The Call by fullmontis
My first LD submission, and my first "game" ever made.
The Call is an interactive story about a phone call and... Well, that's it, actually.
Dig into the past of the involved persons and discover the dark secrets that lead to this phone call. And a final, shocking surprise...
Who is this insistent caller?
What are the dark answers that he wants to exorcise?
Why the hell should you play something that resembles more a boring family discussion than an actual game?
Discover all of this and maybe less in this cut throat phone call simulator.
######################
Ok, the pitch is over.
This game is VERY minimalist. The gameplay is as barebones as it gets, and the graphics consist of ONE image. The music and sfx at least aren't just a bunch of beep-boops. The story is the only part that is actually quite prolific. I tried as much as I could to put some roundness to the characters but of course the time was strict to do a proper job, so please excuse me for any cheesiness.
Everything in this game (graphics, sounds, music, font) was created from scratch by me. This was initially supposed to be a LD48 entry but for time management reasons I didn't finish it in time, so... Here it is a s a jam entry.
Created with Ren'Py 6.15.
#######################
INSTRUCTIONS:
To run the game just unzip the folder and run the exe (Windows), the .py file (for Linux) or the .app file (for Mac). (Warning, the generated build is untested on both linux and mac. It will probably run smoothly but please inform me of any problems.)
Click to choose the questions you want to ask and to advance text and skip animations.
Press Control if you want to skip already read text.
The Call is an interactive story about a phone call and... Well, that's it, actually.
Dig into the past of the involved persons and discover the dark secrets that lead to this phone call. And a final, shocking surprise...
Who is this insistent caller?
What are the dark answers that he wants to exorcise?
Why the hell should you play something that resembles more a boring family discussion than an actual game?
Discover all of this and maybe less in this cut throat phone call simulator.
######################
Ok, the pitch is over.
This game is VERY minimalist. The gameplay is as barebones as it gets, and the graphics consist of ONE image. The music and sfx at least aren't just a bunch of beep-boops. The story is the only part that is actually quite prolific. I tried as much as I could to put some roundness to the characters but of course the time was strict to do a proper job, so please excuse me for any cheesiness.
Everything in this game (graphics, sounds, music, font) was created from scratch by me. This was initially supposed to be a LD48 entry but for time management reasons I didn't finish it in time, so... Here it is a s a jam entry.
Created with Ren'Py 6.15.
#######################
INSTRUCTIONS:
To run the game just unzip the folder and run the exe (Windows), the .py file (for Linux) or the .app file (for Mac). (Warning, the generated build is untested on both linux and mac. It will probably run smoothly but please inform me of any problems.)
Click to choose the questions you want to ask and to advance text and skip animations.
Press Control if you want to skip already read text.
| Windows/OSX/Linux (Source Included) | https://fullmontis.itch.io/the-call |
| Postmortem | http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/05/01/the-call-postmortem-aka-rookie-mistakes-a-gogo/ |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=21736 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.38 | 170 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.37 | 141 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.92 | 264 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 2.67 | 420 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.91 | 114 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.13 | 228 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.75 | 51 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.54 | 176 |
I think there may have been a little more interactivity and choices, but it's cool :)
@Exclamation Mark: I'm really sorry for this since it was one of the main things I wanted to avoid but it would have taken too much time to readproof all of it.
@patrickward: unfortunately no. I planned to at first but then I finished the script too late to actually implement anything else.
Some really clever bits with the start menu, I love it! The double-loop in the story is well done as well. Poor Dan :).
The music is quite atmospheric, I like it.
The "AAARGH" part felt a little out of place and didn't really fit into the rest of the text.
I think you are having the same problem running my game as TenTonToon. The problem seems to show up on relatively old GPUs that don't like OpenGL. What graphics card are you using? Have you updated your drivers? And, per chance, did you run the _source_ using 64bit Python? I'll do my best to find a solution!
Thank you very much for reporting your problem! ^^ I'll try out your game when I have a chance.
It's funny - As I was playing, I kept thinking - "Gah, I have these RPGs where I have to ask about stuff *I* don't know but my character is supposed to know, and the people I'm talking to keep thinking I'm a moron". But then I got to the ending - priceless.
- IT SCROLLS! Keyboard works too. This excels.
- Music coming in. Not annoyed yet.
- Yay, I can sequence-break the appearance of dialogue.
- A+ for controls.
- Wait, the list doesn't scroll with the selection. A- for controls.
- Ah. You can hit enter on the scrollbar to move it. It should just scroll with the selection.
- Dan has amnesia. I have made up my mind. If not, this is poor design. He's your best friend, Dan! For chrissake!
- Rick is not my brother! You have the wrong number!
- Oh god, he violated Dan, didn't he? You were in on it too!? You sick bastards!
- Spotted a "definately". Spell check, good sir! This is a text-based game!
- Still not annoyed by the music yet. Good work.
- "Eredity"? I do not know this word. Wiktionary does not know this word!
- Why would you do that!? Dan needed that money! You were his best friend!
- Yeah, you are a damn liar.
- Strangely forgetful? You have no idea.
- "Pneumonia? I'm not sure thought." I'll let this typo slide. Thin line!
- NEXT AT 10: DAN DOES INDEED DIE OF PNEUMONIA. AND SEVERE AMNESIA.
- Of course Rick won. You helped him.
- Doesn't matter how much talent he has. You are a traitor.
- Oh, what's that? Did you say "FALSIFICATION"? EH? I KNEW IT.
- Did she give Dan amnesia? Damn it all! You're all damned scoundrels!
- Debbie!? What is going on!?
- "He was an hard worker [...]." Another typo. How much dialogue is in this thing? I'm still on the first call. Do I have to write a novel-length review?
- Yeah, and DAN GOT AMNESIA.
- YOU BASTARD!
- YOU KILLED HER? WHAT DID YOU DO?
- WHO PLANNED IT? YOU? WAS IT YOU? GOD DAMMIT.
- I KNEW IT. I knew it, right?
- My new address? Debbie knows that? SHE IS GOING TO STEAL IT.
- HAHAHA! How could you have not known it wasn't Dan!?
- Dan really does have amnesia, though -- wherever he is. And I take it back, it's not poor design, Mark is just really dumb.
- Alright. That's it? That's it. The phone isn't ringing.
- Lessee, there are options.
- Windowed mode, fullscreen, audio levels, the works. Nice work.
- Restarted game. Still not ringing. Game saves. Where is it? Found it: "~/.renpy".
- Alright, there's only one person calling. As expected.
Things I would change:
- Make the response selector scroll with the selection.
- Clean up "phone3.png".
And, another Python developer! Or at least, Ren'py!
My only problem was that the story had quite a bit of typos and misspellings. Other than that, it was a compelling and interesting story, a fantastic job!
Word spell corrector unfortunately can't do miracles. If you guys can point out the misspellings and typos I'll release a corrected version.
Wanted to see both ending ;p
So yeah interesting!
I Didn't try your post-mortem, but it could be fun to have a tree of possibilities and maybe Debbie can call you as well (which would make hanging up part of the gameplay maybe), she could say something like "I know you're not Dan but if you play the role you'll be rewarded", blah blah and another scheme on Mark and you could have the choice to side with either Mark or Debbie or none of them :D... etc