Nowhere Safe [commercial] [psychological] [thriller]

[leon]

Very nicely done and polished. The writing, the art and the music are all very good.

Aya: "You are just using me to satisfy your maid fetish."

This line made my day.

Oh, and it seems like everyone has a psychological illness, but that's not the case.

Of course not. I wasn't just talking about psychological issues. Let me explain:
(snip)

You left out the first psychiatrist. That scene was awesome, by the way.

Oh yeah, it worked for me in Chrome.

Just a couple of things that bothered me:
You could be a bit more forward that this is chapter one. It ends with a cliffhanger and while there is some conclusion, the main plot isn't finished.

I haven't gone trough the game more than once, but it seems like the choices have no or very little effect on the story. Also, on the first choice, I chose to open the door, but the story continued like I haven't (MC said to Aya she was too afraid to open the door).

[SusanTheCat]

I enjoyed playing this game. The story was diverting and entertaining. The characters were fun.

I felt like it was supposed to be a stat raising game, but then it wasn't. The "What should I do today." comment and the ending of every day by staring at the ceiling. And the days where there is nothing between those scenes.

The clicking on the doorknob felt like a mechanic that didn't quite work. It worked well for the final scene. Maybe it would have been better to use it in other places such as the phone to really illustrate her difficulty with the outside.

I had some issues with the engine:
- lack of saving
- lack of rollback
- lack of fast-forward
- full-screen didn't keep the aspect ratio so everyone was short and fat
- the image didn't resize when you resized the window

I had to keep my computer turned on for three days because my game kept getting interrupted. (Joy of being a Mom). Since I couldn't save and I couldn't skip through previously seen scenes, I had to keep my computer running.

The game is worth the price and I look forward to future releases.

Susan

[redpandastudio]

Very nicely done and polished. The writing, the art and the music are all very good.

Aya: "You are just using me to satisfy your maid fetish."

This line made my day.

Oh, and it seems like everyone has a psychological illness, but that's not the case.

Of course not. I wasn't just talking about psychological issues. Let me explain:
(snip)

You left out the first psychiatrist. That scene was awesome, by the way.

Oh yeah, it worked for me in Chrome.

Just a couple of things that bothered me:
You could be a bit more forward that this is chapter one. It ends with a cliffhanger and while there is some conclusion, the main plot isn't finished.

I haven't gone trough the game more than once, but it seems like the choices have no or very little effect on the story. Also, on the first choice, I chose to open the door, but the story continued like I haven't (MC said to Aya she was too afraid to open the door).

Thanks for your comments! The reason that I didn't write that it was chapter one was because I didn't want people to know that something would be left unsettled as they may be able to expect what would happen at the end of the game.

In the sequel, you will see how the first chapter was really complete in its intended purpose. I'm taking this story in a direction that will be twisted in the most unexpected ways.

A lot of people got confused about what Kimiko says about opening the door. She says, "I'm sorry. I was afraid to open the door so late."

This doesn't mean that she didn't open the door. The idea is that she was afraid to open it, and therefor it took her some time to muster the nerve, so she didn't open it in time, and Aya got tired of waiting and then left. However, a lot of people have commented about that line being confusing, so I should really change it.

Again, thank you!

[redpandastudio]

I enjoyed playing this game. The story was diverting and entertaining. The characters were fun.

I felt like it was supposed to be a stat raising game, but then it wasn't. The "What should I do today." comment and the ending of every day by staring at the ceiling. And the days where there is nothing between those scenes.

The clicking on the doorknob felt like a mechanic that didn't quite work. It worked well for the final scene. Maybe it would have been better to use it in other places such as the phone to really illustrate her difficulty with the outside.

I had some issues with the engine:
- lack of saving
- lack of rollback
- lack of fast-forward
- full-screen didn't keep the aspect ratio so everyone was short and fat
- the image didn't resize when you resized the window

I had to keep my computer turned on for three days because my game kept getting interrupted. (Joy of being a Mom). Since I couldn't save and I couldn't skip through previously seen scenes, I had to keep my computer running.

The game is worth the price and I look forward to future releases.

Susan

Hi Susan! Thanks so much for your support.

All of those features you listed will be added in the next game, but I'm not sure about fast forwarding yet. I think I found a way to do it without breaking everything, but it will take me some time to make sure it really works.

As for the full screen issue, do you have a really large or wide monitor? Some people with extra wide monitors, may have that issue, but I've never actually seen it. Would you mind sending me a print screen so I can work with the engine developers on it for a solution?

