I've been making a wacky surreal adventure game by the name of:
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEzODk3OTg3LnBuZw==/original/gnE8pp.png)
This game has been in development for over a year and it'll be released in a little more than a week! I wish I had found Exilian earlier to announce it here but I guess better late than never.
Here's the game on ITCH (https://wavey-games.itch.io/melon-head)
Here's a link to the AGS forum (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/ags-games-in-production/melon-head/) where I've been devlogging too.
Story:
In the hedonistic capital of His Majesty's Realm a faceless king commissions a local sculptor, Melon Head, our protagonist whose head is shaped like a melon, to craft an extension to His royal staff.
An extraordinary vision reveals an object of rare composition: A Crystal Iris Distillate. Pursuing the parts needed to craft the object essential in fulfilling the royal request, Melon Head precipitates to a strange adventure across His Majesty's Realm. He must use cunning, questionable morals and sharpness of intellect to succeed in his task and, ultimately, to choose between allegiance to his perceived benefactor and the rising forces of dissidence seeking to overthrow the balance of power.
Current status of the developement is:
Coming out October 1st 2024!PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING:
This game contains flashing lights that may not be suitable for people with photosensitive epilepsy.
Player discretion is advised.
Features:
-Strange characters of undefined species.
-Puzzles to intrigue the mind (item puzzles, dialog trees and other stuff).
-A built in hint system if you get stuck.
-Exploration of different areas of His Majesty's Realm.
-Three endings depending on choices.
-Colorful and highly saturated pixel art on a 16-color palette (an original art style using the EGA palette).
-Psychedelic visions.
-An out there jazzy original soundtrack.
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjMzMzIwMC8xMzgzMjAyMS5wbmc=/347x500/4bxUt8.png)(https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjMzMzIwMC8xMzgyMjc3NC5wbmc=/347x500/%2FT8DPA.png)(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzE1MjA3ODgyLnBuZw==/x200/7VEybB.png)(https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjMzMzIwMC8xMzgyMjc3OC5wbmc=/347x500/P36HaD.png)(https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjUwMzY5OS8xNjI1NTczNy5wbmc=/347x500/Zz%2BSdH.png)
Here's a picture of Melon Head himself:
(https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEzODMyMDA5LnBuZw==/315x250%23c/gsPANQ.png)
This looks delightfully weird and I'm very here for it :) Looking forward to being able yo give it a go!
Thanks Jubal!
The demo version is indeed available to play right now, so if you should feel the urge to delve into a strange world a bit, be my guest ^-^
I played the demo! It is indeed bizarre :) The wall-mounted food unit really sets the tone at the start...
The only bit I had issues with:
Spoiler
The breaker box. I assumed that the numbers were of connections, so I set it up such that e.g. there were two connections from Z-marked elements and then got very confused why it didn't work for a while. I got there eventually though.
Awesome! First of all, thanks for playing!
Interesting to hear how you thought about the breaker box. There's quite a chance to be mislead there.
The easiest way to solve the puzzle,
Spoiler
I think, is to focus on the pipes first and only then on the symbols, after all, you may get the upper middle one wrong even if all the pipes are connected. Then you would need to refer to the symbols.
Yeah, once I knew what I was being asked for I didn't take too long to mess around with it and get a solution :)
The EGA art style really gives me early 90s PC flashbacks; really evocative!
QuoteThe EGA art style really gives me early 90s PC flashbacks; really evocative!
Awesome, thanks!
I found the color codes for the EGA palette in wikipedia and started to play around with them in pixel art studio. It was a small epiphany I got, like
this is what gives games of that era their look. :D
Yeah, I've not even played that many games from that era - I guess maybe the early Space Quest and King's Quest games used that palette and I've played those - but even from that I find it a very evocative palette.
When I made my Doctor Who adventure game a few years back I made a lot of the graphics by making a photo collage, crunching it down to pixelly sizes, then applying an index/palette to the result (and maybe doing some post-pixelling for details), which is not a good way to make pixel art but it worked better than I felt it deserved to!
QuoteYeah, I've not even played that many games from that era - I guess maybe the early Space Quest and King's Quest games used that palette and I've played those - but even from that I find it a very evocative palette.
Space Quest and King's Quest use that palette for sure, and a lot of point and click games from the late eighties and early nineties. I haven't played them much either, really. I've seen some new text parser games resurrecting the palette lately. On top of that the palette just has a high saturation and brightness we don't see that much in pixel art these days.
QuoteWhen I made my Doctor Who adventure game a few years back I made a lot of the graphics by making a photo collage, crunching it down to pixelly sizes, then applying an index/palette to the result (and maybe doing some post-pixelling for details), which is not a good way to make pixel art but it worked better than I felt it deserved to!
I think that sounds like a pretty inventive process! :) Is the game somewhere available?
Quote from: Miggo on September 24, 2024, 10:38:24 PMI think that sounds like a pretty inventive process! :) Is the game somewhere available?
Yis! It's available on itch (https://jubalbarca.itch.io/life), and there's a discussion forum here (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=240.0) for it. I don't think anyone's ever played it much, but I'd be interested in feedback if you do give it a go! The basic pitch is that you're an anti-Dalek resistance member and you can hop around different planets, there's a few different ways to solve the endgame depending on which bits of the game you choose to go for more :)
Aha! now I see what you've done with the art. I'll be sure to give it a go!
My childhood was a bunch of EGA games, such as LOOM (which they absolutely butchered when they did a VGA conversion, just sapped all the nuance out of it):
(https://www.superrune.com/tutorials/images/loom/loom_room050_ega.gif)
(https://www.superrune.com/tutorials/images/loom/loom_room042_ega.gif)
Oh! Loom's EGA version is very beautiful!
