☃ Jingle Calls ☃ by C63 Industries

[raw]
made by C63 Industries for LD31 (JAM)
This game was programmed in C# and only uses WinForms. It should be able to run on Linux and OSX using Mono (http://mono-project.com).


We took the theme of "Entire Game on One Screen" and decided to make a game about screening calls! (It's also on one screen.)

In ☃ Jingle Calls ☃ , you play ☃ , secretary to Mr. Claws at the North Pole. Mr. Claws doesn't want to be disturbed, except by callers that he wants to talk to, so screen them carefully! If you make Santa mad, you might get a pinkslip.


Jingle Calls was created by: Jesse W. Schirmer, Charlotte M. Ellett, Stephanie Clark, Ashley West

If you're going to PAX South, swing by booth #1551 and say hello!

The team was hosted by MindGear Labs (http://mindgearlabs.com).

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 2.66 914
Fun(Jam) 2.26 958
Graphics(Jam) 2.02 939
Humor(Jam) 3.09 261
Innovation(Jam) 3.28 342
Mood(Jam) 2.46 863
Theme(Jam) 3.23 761

Feedback

dylanwolf
09. Dec 2014 · 05:11 UTC
Pretty funny. Reminds me of Papers Please. And it triggers the visceral reaction to a phone ringing that you get once you've taken enough client support calls.

I wasn't completely clear on how the hang up/transfer worked. There were times that I felt like the conversation wanted me to transfer or hang up, but they just called right back later (without the previous context).
vogon101
09. Dec 2014 · 08:31 UTC
Quite Funny
Techblogogy
09. Dec 2014 · 08:31 UTC
I do agree with dylanwolf that it is a bit like papers please, but anyways fantastic game.
aeveis
09. Dec 2014 · 09:02 UTC
It was interesting to see sort of a story from from the phone calls. I guess Santa here is pretty racist.

The hanging up and holding was a bit confusing to me, as people would call me back asking about the same thing. I'm not sure what the number pad is for. I think I only ever got a response from Santa for transferring the duck.
Terrabalt
09. Dec 2014 · 09:30 UTC
Is the transfer button didn't work or that i used it too much?
Rocketship
09. Dec 2014 · 09:37 UTC
This is cool, there's a lot of text put into this one. One criticism I have is sometimes the conversations get tangled and the dialogue makes no sense but I guess that's part of the charm!
esaygin
09. Dec 2014 · 09:42 UTC
Interesting!
Wilson
09. Dec 2014 · 10:32 UTC
Cool game, I enjoyed it, though as dylanwolf says sometimes the transfer/hanging up doesn't seem to end a conversation (unless you've already said a line to the effect that you're transferring or hanging up?).
calavera
09. Dec 2014 · 10:34 UTC
Pretty good stuff, funny. I didn't like how the old conversation options stayed on screen and you could go back to responding to their first remark after a full conversation and they didn't mind.
skonkan
09. Dec 2014 · 11:52 UTC
Great idea. Fun calls to answer. But I did not understand how to transfer or send them to the boss.
Asaratha
09. Dec 2014 · 17:35 UTC
Very cool little game you have here.
rjhelms
09. Dec 2014 · 17:47 UTC
Cool take on the theme. I also the same issue with being confused about the hang up & transfer - if people explained why they called back, rather than just picking up with the same dialog options for you, that'd go a long way to clarify it.
StMatn
09. Dec 2014 · 17:51 UTC
Awesome game!

The duck call was really great :D
The game did bug out for me after some time. It seemed santas mom kept calling all the time and I had all the previous answering options but no geeting aviable. Draging the windows around was a bit unasthetically, because it didnt move smoothly.