Yes! I had originally intended for it to be a stat raising game, but I changed my mind because I was worried about how people would react to the game if they got one of the "fail" endings (since it's so short). I couldn't think of a decent way to design around it, so I decided to leave out the stats this time. Also, there ended up being so much that happened each day, that it didn't really need the extra activities to move the time along (and therefor didn't need the stats). However, there are some very static days as a consequence of leaving them out.

Again, thanks! And sorry about the save feature. I figured that 30-45 minutes wouldn't be enough to warrant one, but I'll throw one in for the next chapter.

[Blane Doyle]

Ok, I just played through this game and...
I'm sorry, I didn't enjoy it.

I think I share a lot of the opinions of Taleweaver, honestly. The backgrounds look nice, the sprites (while stock) were polished and neat and looked alright against them, and overall the game looked fine. The music was ok, though sometimes it barely played for 15 seconds because of the short stints and my reading speed. The sound effects were pretty clear, which I found refreshing in an online game. I am used to static or dull sound effects in online games. I'm overlooking many technical aspects as you mention they are not part of the free version, which I did play. I will say I did like how the sprites moved.

But were were things I took issue with. I noticed multiple problems in the writing and how it was formatted. There were many times when the dialogue would look like narration and vice versa, and typos were in quite a few places (for example, in the very beginning there is a line about "pour sop soup" when I am sure it meant "poor sop soup", but correct me if I am wrong here, and there were placed when there would be a " at the end of a word but not at the beginning when it was meant to be quoted).

This is a personal preference, but I am not a fan of large exposition at the beginning of a story, especially when it simply involves being told about an event instead of being shown an event (via flashback for example). I am also not fond of when this is mirrored at the end. Again, this is just personal preference and I know this does not bother everyone.

And the genre seems to be a bit muddled. I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be slice of life, thriller (which is not technically horror, though it can be, it is classified as suspense I believe), or what have you. When it seemed to be going in one direction it seemed to flip flop so... could it be a mix of them or genreless just to tell a story? Either is normally fine but I am very confused.

However, I would have been able to largely overlook most this if things were a bit more... believable. I will put things under spoilers for now.

I had an extremely hard time believing some of these events. My mother is agoraphobic so I think you have a good handle on how phobias can work, so that is what really what I find unbelievable. Honestly, mental illnesses work different for everyone so even exaggerated or under exaggerated cases in fiction can have some place in reality. These seemed believable enough for me.

No, what I found hard to believe were the situations involving certain characters. Why was a police officer called to her house a second time for a medical emergency instead of, or with, a paramedic? Why did Kimiko grab a knife right off the bat? (This one just seems more extreme than what we had seen with her so far, so if there is an explanation I will take it.) Why was the police officer flirting with Kento, that seemed extremely unprofessional? Speaking of unprofessional, an assistant to a therapist or psychiatrist saying "that's a personal problem" to someone calling for help is extremely unprofessional and it just sort of a jerk thing to say to someone in general, especially when they are supposed to be used to dealing with (however briefly) clients with mental disorders.

And the doctor herself is very bad at doing her job. There are two things that I was under the impression doctors are not supposed to do with patients: sleep with them and break Doctor-Patient confidentiality. I don't know if it is really that different in Japan, but she did the later very early on. And doctors do not generally talk to patients about their personal lives, in my and family experiences, unless it is extremely vague. I can understand the end, as that is potentially life threatening, but at the same time it seems unbelievable as I don't most doctors would willingly become personally involved with patients to this degree while still working with them on a professional level.

I dunno, it just seemed sort of... "out there" for lack of a better term at the moment. It didn't really feel realistic, it really felt like I was reading full fiction to me because of these things. The characters themselves I can buy to an extent, unfortunately from personal experience for some (like Aya... I really don't have a soft spot for Aya). It's the situations and the actions of the one I detailed above that make it difficult for me to enjoy this game for what it is.

I am glad that you have people who do enjoy the game for what it is however, and I am sorry that I could not be one of them...

[jack_norton]

Hadn't time to play it, just wanted to comment on the price tag. At $2.99, you "lose" to BMT micro (the vendor you're using) OVER 50% of the price. That's because vendor companies have minimum charges, which in this case varies from $0.75 to $1.25 depending on the plan you signed up. But even other vendors have high minimum to pay for each item sold, usually not less than $0.70.
That's not going to work commercially speaking. It's better to release a bigger/better game and charge $15-20-25-30, than a series of smaller games for such low price.

