Locked-In [mystery, drama] - English, Dutch, German

[saguaro]

Locked-In is a short visual novel about Jacqueline Brown, an executive who has an accident that leaves her paralyzed and blind with locked-in syndrome. Jacqueline struggles to remember what happened to her, and as she sifts through her memories and reflects on her life she comes to the realization that someone close to her is a murderer.

Features:

• 8 endings

• 504 screens of dialogue

• 7,929 words

• Scene-skipping after each act is completed

Download at itch.io (Windows, Mac, Linux)

This game was made with public domain and Creative Commons assets and the sources are listed in credits.txt. I intended to tidy up the .rpy and add notes but I forgot. I may tidy up a future version if I have to do any fixes. Enjoy.

[TheTourist]

Congratulations, Saguaro! Way to stick to your deadline. Can't wait to play this, once I find the time...

[Obscura]

This looks like an amazing use of assets. Can't wait to play it!

[FatUnicornGames]

I'm excited to play this when I get a chance. I enjoyed the Demo a lot. I'll put up my feedback when I play through a couple of times.

[TheTourist]

Got a chance to play it, and the changes you made to the ending work; the extra Jacqueline Brown totally pulls it together, and it was fun seeing the consequences.

Like Kimber fleeing, Kimber failing to flee, and Nolan's romance with Delilah...

My favorite ending, by the way, is "Lucky."

Now, no pressure, but I'm especially looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.

[Victoria Jennings]

OMIGOSH YES

Downloading now! ; v ; <3

EDIT: ; w ; b

[Obscura]

All right--I'm still in the middle of playing this but I'm stopping by to say this is a TRULY amazing game in terms of ambience. It feels like you really pushed the engine to new heights, in a way I've never seen done. You have a judicious eye for graphics and visuals.

I'm super impressed where you took this. I feel like I'm watching a Hitchcock film.

(Ok...returning to game now...)

[saguaro]

Got a chance to play it, and the changes you made to the ending work; the extra Jacqueline Brown totally pulls it together, and it was fun seeing the consequences.

Like Kimber fleeing, Kimber failing to flee, and Nolan's romance with Delilah...

My favorite ending, by the way, is "Lucky."

Thank you. I wasn't able to get them all quite where I wanted them, especially the first one, but I think it's a huge improvement. For those of you who haven't dug around in the credits.txt, TheTourist slogged through the Alpha like a champ and offered some very detailed feedback that helped me shape this thing up for release.

Now, no pressure, but I'm especially looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.

I was so excited to finish this, I was like, "Finally, I can take a break from Ren'py, play some games, work on prose, etc. etc.," and first thing this morning I was like, "Oh, I have another game idea!" *scribble scribble* There's NO ESCAPE, apparently. PyTom made it too easy.

OMIGOSH YES
Downloading now! ; v ; <3
EDIT: ; w ; b

<3

All right--I'm still in the middle of playing this but I'm stopping by to say this is a TRULY amazing game in terms of ambience. It feels like you really pushed the engine to new heights, in a way I've never seen done. You have a judicious eye for graphics and visuals.

I'm super impressed where you took this. I feel like I'm watching a Hitchcock film.

(Ok...returning to game now...)

Thanks Obscura. I love Hitchcock, that's a huge compliment. I'm just about to fire up Coming Out On Top, I've been wanting to play it all week and now I am freeeeee.

[DragoonHP]

The presentation was truly beautiful, well-thought and simply amazing. The subtle animation here and there breathed life in the game. And the writing and the overall mood of the game was pretty good too,

By the way, was there any specific reason you choose to colour only some parts of the sprites, like (blue) hair-band for Kimber or the (red) glasses for Sasha?

PS: Just a (very) small nitpick, in one of the "golden room" scene (specifically in Act I), the sweep right transistion leaves a thin strip of pixels visible.
Mind the black space around the sides.

[saguaro]

By the way, was there any specific reason you choose to colour only some parts of the sprites, like (blue) hair-band for Kimber or the (red) glasses for Sasha?

Someone mentioned it was difficult to distinguish between the all-black silhouettes in the demo, so I added just enough color to make them easily distinguishable at a glance. It didn't occur to me to color the hair and outfits, but that might look cool. I may try it to see if I can get it to look right.

