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Melancholy Marionette3 years ago

Well, that's officially made my morning x3 Thank you so much for your kind words! I woke up to see that and just felt really honoured to get a comment like that.

I'm a big fan of fake computers in games too, haha. That and the phone were the most anxiety-inducing parts of the game for me because I've never tried to code anything like that before. It was my first attempt at making sorta gameplay elements that weren't just typical visual novel story stuff. I was really worried that I wouldn't be capable of executing the ideas with my limited knowledge >.< But it turned out to be easier than I thought it would be! Largely thanks to LPB's awesome artwork because having such amazing assets made everything quite smooth to implement and a hell of a lot easier to envision.

Everyone worked crazy hard on this, to the point that I feel kinda bad for dragging them into my madness xD Especially LPB, because when I discussed the idea with her, I feel like most artists would have told me to fuck off considering the sheer amount of art assets required, haha. But nope, she was just as up for the challenge as I was!

I mean, I'm unemployed at the moment cos of my crappy mental health >.< So aside from doing housework and such, I can afford to spend 15 hour days working on stuff like this, but the rest of the team all had work/school/college/uni. It's just incredible that they all managed to do as much as they did while having those other commitments. And on top of that, they were so supportive with cheering me on as well :3 I couldn't have wished for a lovelier bunch of people to team up with!

I'm so glad you ended up enjoying it :3 And thank you so much for taking the time to play it!

I reckon your game is still the creepiest one I've played so far, hehe. I kinda wish I had managed to get the same sorta level of disturbing into Limbo Line, but it's not even close compared to The Housemate >.< I just really wanted to try my hand at comedy writing while keeping psychological horror in the mix, but I feel like I probably went too far with the comedy and the horror was a little lost in the end, making it more along the lines of comedy x mystery maybe >.< I tried to make certain moments disturbing, but they just don't have that same oomph that you guys have in yours with those really creepy moments!

Like the lights going out and the superbly timed thunder sfx! And those glitchy, freaky expression changes were just *chef's kiss*, haha. Loved em! You guys have definitely inspired me when it comes to properly creepy horror!

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Son of a Witch Studio3 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

Lmao and thank you for those even kinder words, and don't sell yourself short, personally I think the same as you but opposite in terms of our game, that we might have took the horror a little too far in some places, but I like how lighthearted your game can seem at first, but deeper there's so much there. Like I'm not good at words but like even on the surface level, the idea of running a help line like that gives me so much anxiety and I think it translated so perfectly. Even if you didn't take the horror elements as far as you maybe wanted, I think it blended really well, and possibly made it more unsettling.

I know how mental health can be and I'm glad that you are choosing to make VN's despite that because this was something special. Personally I spent too much time on this and ignored many assignments the past few weeks (Probably wouldn't have done them anyway) But like you our team popped off, our artist and writer really stunned every day we were developing this. 

 It also makes me feel so good to hear you talk about things like the sprite flickering and the eye on the title page since even after I finished I struggle with accepting that the things I helped make are good or whether I contributed enough considering the quality our artist put out. I am so glad people are playing our game and saying nice things especially since our game had a pretty big bug on launch that also only effected some computers which was infuriating. And of course it was due to dumb programming on my part. But your response helped me deal with the guilt that we released a initially flawed product, and that the judges may or may not be able to play it. Not to mention I think the day you posted that I just took an exam that I might've failed.

Anyway I don't know why I am talking o much here, bu thank you so much for making your game but also liking our game :P

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Melancholy Marionette3 years ago

Nah, you can never take horror too far x3 at least not for me anyhow, haha. I really loved how creepy The Housemate was, and while I still haven't played even half of the jam's games yet, it remains the most disturbing one I've tried so far! Don't get me wrong, I adore all kinds of horror, so all the cute, quirky, funny stuff is still super enjoyable, but I do like to be genuinely freaked out by horror, and so far, your game is the only one still that's made me feel legitimately unsettled (in the best possible way!)

Yeah, I definitely couldn't work at a helpline myself x3 I'd love to help folks, but my anxiety prevents me from using the phone most of the time, even when I really need to >.<

I'm sure some assignments and such must've been put off for a few folks on our team too, haha. I did say a couple of times to everyone to make sure to put that stuff first cos the jam is just for fun x3 But I know it's hard when you wanna be working on something. I get super absorbed in jams and can't stop, haha. I find it helps heaps with depression and stuff though, having something to really dedicate all my time to because it gives me a purpose and doesn't give my brain a chance to pause and think about negative stuff!

Oh, hell yes, things like that eye on the title screen and the flickering sprites are the icing on the cake! I'm an absolute sucker for details x3 Anything like that gets me super excited, haha.

That really sucks about the bug though >.< and I sort of know how you feel because there was a bug in ours that I thought I had fixed, well, I had fixed it, but then one or two people I know who tried it out managed to find a way to bypass my fix xD There's basically this weird Unity bug I ran into and couldn't properly solve because upon searching online, others who encountered it just got told along the lines of “Unity must be borked. That shouldn't be happening unless you deleted it yourself.” And no fix suggestions were offered >.< It was to do with a transition material trying to be accessed once it had been deleted or something. Well, like the other folks posting about it, I hadn't deleted anything like that either. It was just something that randomly started happening on this one line of code that was no different from any other line where I was making a character exit. The bug in question meant that if you scrolled through that one line of text too quickly, something in the shadows would break. The game would continue as normal, and you would be unaware anything had gone wrong, until you try to save. Saving after the bug would just basically crash the game.

My fix involved putting in a wait command so that players physically couldn't scroll through the line in question too quickly, therefore preventing the bug from occurring in the first place. Problem solved. Or so I thought >.<

I didn't take into account the fact that the skip text function ignores wait commands T_T So when a player has skip text active while passing over that line, it jumps my wait fix and breaks the save function >.>

I guess it's not too major because it's near the beginning of the game and completely avoidable provided you're not using the skip function, but still incredibly annoying when I spent ages researching the issue and thought I'd finally found a way to stop it from happening!

I'm not a programmer though, so things like that do my head in, haha. It's very difficult for me to figure out a fix when stuff goes wrong.

If the bug you guys had only affected some computers though, I'm sure at least some of the judges would be able to play :3 And hey ya never know, you might've aced the exam! I've thought I've failed exams in the past only to find out I did just fine in the end :D

I'm sorry for rambling right back at ya anyhow x3 But I always look at jams as a fun sorta learning experience :3 I seem to learn a lot more when I participate in these things, and they're always a blast! It's really nice to get to interact with such an awesome community too! I mean, I know we have the discord server and I do lurk there, but with my anxiety, I don't like to type much there, haha.  

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