She's been answering calls all night. Tonight, you decide what she says.

It's the night shift at Plumeria Paper, a small company that sells tissues by mail order and subscription. Its customer-care line runs all night, and tonight, you're the supervisor on duty. You log in to an old office desktop and find a message from IT: MOMO, the company's customer-service AI, has been giving the wrong answers since last night.

Until they can fix her, MOMO isn't allowed to answer a single caller without your approval.

So you take the calls. You review her replies. You keep the customers happy.

Just another night at the office.

Then IT sends you a recording.

And suddenly, answering the phone is the least of your worries.

HOLD PLEASE is a short psychological horror game set on a faux early-2000s desktop. Play through the entire night shift in around 15 minutes.

HOW TO PLAY

Mouse only. Answer calls, read emails, and approve MOMO's replies with a few clicks.
Choose her replies. Listen to each caller and pick from three responses on the "MOMO Console".
Keep customers happy. Your choices affect customer satisfaction. Keep an eye on the "Queue window" to see how you're doing.
Headphones recommended. Listen closely. The sound matters.
Full screen recommended. For the best experience, play in full screen.
Desktop browser only. Play in Chrome or Firefox. Audio may not work correctly in Safari.

CONTENT WARNINGS

Flashing and flickering images
Sudden loud and disturbing sounds
Phone static and audio distortion
Themes of surveillance and being watched

PRIVACY

MOMO likes to get personal.

To tailor some of her lines to you, the game may look up your approximate location using your IP address via ipapi.co, with ipwho.is as a fallback. It may also retrieve local weather data from Open-Meteo and check your device's battery level if your browser makes it available.

This information is used only during gameplay. The game does not store it or send it anywhere else. If a lookup fails or your browser blocks access, the game will continue to work normally.

AI DISCLOSURE

No generative AI was used to create any assets in the game. All artwork, sound effects, and caller voices are human-made. MOMO's voice is generated using text-to-speech synthesis with eSpeak NG, an open-source speech synthesizer.

CREDITS

Developed by: modeux -- A two-person team making games as a hobby.

Design, code, and writing: modeux
Caller voices: modeux (modified using Praat (via Parselmouth) and FFmpeg for pitch and formant adjustments and telephone-style audio processing)