Don't Get Your Hopes Up

Before I share my thoughts on Don’t Get Your Hopes Up, I’d like to give a shout-out to one specific person here who regularly thinks of me and points toward games that might interest me, and most of the time they really do. So thanks again for the link to this game. You usually send over music-related games to me, but you were spot on here as well, since I’m also into comics and interested in social topics, and yea music plays also a little role in this game. What Krish Raghav tackles in this visual novel is something a lot of us are familiar with and that genuinely affects many people, like how the search for housing, something seemingly mundane, can turn into an existential nightmare. I have never lived in Amsterdam but I have been there many times and still remember a conversation over 10 years ago with an artist at the former cultural center ADM, who already back then described the housing situation in Amsterdam as a catastrophe. Another city I have spent a lot of time in and unlike Amsterdam actually lived in, is Barcelona, the housing crisis there is just as severe maybe even worse. Mass tourism and rapidly rising rents have led to an almost 30 percent increase in homelessness in the past year alone. And in Berlin I can say from experience, the situation looks very similar, a severe lack of affordable housing. So it's an important and highly relevant topic. When it comes to the game itself and my overall recommendation, I feel somewhat conflicted and like many others, I wish there were a neutral option. But since this appears to be Krish Raghav’s first game, as mentioned it addresses an important topic, is free to play and certainly has its good moments, it should than get a thumbs up. Hey there Krish, this next part is directed at you and I am fairly certain you will read this at some point. I hope you can take it as constructive criticism, and I sincerely wish you all the best for your future projects. Most of the drawings appealed to me quite a lot. However, I found the occasional switch to real photographs somewhat unfitting, though that may come down to personal taste. What I mainly want to say is: I would love to see more of this, ideally with a bit more detail and you can be sure that I would even buy a comic-based game from you in the future. Also enjoyed the few synth and noise-pop tracks featured in the game. The story was decent overall and shows a certain amount of potential, but also reveals that there is still room for improvement. And sadly there are also a few aspects that were not implemented very well. Some of these are a matter of personal preference, while others are objectively noticeable shortcomings. For example, when I’m reading something, I can’t comfortably listen to music with vocals at the same time, because I tend to focus on everything at once including the music and start analyzing it, which can be quite exhausting. This tendency is more pronounced in my case than for most people, but many others experience something similar. This is known as linguistic or dual-task interference, which works like a language competition in the brain and can lead to what is called the distraction effect. It’s definitely something worth keeping in mind, when developing a similar type of game. I found the occasional clicker mechanics terrible, in such situations I would much rather have a small well-designed minigame or nothing at all. It was also disappointing that there is no sound design or ambient noise. When no music is playing the game is completely silent, except for a single moment in the story where you can hear what seems to be a stock restaurant ambience loop. On top of that the music sometimes starts very abruptly, stops just as suddenly and occasionally cuts off right in the middle, only to start again briefly and fade out after a few seconds. Things like that can sometimes drive me crazy and I’ve even stopped playing a few games because of it. Okay let’s have a final summary: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up deals with a relevant and interesting topic in a mostly comic-style way, with a fictional story and some music. It has some flaws but it’s free and worth checking out if you enjoy visual novels.