The Walls Have Ears by Ysty

[raw]
made by Ysty for LD33 (COMPO)
​The Walls Have Ears is a game about catching the monsters that infringe on the freedoms and liberties of our nation. It's also a game about drinking coffee. It was made in Unity in 48 hours (and yes the audio is supposed to cut out like that).

The WebGL version is pretty much perfect, except for some reason it adds doppler to the audio sometimes.

Tools used:
Unity
GIMP
Coffee
Audacity
iFontMaker
Beer

Ratings

Coolness 72% 3
Overall 3.69 122
Audio 3.95 34
Fun 3.10 416
Graphics 3.26 372
Humor 3.28 215
Innovation 3.98 40
Mood 3.69 91
Theme 3.88 160

Feedback

flokitall
23. Aug 2015 · 19:54 UTC
Tried to punish the guy with "Top Secret", saw what happened. Nice touch!

Interesting take on the theme, loved how the game's message is conveyed via that income value and how doing what's right was enough to get you fired. This is a great example of narrative by mechanics, well done! Played it again just for to read the "winning" message at the end.

Personally I felt that the coffee mechanic didn't add anything to the game and the game would probably have been just as good without it. I do understand the need to convey the love for coffee though :) Unfortunately I did have some issues when holding shift and trying to drink it. It only happened once or twice and was probably linked to the fact that I played the game in a web browser.

Really enjoyed this, felt like an audio version of Papers Please :)
avultima
24. Aug 2015 · 04:40 UTC
Very clever. I would not mind this as a more serious game.
andyman404
24. Aug 2015 · 06:10 UTC
Coffee coffee coffee coffee - I thought that was funny and good break from the intense listening. Nice voice acting and game premise. Well done!
bbqbaron
24. Aug 2015 · 11:28 UTC
Did not read description; was ambushed by coffee. Awesome.

Totally unclear on the game mechanics; it's obviously satirical, but I couldn't tell if that meant that I wasn't supposed to actually try to play it. I eventually just slapped a bunch of surveillance directives on a bunch of people (except the rich). Perhaps that's the intended experience.
Tijn
24. Aug 2015 · 11:28 UTC
Wow, well done. This is a very clever game! It must have been a lot of work to get all that audio in.
Deadeyejoe
24. Aug 2015 · 11:29 UTC
smart and cool game enjoy it :)
TLansdale
24. Aug 2015 · 11:32 UTC
Cool take on the theme, nicely implemented. A bit depressing but I guess that's the point :)
Ilseroth
24. Aug 2015 · 11:35 UTC
Great concept, though I honestly had no clue what to do when the game launched, in fact i thought the blue picture wasn't even a game at first because I didn't see the unity launcher load.

But yeah, it was good fun.
voxel
24. Aug 2015 · 12:04 UTC
Very nice. However I should point out that submitting this game has put you on a watchlist
peterthehe
24. Aug 2015 · 13:26 UTC
I was waiting for someone to make something along these lines! Good Job! *Recommends Permanent Email Tap*
aprotasenya
24. Aug 2015 · 14:21 UTC
Right ooon!
This is a very cool game and it is as solid, as a rock (and I mean hard rock, not some pop rock or smth). I like it especially that it looks very simple but plays so good and is full of fun and British accent. Have a great week after such a work. :)
raducumiczzz
24. Aug 2015 · 14:25 UTC
This game was awesome. Intuitive, nice touch on key elements. For me it was hard to get the coffee most of the times. All the elements make up a great game, will definitely put you on a watch list. Haha
Yaroslav Kravtsov
24. Aug 2015 · 15:41 UTC
I selected all option for all suspects and have profit :o) And yes, I feel my self to be a monster by doing this. But who cares when you are in the secret service.
amras0000
24. Aug 2015 · 18:32 UTC
Very well done. Idea is solid, voice clips well-scripted and read.

Just two things:
First, I noticed that there seemed to be multiple voices. Were these all your manipulated voice? If not you may need to put this entry in the Jam instead.

Second, I was confused by being able to click on the names/religion/etc of the entries. What did selecting those represent?
🎤 Ysty
24. Aug 2015 · 19:35 UTC
@amras0000 Thanks! Yeah, those are all my voice (the filter that makes them sound like a low quality phone calls kind of hides the weirdness that pitching a voice up/down would normally have). In theory the purpose of letting you select names, age etc was to flag things that might be grounds for suspicion, but since there's not really anything suspicious in any of that information it didn't really come together as an important part of the game.
Suese
24. Aug 2015 · 21:21 UTC
The NSA is a monster!
Crowbeak
25. Aug 2015 · 07:59 UTC
This is the first game I've played so far to make me do something I definitely didn't want to do. Good job with the theme on that count. However, the forced coffee breaks ruined the experience.
Jupiter_Hadley
25. Aug 2015 · 18:48 UTC
I really wanted this game to do what I wanted it too, but I had some trouble playing it and in the end broke it O-o I included it in part 2 of my Ludum Dare 33 Compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/vxHEoUQEThc
Empyrealhell
28. Aug 2015 · 02:22 UTC
I really like the message you're trying to convey with the mechanics. The audio was a bit out of balance which made some conversations hard to hear, but in the end it didn't matter.
Slothmachine
28. Aug 2015 · 20:09 UTC
Interesting theme and gameplay. You picked a great topic for the story. Good job!
Schrodinger Games
30. Aug 2015 · 15:04 UTC
Nice concept!
rodobodolfo
31. Aug 2015 · 00:39 UTC
Coffee coffee cooffe! great game, It was difficult at times to hear what they were saying (im not natvie english speaking) subtitles could have been very helpful, but maybe break the mechanics. Good job!
crucknuk
14. Sep 2015 · 17:19 UTC
Loved it, the material, the concept, i needed to be right into it to not getting away for coffee haha.
good job!