Melon Head; a fantastical adventure in a delirious imaginary world

MIGGO · Sun 05/11/2023 10:03:08

I'm announcing my latest project:

This time it's not a simulator, not a visual novel, not an exploration game, but a bonafide point and click adventure game from the first person perspective.

After some experimentations, this game has been on the works for two months now and it will be for many months to come.

ITCH PAGE

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 his allegiance to his perceived benefactor and the rising forces of dissidence seeking to overthrow the balance of power.

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.

Current status of the developement is:

Graphics: 40%
Scripting: 35%
Dialog: 30%
Music and Sound: 25% or maybe more

Here's a picture of Melon Head himself:

RootBound · Sun 05/11/2023 11:51:08

Looks really weird and interesting. I love the character art!

agentbauer · Sun 05/11/2023 12:31:31

Looks like it is heavily inspired by Manhunter.. And I love it

heltenjon · Sun 05/11/2023 12:49:46

Melon Head looks like he might have relatives in Shape Village.

This looks suitably strange and cool. Looking forward to seeing how this shapes up!

MIGGO · Sun 05/11/2023 18:02:59

Thanks for the kind words! I'm happy to see people taking an interest.

@RootBound

QuoteLooks really weird and interesting. I love the character art!

Nice! There will be many characters to come.

@agentbauer

QuoteLooks like it is heavily inspired by Manhunter.. And I love it

I love the art of Manhunter and the world that it has. I've been deterred from seeking it out and playing though, due to the punishing gameplay of games from that era.

But I'm definitely not unhappy about the connotation!

@heltenjon

QuoteMelon Head looks like he might have relatives in Shape Village.

"And across the ages the basic shapes of Shape Village would evolve into... melons."

MIGGO · Tue 14/11/2023 17:58:21

There's a hint system built into Melon Head. If you press the 'meditation' button on the right side UI Melon Head will receive a colorful vision and a hint on how to proceed next. It's there to lessen frustration if you get stuck. The hint displayed will differ according to your progress (obviously) by taking into account what you have in your inventory, what dialog options you've chosen in conversations and sometimes which room you are in.

While I feel that putting a hint system into your game is sort of supplying the player with an easy way out and decreasing difficulty a lot, I've appreciated some of the hint systems found in point and click games that I've played. After all it's a decision of the players whether to use it or not. Solving a puzzle with a hint instead of a walkthrough also saves some self-esteem in my opinion.

One of my favorite hint systems have been the telephone in Strangeland, because it's so well woven into the game world. Another was in Black Sect Remake, because it was very much needed (at least for me) due to the game's old school design. Also I remember Machinarium, which has a sealed book that contains a drawn walkthrough. You'd have to beat a minigame everytime to open it, which challenged you to still try a puzzle on your own if you couldn't be bothered with the minigame.

Good stuff.

ThreeOhFour · Tue 21/11/2023 00:20:29

This looks superb!

MIGGO · Wed 29/11/2023 21:20:29

The green guy is being made unhappy by a mean overseer in the mine, you should intervene.

Here's a little diary update:

I've been working on Chapter Two this month and I've made some good progress on it. The second chapter takes place in the Farlands which is a region at the edge of His Majesty's Realm, which is the world of Melon Head. The region is pretty wild and rough, it's dominated by grey stone and brown soil in contrast to the blues and violets of Cyan City's night. There are some forest scenes there too!

The second chapter isn't halfway done yet, which I kinda hoped it would be by the end of November, but I also knew that would be improbable. I made the first chapter in two months but that was quite a stretch and I knew I couldn't keep making progress at that rate. Also I know the upcoming holidays are gonna bring along their own hurries as well.

If I could've kept the pace of the first two months I would've finished the game in ten months probably, around next summer, that is. But that's impossible, as I'm already slowing down and I'll have to find a new apartment in the spring which will be it's own hassle too.

A very comfortable deadline for the release of Melon Head would be early 2025. But, geez, that's aeons away.

I also have a feeling that I'm exaggerating and that the game might be ready earlier. It's still early to say, really.

But the second chapter is what I'm working on now anyway, and when it's in good order, maybe at the beginning of next year, I think it would be a good time for a playable demo. I have a very special plan for a demo...