Really simple example:
If you sell 10 copies of your game, people pay $29.99 and you end up with less than $15 in your pocket.
If someone buy Loren+expansion, people pay $34.99 and I end up with (more or less) $29.99 in my pocket.

So either you find another vendor (maybe paypal but is a pain to setup) or as you can see your strategy has a big flaw hope this helps.

[redpandastudio]

Ok, I just played through this game and...
I'm sorry, I didn't enjoy it.

I think I share a lot of the opinions of Taleweaver, honestly. The backgrounds look nice, the sprites (while stock) were polished and neat and looked alright against them, and overall the game looked fine. The music was ok, though sometimes it barely played for 15 seconds because of the short stints and my reading speed. The sound effects were pretty clear, which I found refreshing in an online game. I am used to static or dull sound effects in online games. I'm overlooking many technical aspects as you mention they are not part of the free version, which I did play. I will say I did like how the sprites moved.

But were were things I took issue with. I noticed multiple problems in the writing and how it was formatted. There were many times when the dialogue would look like narration and vice versa, and typos were in quite a few places (for example, in the very beginning there is a line about "pour sop soup" when I am sure it meant "poor sop soup", but correct me if I am wrong here, and there were placed when there would be a " at the end of a word but not at the beginning when it was meant to be quoted).

This is a personal preference, but I am not a fan of large exposition at the beginning of a story, especially when it simply involves being told about an event instead of being shown an event (via flashback for example). I am also not fond of when this is mirrored at the end. Again, this is just personal preference and I know this does not bother everyone.

And the genre seems to be a bit muddled. I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be slice of life, thriller (which is not technically horror, though it can be, it is classified as suspense I believe), or what have you. When it seemed to be going in one direction it seemed to flip flop so... could it be a mix of them or genreless just to tell a story? Either is normally fine but I am very confused.

However, I would have been able to largely overlook most this if things were a bit more... believable. I will put things under spoilers for now.

I had an extremely hard time believing some of these events. My mother is agoraphobic so I think you have a good handle on how phobias can work, so that is what really what I find unbelievable. Honestly, mental illnesses work different for everyone so even exaggerated or under exaggerated cases in fiction can have some place in reality. These seemed believable enough for me.

No, what I found hard to believe were the situations involving certain characters. Why was a police officer called to her house a second time for a medical emergency instead of, or with, a paramedic? Why did Kimiko grab a knife right off the bat? (This one just seems more extreme than what we had seen with her so far, so if there is an explanation I will take it.) Why was the police officer flirting with Kento, that seemed extremely unprofessional? Speaking of unprofessional, an assistant to a therapist or psychiatrist saying "that's a personal problem" to someone calling for help is extremely unprofessional and it just sort of a jerk thing to say to someone in general, especially when they are supposed to be used to dealing with (however briefly) clients with mental disorders.

And the doctor herself is very bad at doing her job. There are two things that I was under the impression doctors are not supposed to do with patients: sleep with them and break Doctor-Patient confidentiality. I don't know if it is really that different in Japan, but she did the later very early on. And doctors do not generally talk to patients about their personal lives, in my and family experiences, unless it is extremely vague. I can understand the end, as that is potentially life threatening, but at the same time it seems unbelievable as I don't most doctors would willingly become personally involved with patients to this degree while still working with them on a professional level.

I dunno, it just seemed sort of... "out there" for lack of a better term at the moment. It didn't really feel realistic, it really felt like I was reading full fiction to me because of these things. The characters themselves I can buy to an extent, unfortunately from personal experience for some (like Aya... I really don't have a soft spot for Aya). It's the situations and the actions of the one I detailed above that make it difficult for me to enjoy this game for what it is.

I am glad that you have people who do enjoy the game for what it is however, and I am sorry that I could not be one of them...

Thanks so much for taking the time to write all of those things, even though you didn't enjoy the game.

I would start by asking, "Do you have any friends that are doctors, nurses, or lawyers?"

The reason I ask this is because I have friends that are doctors and nurses, and I would never want them to have anything to do with my health. People in professions often break their professionalism and or are normal people that do stupid things, especially depending on where you live in the world... I'm sure some people may or may not share this experience.

It should be "poor" not "pour"! I don't know how I missed that. I even looked it up because I had never actually written it out before. The game was tested extensively, and I think that came up, but it may be a coding issue where the engine didn't pick up the edited text file. I will take a look at that. Thanks!

