MELON
A downloadable game
A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO TEST THIS EARLY ALPHA DEMO OF MELON!
The Demo clearly had it's fair share of problems, but I've collected a ton of feedback which I will spend the coming weeks working on. I don't have plans to release another public Demo in the near future, but if you want access to the updated build you can contact me at a later date and tell me you're interested in trying it out :)
The feedback has really boosted my excitement for working on the game, so again, thank you everyone for giving it a shot!
MELON is a story-driven metroidvania styled game where you take the role of Melon, a combat android built by Exeter Renewable Energy Group. Melon is less interested in serving the company's nefarious purposes as a killing machine and prefers finding out more about the world and her place in it.
- Explore Weatherbeat island and unveil its secrets!
- Destroy rampant machines and the people who built them!
- Befriend the people of the island and learn what it means to be human!
- Regain your lost powers and fulfill your potential!
- Reveal Exeter's lies and end their reign of terror!
Follow the development on Twitter!
Comments
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How do I heal? I saved my game in the hopes of doing so but now I just have a low-health save... =(
Never mind, I managed to find a recharge station after discovering the scenery was actually platforms...
Now I'm stuck in a room with a compactor...
Yeah the puzzles (along with a lot of other things) are too hard, will make them easier for future releases
That puzzle wasn't hard. It's just hard to tell which objects are platforms and which are background pieces.
I'm so glad to finally play this demo! Been looking forward to it for years! Had a blast, so feedback time I suppose!
* I got stuck in the house because I could hardly see the outline of the door; may I suggest an up arrow icon whenever Mel stands by a door she can go in/out?
* Clunky ladder/jump physics are...actually super welcome. I'm glad that Mel feels like a heavy android and moves somewhat slowly.
*I definitely feel like there should be a checkpoint between getting the gun (which requires some puzzle solving) and a puzzle involving spikes and buzzsaws? It felt like there was a long stretch between checkpoints, and no one likes to re-solve long puzzles!
* I did enjoy the tricky puzzles though!
* Missing a jump from the top of the silos is a clever (if unintentional) way of implementing a death pit without actually having a death pit (because you take fall damage, get shot and immediately blown up by a grup), and I just want to respect that.
* For the boss, it feels like Mel's crouching shot SHOULD go underneath the boss (to help kill the crawlers), but it doesn't, so there can be a crawler hiding behind the boss sprite. Just an annoyance, really.
Overall, solid demo! Can't wait to see more!
Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback, and yeah a couple of puzzles will be made less dangerous and made more clear. I'll also make the save/recharge near the gun more easily accessible in the mind of the player. Overall the game is lacking in polish and have some fundamental mechanical flaws, but I'll work it out in the future!
You absolutely will! Even without the polish and with the flaws, the demo's a blast to play. I'm really looking forward to this. :)
How do you do the first thing where you rock the prisons in the intro?
Yeah sorry about that, it's clearly crap. Press left/right when Melon's cage is at her lowest point
OK, After a couple hours with it, I'm loving this game. I love all the tiny details like the dripping humidity in the caves, and the grass swaying in the wind, and how water splashes when you fall in, and the dust particles when you jump, and the frankly impressively detailed animations (I can't get over how lively Melon's hair looks, for instance).
The off-center fullscreen thing I commented about before is most likely due to the resolution of my old monitor, I'm playing it on the TV now (1080p) and the fullscreen option of the in-game menu works as expected.
In case you're interested to know, I'm using a Steam controller and it works mighty fine (which is to be expected if you already tried a 360 one, but still, I guess it's good to know).
Question: I reached this point in the map and I can't seem to reach the ledge on the left, nor can I get to the top of silos 01 or 04 (where two chests are mocking me). I'm pretty sure I have nowhere else to go in the map and this would seem to be the way forward. What am I missing?
Hey, so this was a bit tricky; this is a dead end in the demo (I think?), but head back to the previous vertical room...and go up along the right side! You'll find a path.
Hey thanks for letting me know your experience with the game! And yeah that other comment is right, going back and up from the crevasse is the actual way forward :)
OK, now I finished it. Looking forward to that cake :D
Just for my own peace of mind: Is there a way to go back from the last section after I closed the two waterfalls? I figured I could try the dive ability on previous areas, but I couldn't find a way to return.
Also, is there a way to get to the chest in this screenshot?
No you can't get back from that section in the demo, but in the full game you get to go back and explore what you missed shortly after, when you're done in Sky City. :)
Also no, you can't reach that chest from the demo, so it's kind of a troll chest.
And hey, thanks for taking the time to finish the whole thing! I hope it wasn't too painful XD
When I go fullscreen via the options menu, something weird happens: The image is slightly off-centered, I get a black bars on the left and on top, whereas the right and bottom sides of the image get cut out (just as seen in the image below).
However, if I go windowed in the options menu and force fullscreen by pressing ALT+ENTER, then the image is perfectly centered.
No idea what this is about. I'm using a 1366x768 monitor, in case that's important.
Do you have (or plan on having) a discord server? It seems to be pretty useful when it comes to give feedback and for general interaction between devs and the community.
Edit: I deleted a comment because I had gotten stuck and after I made a question I realized what I was supposed to do. Sometimes I'm a massive idiot XD
I'm enjoying the game so far, the controls need a tad of tuning at some points (particularly I think a wee bit of Coyote Time for the platforming would go a long way, as the limits of the platforms are way too strict right now; and the swimming feels somewhat unintuitive), but for the most part it feels responsive and I really enjoyed it overall. There's definitely the core of a solid game in there.
Hey thanks for the feedback! So as for the full screen stuff, I'll look into that later, it might be some case I've missed, that I'm not supporting enough resolutions or something, I'm glad Alt+Enter worked for you though, so that's "fine". As for Discord server that's not a bad idea. Kinda don't want the added pressure of managing a Discord along with building a game in my freetime, but might set one up in the future for people who are interested enough that they'd want to playtest on the regular. I'll work hard on improving all the issues with the demo in the coming weeks, but I'm glad you're enjoying something about the game atleast :)
Controls are a bit weird and swimming in water seems a little unresponsive. Love the art and the concept. The game looks really good.
Yeah swimming in particular is pretty damn bad, will work on that and all the other issues in the near future. Thanks for testing it out!
cant get past the first level
with the rocking chambers, idk if its just me but seems impossible
Yeah I've gotten a lot of feedback on that, the key is pressing when the cages are at their lowest points, judging from how many people how this same problem it's clearly broken and I will rebuild it for a future update, busy going through all the feedback I've received right now :)
I actually ran into a problem where sometimes I would press left (or right) and they would simply...not push the cage, and I lose all my momentum. It's probably related to the timing/momentum calculation (that is, I noticed you can't push left while the cage is moving right), although maybe the timing between the cages?
yeah they're really finicky, been working on improving that but won't push an update just for that, so if you're really stuck I'd just suggest skipping the intro