For anyone interested, here's the music track I wrote for the game: https://decadedecaf.bandcamp.com/track/hole-in-the-well

It uses the double harmonic scale, but with a half-flat 2, and the main melody is played using an oud:


Cool! It's all fun and games until the IRS shows up.

Also, great job with leveling the audio in a narrative driven game. Audio leveling/mastering is one of those things that you don't notice that much unless it's messed up, but you nailed it!

Fantastic voice acting and audio mastering, and I love the concept of having to weigh what wishes to grant in order to keep you in "business". At some point exploding all those babies should have consequences, but I guess out of sight out of mind...

great work on audio, nice idea and nice dialogueswith humour, would like to have some end goal

I played a few in game weeks, but I kept getting the persons asking for a million dollars several times in the week, some times in a row. There wasn't enough different dialogues, and the choices were almost always : get money or don't get money. Would have been nice that dialogues affect each other, like granting something to someone causes something to someone else or everybody. But I guess that would require more time.

Should it be a Jam entry as multiple persons gave their voices ? Or at leas opt-out of Audio ratings ?

The writing and the voice acting got a few chuckles out of me - nice one. I'm most impressed that you managed to get that many voice actors on such short notice! Can this be a compo game if you didn't work alone, though?

@thebmxeur @john-gabriel thanks for the comments! As for the compo rules, I've seen discussions floating around over the years about what counts as collaboration: "is receiving feedback during the jam technically getting help with game design?", "is asking people to test your compo game during the time frame technically helping with its stability?", and "is voice acting technically getting help with the audio or humor/mood?"

They're all good questions, and I don't claim to have a definitive answer, but I'll add some info about my own project for clarity:
- I did all of the writing, casting, and audio mixing
- I allowed VAs to put their own spin on characters or lines, but purposefully did not ask for help with writing or design
- I voiced Gene

As for the audio category, I ask that you rate with this in mind. If enough people feel iffy about this game qualifying as a "compo entry," I'll switch it to a jam. If not, I ask that people rate the music and sound design (not the voice acting) to avoid giving this game an unfair edge over other compo games.

> I’m most impressed that you managed to get that many voice actors on such short notice! Can this be a compo game if you didn’t work alone, though?

From what I understood from the rules: You're allowed to do recordings, and you can record anything, as long as you record it yourself, during the 48 hours ( There's a similar policy with taking photos ).

> I’ve seen discussions floating around over the years about what counts as collaboration

The game has to be *your* creation. You're the one creating the files, this is where the line is usually drawn (and this is, I believe, why the Compo rules currently exclude AI-generated art : it's not clear who's the creator).

Getting help, in the general case, cannot be forbidden. If your significant other brings you a cup of coffee that helps you to keep your mind clear, this also counts as help! This is why the line must be drawn elsewhere, generally at content creation level.

> “is receiving feedback during the jam technically getting help with game design?”

It's certainly getting help, but in the end, you're the one who must apply this feedback (If you have enough time!). So you're still responsible for 100% of the implementation of the game.

> “is asking people to test your compo game during the time frame technically helping with its stability?”

Of course it is. But same answer here: once a bug is reported, you're the one who must fix it (if you have enough time!). So the implementation of the game is still 100% your work.

> “is voice acting technically getting help with the audio or humor/mood?”

It also is getting help. However, voice acting isn't feedback, it's content creation! Especially if the voice actors do the recording themselves : this means there are now parts of your game that might be considered as "not your work" (even if you postprocessed the wav files).

@ace17 thank you for this compelling take. I wholeheartedly agree with your interpretation of the compo rules, and even though I recorded most (not ALL) of the VAs myself, their indisputable contribution is enough of a gray area for me to change the classification.

Hole in the Well is now marked as a jam game.
(also worth pinging @thebmxeur and @john-gabriel again)

Excellent voice acting! Funny game

@decadedecaf I updated my rating in the audio category to take the voices into account.

Ayooo! Great game but I didn't see any down side to saying yes all the time, maybe I'm missing something, not sure but it was a fun little humours game, well done!

@fredspipa @kylazaur tysm for the comments!! Regarding the feedback about most choices seeming inconsequential, or choosing between "money" and "no money," I totally agree. There are definitely exceptions to this, though!

For instance (SPOILERS), saying "aren't you rich?" to Tabatha is like haggling; it causes her to raise her offer. Telling Wendell that "misogyny is bad" causes him to come back as a changed man the next time. Granting a certain customer $1,000,000 causes inflation, making your IRS fee higher in the future, but stopping at $55 is perfectly fine. Telling someone over email that "I wish we were closed on Mondays" actually causes nobody to show up the next Monday.

One of the things I was going for with the narrative was, "you must sacrifice your morals in order to stay in business," similar to something like *Papers, Please*, but if I were to expand upon this game, I'd definitely add more unique consequences to granting wishes (or benefits to denying them).

Nice game! There's a lot of variety in the wishes asked for / granted, and the voice lines are all quite good.

It did somewhat devolve into solely relying upon a money laundering scheme with that one wish-cheater - cleaning soiled socks is all well and good, but $55 beats out pretty much all other wishes, which made them rest seem inconsequential.

Hey, I checked out 'Hole in the Well' – really unique! Playing as a genie navigating moral choices is super fresh. The voice acting is on point, especially for a game made in 48 hours. I see some 'Papers, Please' vibes with the moral decisions. Impressive work for a Ludum Dare jam!

This was really fun. It made me laugh multiple times. I really liked that some interactions would influence following events or later interactions. Every now and then I would get the same prompt come up a few times, but I'm sure you could fix that after adding more content later. The voice acting was so funny. My only suggestion would be to move the UI like volume bar to down at the bottom of the screen so it wouldn't overlap with the prompts.

Had a great time with this one on stream! As many have stated, it's very impressive that the entire game is voiced. There was a lot of dialog! The events were funny and characters manage to have a lot of personality despite the very limited interactions the player has with them. Great work!!

I absolutely loved this game! The voice acting is incredible! I adored the dialogues and the game's dynamic!

Cool unique game. Good humor, nice voicelines. Good job!
Btw Harry Humlbeton can go club a seal

@spaceylake thanks!! and OMG it's so funny how many people absolutely despise Harry Humbleton. Some of my friends have sent the character's VA messages like "seals go to hell when they die" LOL