hidden. I'm currently working on redoing House in Hellworld in RPGMaker to make said mechanics more obvious, and if I revisit this game I probably won't have a kid protagonist since in my world build most ghosts and faeries leave children alone.
If you replay, without spoiling there are 4 possible phone alerts and only one indicates the presence of the doll. The others hint at a possible horror you can encounter.