It's too bad only the VGA version is available on steam and gog. This seems to be the case for many classic adventure games.
The release is close at hand so I got all nostalgic. Melon Head actually started off as isometric! I took a little gameplay vid of the prototype:
I thought it would take ages to craft detailed graphics for an environment like that so I switched the art style, but it looks pretty cool (it's got some more of those EGA-graphics). :-D
Oh wow! I can see how that would have taken ages for a bigger game, but it's a very nice style: it could be fun to make like a super mini bonus game with that isometric bit you did do sometime, a slice of life Melon Head puzzle :) Or a slice of melon life head puzzle. Or something like that.
Yeah, there's definitely potential for something on a smaller scale, such as a slice of melon life head puzzle. ;D
Verily, Melon Head is now released and available HERE (https://wavey-games.itch.io/melon-head)!
There's a launch sale too until Oct 15th!
(https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/images/games/2787_1.png)
I finally got to playing Melon Head! And have now tootled through all five chapters of it :) I think it took me ca 3hrs start to finish, maybe?
Choices I made:
Spoiler
- Peaceful option against the Overseer
- Sided with rebels in their base
- Did put the bomb in the sceptre at the end
I'm not sure if there were other pathing choices I didn't realise I was making.
Things I especially liked:
Spoiler
- It was all suitably very weird.
- I liked the station-master throughout, his going and picking up botany made me think very strongly of the hemulens from the Moomins.
- I think the second area was probably my favourite: it took me a while to see the furthest & most hidden of the forest symbols, but in general I liked it and the characters felt very characterful there.
- The cipher puzzle was kinda enjoyable for me.
- The benevolent spirit was nice.
Frustrations:
Spoiler
- The desert bit was annoying. Just the extra clicking from having to check the compass at every point got a bit tiresome, and indeed it was a couple of runs before I realised the game turned you around at every single spot rather than it being "I check the compass then subsequent screens will have me logically going forwards". I did like the goat though. Good goat.
- The conversation with the giant. There didn't seem to be an obvious way to work out exactly what would persuade the giant so I found I was just brute forcing the conversation and I watched that slashy-slash at the giant's inside animation a few more times than a human should have to.
Anyway, generally I really enjoyed it, very good and very zany and well worth the time spent tootling through it :)
Awesome! Thanks for sharing the pros and cons you experienced.
You must be the fastest player I've encountered so far. Mostly I've seen players spend about 2 hours per chapter!
About choices:
Spoiler
The main branching happens when you either join the Rebel Boss or escape the facility. There's a slightly different puzzle chain if you choose blood with the Overseer. But yes, you didn't miss any branching moments in the story.
Hemulens! The Station Master does have a bit of a Hemuli vibe, now that you mention. :D Nice to hear you mention Bene too. I hope people will share me their favorite characters in the future.
The symbols in the forest have been a source of frustration for many players now, I might need to update the hint system at that point. I'm interested see what sort of feedback the desert maze and The Giants dialog tree puzzle will get.
And, by the way,
Spoiler
encountering the goat is random. So you may consider yourself lucky!
I'm glad you found it enjoyable in the end!
Quote from: Miggo on October 27, 2024, 09:18:48 AMYou must be the fastest player I've encountered so far.
I had played the demo so that meant I could knock through Ch. 1 very fast - my biggest speed-bump there was working out how to empty the jar again at the crime scene. And other than that... I guess it's a style of game I know well enough to design as well as well enough to play, so my brain probably follows puzzle-making logic fairly well? I tend to do "sweeps" of all the places I can get to fairly early and then I can usually start figuring out what my options are and how they fit together, especially in a game like this where there aren't many red herrings. I did use the meditation option about 2-3 times I think.
Also
Spoiler
I met the goat twice! So double luck then! And the goat is pretty useful - its bird flight direction hint definitely helped me work out how to resolve the desert maze.
And a curiosity question:
Spoiler
If you go rebel path but don't put the bomb into the staff at the end, does the game let you do that and does it change the ending?
Indeed, the demo! That brings me consolation. ;D I figured you must be familiar with the genre.
For the curiosity question:
Spoiler
Yes to both; you can leave the bomb in your inventory and get a third (secret?) ending.
Right, at some point I'll try and see if I can carve out a few hours to knock through the game fast and see the other two endings then :)
I do recommend it! :) And you may try to choose the different path in Chapter 2 if you like.
Quote from: Jubal on October 26, 2024, 09:43:50 PM- The cipher puzzle was kinda enjoyable for me.
I only now realized:
Spoiler
You must've meant the code cipher in Chapter 3, right?
Did you in fact do it the "pen and paper" -way?
Yep! :) I did spend a while trying to puzzle it out when I first found it before I had the thing explaining the logic, but I eventually decided it'd probably be made clearer later and indeed it was. :)
That's lovely to hear, actually! I was wondering if anybody will do it like that, but now it's off the checklist :D
That code was inspired by Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth where there's a code with similar logic in the beginning of the novel. :) Although, it's possible I've totally misunderstood how it works in the novel and created an original one, which would be quite funny.
...I think I'm now confused, how do you do it without a pen and paper?
Well,
Spoiler
once you have the rest of the diary pages a button that reads 'break it down' becomes visible under the code. At first it will encourage the player to break the code on their own but if you press it again it will break down the code for you.
It seems you've missed it, then? Maybe you had your own notes already that you referred to?
Yeah I'd already noted down the code as soon as I got it so I never needed to look back at it once I had the instructions!