I don't think that the game needs to fit into a specific genre, but I will try to be more careful about how I categorize it next time to avoid the confusion.

The police officer came to the house a second time because it just happens to be her area. I thought that people would infer that a medical examiner came as well, which is how she knew about the overdose, but people thought that it was her direct information and were also confused, so I will need to have her plainly state that, I guess. At the time of writing, it didn't seem significant enough to state.

The police officer asking if Kento was Kimiko's boyfriend is there for two reasons. It's to let the reader know that Kento is really handsome to other women, and also, it's just supposed to be a light/funny moment after something tragic happened. I also like to make law enforcement seem incompetent in my games for some reason.

Kimiko grabs a knife because she is convinced that it is the stalker who is at the door. Her agoraphobia is peaking and she is beginning to move to a more paranoid state about everything. She is having additional stress because of finances and the time inside, etc.

The assistant is supposed to be incompetent. The reason why is because I was trying to create barriers for Kimiko to help explain why she wasn't able to make progress for so long. (because she is often running into incompetence). I am always running into incompetent people, which makes things difficult for me.

The doctor never slept with any patients. I'm not sure why you thought that. The doctor has her own problems, which is why she is so unprofessional, and this will be explained in the sequel.

As for not having a soft spot for Aya, you're not supposed to. She is supposed to be the friend that you hate, but can't do anything about because you don't have any other close friends and she's been your friend for so long.

I don't really like flashbacks either, but I found it unavoidable for this story. A lot of people liked reading about her past, so it's really a personal preference.

I hope that helps to answer some of the questions.

[redpandastudio]

Hadn't time to play it, just wanted to comment on the price tag. At $2.99, you "lose" to BMT micro (the vendor you're using) OVER 50% of the price. That's because vendor companies have minimum charges, which in this case varies from $0.75 to $1.25 depending on the plan you signed up. But even other vendors have high minimum to pay for each item sold, usually not less than $0.70.
That's not going to work commercially speaking. It's better to release a bigger/better game and charge $15-20-25-30, than a series of smaller games for such low price.

Really simple example:
If you sell 10 copies of your game, people pay $29.99 and you end up with less than $15 in your pocket.
If someone buy Loren+expansion, people pay $34.99 and I end up with (more or less) $29.99 in my pocket.

So either you find another vendor (maybe paypal but is a pain to setup) or as you can see your strategy has a big flaw hope this helps.

Thanks for jumping in! I don't mind losing the $0.75 per transaction for now because I don't intend it to be a permanent business strategy.

[Blane Doyle]

No no no, I didn't mean SHE slept with a patient! XD That is just one of the two things doctors really aren't supposed to do. She did break doctor-patient confidentiality, which was the second thing I mentioned and that is what got to me. Did I write my explanation off somehow? I would not be surprised, it was 7 AM after night shift.

And yeah, my grandma is a nurse. So is my aunt and cousin. And I work with two others regularly. I have also seen therapists in the past and doctor visits are a common occurrence in my family, unfortunately. That is why things seemed kinda off to me. Maybe we have had extremely different experiences? That would not surprise me in the least.

That does answer most of my questions. I wish it was a bit more clear in the story, but this is a good bit of explanation to tide me over.

I hope my feedback was, at the very least, helpful. And honestly, I do love the idea of this. I really wish I liked the execution, but maybe the sequel will win me over?

[redpandastudio]

No no no, I didn't mean SHE slept with a patient! XD That is just one of the two things doctors really aren't supposed to do. She did break doctor-patient confidentiality, which was the second thing I mentioned and that is what got to me. Did I write my explanation off somehow? I would not be surprised, it was 7 AM after night shift.

And yeah, my grandma is a nurse. So is my aunt and cousin. And I work with two others regularly. I have also seen therapists in the past and doctor visits are a common occurrence in my family, unfortunately. That is why things seemed kinda off to me. Maybe we have had extremely different experiences? That would not surprise me in the least.

That does answer most of my questions. I wish it was a bit more clear in the story, but this is a good bit of explanation to tide me over.

I hope my feedback was, at the very least, helpful. And honestly, I do love the idea of this. I really wish I liked the execution, but maybe the sequel will win me over?

Yes, I find that people often break their professionalism with me, but I'm not sure why. It could just be everyone.

I'm uploading a fix for "poor sop soup" now! That was a painful bug to see. I'm glad I used a live update tool to update the game across all sites.

Thanks again!