LANDLINE

"Prevent a Murder Case with a Telephone"

Out now on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/widget/2347090/

Summary

Landline is a game about using telephone to prevent a murder case that can happen in the hotel on the other side of the street.

Motivation

It seems most games these days are, regardless of their genre, requires you to move the character. So I wanted to do something different. And it was actually my biggest motivation to start creating this game.

Gameplay

Current plan is to create a tiny systemic game.

Graphics

All the sprites you can see in the image above are placeholder. I am not good at drawing, but I'll improve them anyhow.

About the Title

I know it's mundane. But hopefully, Landline is just a working title and I am probably going to change it later. But I will call it this way for now.

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Thanks for reading. Join the mailing list if you want to be notified when there's news about the game. I am not going to annoy you by sending emails everyday. So don't worry!

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Wishlist on Steam

Devlog - January 26, 2023 (Backup from TIGSource)

Long time no see! It's been quite a while since I posted the first devlog. It's a bit late, but happy new year

Although I haven't uploaded anything for a few weeks, I've made a lot of progress so far.

You can now call the hotel staff and ask for a room service on the other side of the street. This is possible because, like mobilelast mentioned, the person who answers the phone couldn't identify the caller back in the days. Maybe actual hotels in those era used internal phone lines, but hey.

Anyway, players will be able to use this trick in many circumstances. And asking for a room service is one of many things players can do with the telephone. I am still working on this aspect of the game, so I'll return to this subject later.

Also, there have been a lot of fixes and changes too. Mostly related to the core mechanic.

Thanks for reading. If you are interested in this game, I suggest you to join my mailing list.

Devlog - February 21, 2023

Hello. I hope you're having a good day. Let's get right into it.

For last few weeks, my focus was fully on the notes you can see on the upper right corner of the screen. They inform players about the objective, characters' schedule, and telephone numbers. You need to consider each factors to prevent the murderer.

With these notes, I tried to minimize verbal explanation because many players often skip reading long description about the game. I also thought about making these completely nonverbal, but that's going to be a bit confusing to comprehend from time to time.

Another big change made to the game is the time system. The game now works a little bit like turn-based games, so you can only make one call each turn that is represented as 15 minutes. When somebody picked up the phone you called and you finish talking with this character, next turn starts.

Meanwhile, the characters have their own schedule. As you can see in the image above, players can check out the characters' schedules in the notes. Preventing the murderer based on these information is the objective of this game.

Thanks for reading as always. I will upload more often from now on. I'd be appreciated if you could join my mailing list.

I am happy to announce that the Steam page of Landline is now available. You can wishlist it in the link below to be notified when the game releases.

Wishlist on Steam

Devlog - March 4, 2023 (Backup from TIGSource)

There haven't been that much changes made to the game visually, mostly because I put my time in revamping various systems. I think the more I proceed in development, the more I find problem in places that I thought to be perfect. Some mechanics I ambitiously implemented turned out to make the game more confusing, not to mention annoying bugs.

One more page has been added to the briefing notes. It shows telephone numbers players can use to make calls. I initially thought about giving players only a few numbers and then let them find more numbers through playing, but scrapped it after finding out the idea goes against the design goal.

There are some rules that players have to know to play the game properly and one of them is the condition the criminal kills the target. In this game, the criminal's target will be killed if there's no one watching the two, and if the criminal is facing the target.

It was difficult to figure out how to inform players about this. One solution I came up with is this visual indicator you can see in the image above. This will not visible if there's someone watching, and visible if no one is watching. Also, it clarifies where the criminal is facing, which makes it easier to interpret the situation.

See you next time. Feel free to join my mailing list or wishlist the game on steam.

Devlog - March 13, 2023 (Backup from TIGSource)

I'd like to mention one more time that you can the Steam page of Landline is now available. You can wishlist the game to be notified when the game releases.

Exclamation mark is now displayed above characters when they hear telephone ringing. More visual indicators like this will be added to help players understand the game better.

Meanwhile, I fixed some problems related to the gameplay. Since the game's core system is now established pretty well, I'll now focus on fixing tiny bugs and improving the gameplay experience.

Thanks for reading. Wishlist Landline on Steam!

Devlog - March 31, 2023

Since I've been worrying that players might have a difficult time figuring out what images in the notes mean, I added this big red circle which appears when the cursor is placed above them.

A lot of games these days have a very small UI elements, which makes it very hard and annoying to identify. So for my game, I am designing UIs to look very big and bold.

I hope this feature to make the game easier to comprehend. There still are many aspects of the game that may be confusing for some players, and I'll solve them one by one.

Wishlist Landline on Steam.

Devlog - April 18, 2023

Landline will have six missions. For the moment, I don't know how long it will take to finish the game. I don't necessarily want my game to be long, so I am aiming for one hour playtime.

Several little parts of the game have been tweaked. I'll make some big changes to visual elements when I finish designing puzzles.

Thanks.

Wishlist Landline on Steam.

New trailer for Landline is available now!

Devlog - April 28, 2023

Good news: I finished designing puzzles for this game. Which means I now have some time to improve the game visually. The image below shows the new telephone sprite, and although it is still work in progress, it already looks much better than the old one.

I sketched the telephone with pencil on paper, and scanned it. Then I painted over the sketch on my PC. Because the telephone is the biggest and the most eye-catching thing in the entire screen, I am putting a lot of effort in it. I'll share more information when I make further progress.

Full screenshot with the new telephone. I am looking forward to enhance other sprites as well!

Wishlist Landline on Steam.

Devlog - April 30, 2023

Hello. I am continuing polishing Landline this weekend. Release date will be announced soon. Wishlist it and stay tuned!

There are several telephones in the game that you can call. Initially, these telephones' numbers were shown to players through text, which was pathetic. Now, the game does this in a much better manner. Check the screenshot below.

When cursor is placed on the hotel, these numbers pop up. They indicate numbers allocated for each telephone. I think it's much clearer and intuitive.

Wishlist Landline on Steam!

Devlog - May 8, 2023

Hello. I am excited to tell you that Landline will be released on May 19, 2023 at 6PM PDT. If you haven't wishlisted the game yet, I recommend you to do so.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347090/Landline

This is the new pause menu. The three page notes I mentioned a few months ago seemed too inefficient in informing players. So I moved the numbers instruction and the objective information page to other places. If you've been following this devlog for a while, you'll notice other stuffs that have been improved or changed.

I am currently thinking about whether the game could be played only with mouse. Setting mouses the only input device will probably make the game more accessible to people who are not familiar with digital games. But at the same time, it might make it a little bit unconfortable to people who are used to playing games. Maybe it's not something to worry about, since I just can enable the game to be played only with cursor, while adding some keyboard shortcuts!

One of the things bugged me for a long time is the difficulty in teaching the game rules to players. I thought about interactive tutorial, video explanation, etc. But I ended up just placing these texts. Simple solutions are sometimes better than using fancy ways that might generate adverse effect by misleading players.

As I told you above, Landline will be released on May 19. Wishlist Landline on Steam so you don't miss it!

The press Kit for Landline is now available. If you write game reviews, feel free to use resources in the kit!

Landline will be released 1 hour and 25 minutes later!

Landline is out now!

You can get Landline with a introductory 15% discount for one week. Don’t sleep on it!