All in all awesome work!
peterthehe
09. Dec 2014 · 18:28 UTC
Beautiful concept :3 Graphics needs some work
SpartanIceCream
09. Dec 2014 · 19:53 UTC
Cool! It's a nice and funny little game.
Frozen Fractal
09. Dec 2014 · 20:53 UTC
Well done on the texts, I love how the backstory unfolds through these phone calls. But the options you get to say are a bit weird sometimes, because they stick around after the conversation has moved on. There were a few more bugs (I think), because when I hung up on someone, I'd just get them back with a blank screen and no options to say anything. Transferring them didn't seem to help.
Newt_
09. Dec 2014 · 22:07 UTC
Interesting, nice job! I agree with several others in that the dialogue options got a little overwhelming, though.
MentalBlockGaming
10. Dec 2014 · 00:09 UTC
Interesting game, I just couldn't find a lose condition so after a while it felt like I could press anything and reading didn't even matter anymore.

Nice back story. Made taking calls more interesting.

As others have said, having previous chat options lingering even when you've moved past that point of the conversation can lead to nonsensical conversations. That said, there seemed to be a lot of text there, so I'll admit that tying up all the speech could get pretty tricky.

The game was kind of laggy for me. It took much longer than usual to draw a simple window. I found the way you could only have one conversation up at a time not necessarily bad, but the fact that the window got placed OVER the phonepad every time I answered a call made it annoying to click and drag each time.
Hellequin
10. Dec 2014 · 00:14 UTC
Cool and ubique little game! Well done!
CMWeissMedia
10. Dec 2014 · 00:19 UTC
Definitely not your average cookie cutter game, which I appreciate. Some of the dialog options were a bit clunky until you get used to how the game wants you to interact with it, but not too bad all in all.
Lacaranian
10. Dec 2014 · 00:42 UTC
A bit buggy, but lots of content. A fair amount of story in just a minimal interface. Nice work!
EvanEGibbs
10. Dec 2014 · 01:00 UTC
I liked the idea of the game a lot! Man Santa is a huge jerk apparently. :O

One comment is it keeps the dialogue options all the time, so I could say a response to something that happened way earlier in the conversation.
ProteinPannkaka
10. Dec 2014 · 02:08 UTC
Not my type of game but I guess it's appealing to some.
ENDESGA
10. Dec 2014 · 02:57 UTC
Awesome game! I love it :D
dalbinblue
10. Dec 2014 · 02:58 UTC
Pretty funny experience. The game seemed a bit buggy though. I would get a lot of calls that looked like they were mid-conversation (none of the options looked like a greeting so I just had to select something at random). Also, transfers didn't seem to always work because the light would still be on for the line I was on. Regardless I did enjoy the calls and discovering the silly story from bits and pieces of the conversations.
intersectiongames
10. Dec 2014 · 03:34 UTC
Seconding the constructive criticism from everyone. Felt like I could hang up on people, or transfer them, and they'd just call back to continue the conversation where they left off, with no context whatsoever. Couldn't win or lose, only see the story unfold with no clear end. Characters were all great, I wanted hear from more people, helped in part because I wanted the same ones to stop calling me.
RobustInteractive
10. Dec 2014 · 03:59 UTC
why does my anti virus keep deleting your game? i use norton.
Ryan Kline
10. Dec 2014 · 16:27 UTC
Great idea guys! I gave you 5 stars for innovation and humor because this was a really neat idea that definitely isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think "game on one screen". Like someone else said, not your average cookie cutter game. Also this may have been one of the funniest games from the jam so far. Great idea, solidly executed, good job!
hypnoticbytes
10. Dec 2014 · 17:54 UTC
Interesting game, a bit laggy but that's not really important. Good work!
BtheDestroyer
11. Dec 2014 · 04:09 UTC
Funny and cute, but the phone ringing is a bit annoying...
Demy
11. Dec 2014 · 05:58 UTC
I love text quests. It's fun and have some nice moments. But after couple themes (like "who are you", race theme and something about Santa) answers look a little bit messy and you need to be careful to pick the one you need.
ynots
12. Dec 2014 · 19:44 UTC
that was funny...