PS: Just a (very) small nitpick, in one of the "golden room" scene (specifically in Act I), the sweep right transistion leaves a thin strip of pixels visible.
Mind the black space around the sides.

Good catch, I will fix that on the next update. And thanks for playing through (until the bitter end) <3.

[dreamingdaze]

Very enjoyable, I love the polish and the original presentation of this visual novel. Very unique and original in my eyes, which made me unable to stop playing/reading until I got all endings. I would have loved a longer read, but it definitely was very well done.

I look forward to your next work.

[Reikun]

Nothing like 100% completion

Played this last night and it was great! I felt like a few parts in the beginning where it segued to descriptions of the past broke up the flow a bit, making Jacqueline seem a lot softer than she was presented in the demo (is this a good this? xD). I thought those parts provided enough backstory to show

why Jacqueline was so ruthless in doing business, but not quite enough to show how or why she became an alcoholic.

I also caught a few typos:
-- "SHe smiled at me"; when Jac is talking about how her mother died
-- "she was hard to understand him in those last few days"; same scene
There was another one where I think an "n" was in place of where an "m" should've been (or vice versa), but I can't seem to find it...

It was cool that you could choose which act you wanted to start from. If you do this in future works, you may want to consider having subsequent acts unlock as the player completes/reaches them.

But what happened to the being-rushed-into-the-hospital scene that you had in the demo? :0

Overall, good work! My favorite ending was "Boss" xD

[DragoonHP]

Someone mentioned it was difficult to distinguish between the all-black silhouettes in the demo, so I added just enough color to make them easily distinguishable at a glance. It didn't occur to me to color the hair and outfits, but that might look cool. I may try it to see if I can get it to look right..

I thought there was some hidden meaning :-p

[ixWishing]

Asdfghjkl.
Just finished the Visual Novel last night.
It was great!

However, I felt like there wasn't enough to Jac's past & backstory.

Same goes for the death of Jac's lawyer, and more on why Charles left.
Hmmm. At first, I though this Visual Novel would be more of a "find the clues, and find out the killer" type of mystery.
Haha. Guess not xD;; .

Overall, it was stunning, graphics & storyplot.

[saguaro]

Very enjoyable, I love the polish and the original presentation of this visual novel. Very unique and original in my eyes, which made me unable to stop playing/reading until I got all endings. I would have loved a longer read, but it definitely was very well done.

Thank you for playing. I agree that this one feels a little short, I look forward to stretching out and exploring a longer story in my next project.

Played this last night and it was great! I felt like a few parts in the beginning where it segued to descriptions of the past broke up the flow a bit, making Jacqueline seem a lot softer than she was presented in the demo (is this a good this? xD). I thought those parts provided enough backstory to show why Jacqueline was so ruthless in doing business, but not quite enough to show how or why she became an alcoholic.

I agree, she talks about a connection between drinking and her mother's approval, but I think I failed to show how incredibly stressful Jac's job/life was.

It was cool that you could choose which act you wanted to start from. If you do this in future works, you may want to consider having subsequent acts unlock as the player completes/reaches them.

D: That menu is supposed to unlock as each act is completed, I must have left my "dev" menu in place. I will fix this, and the typos you mentioned, next update.

But what happened to the being-rushed-into-the-hospital scene that you had in the demo? :0

I felt that to make the scene work I would need to use some paid assets, and I decided to scrap it in favor of keeping the entire game "free". Part of my original challenge to myself was to see how far I could get with free assets.

And thank you for playing, I always appreciate your feedback.

However, I felt like there wasn't enough to Jac's past & backstory. ...Hmmm. At first, I though this Visual Novel would be more of a "find the clues, and find out the killer" type of mystery. Haha. Guess not xD;; .

I originally had the idea of a more interactive mystery but having a narrator character with locked-in syndrome presented challenges (no leg work, no interrogations, etc.). I had trouble thinking of ways to relay information to the player that didn't read like info-dumping. Characters could have conversations in front of her, and she could overhear the radio/tv, but otherwise she would have to rely entirely on her memory. I ended up streamlining the mystery aspect because of this.