itch.io

Hotfix 02/04/2020

• Replaced the third tutorial level with a more intuitive and clearer layout. I hope this helps the people that were getting overwhelmed and stuck.
• For those still having trouble trying pausing and pressing "?" for 'help.

Hotfix 01/04/2020

• Added floaty text to some events in the game. Such as soothing a creature, hatching an egg, or upsetting a creature.
• Emotion moving animations are now slightly slower, and hopefully easier to see what is happening.
• Egg Plants again update their total emotions if they eat emotions as they hatch.
• Corrected the ordering of the level medals. (vacation and tumbler switched)
• Corrected the wrong voice line having a chance to play in the early matches.

A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.22b

Compendiums, Vacations and Reactions

Hi everyone, 

We’re almost ready for a wider release! I’ve been focusing on getting everything ship shape and ready to go. There are so many quality of life changes, new sounds, art, and bug fixes. Along with all these little things, there’s a few bigger things too. Now all the creatures and eggplants react when they are soothed or upset, by flashing, moving, and making sounds. I also added Creature Vacations, where each match one of the basic creatures will go on holidays, so they won’t be around or in need of cheering up. Along with that there’s new button art and animations for the menus, new sounds for the Singing Girl, and a creature compendium, which tells you about all the creatures as you unlock them. The most immediately obvious change are the Creature and Egg Plant reactions. They now flash blue/green when they are soothed, and orange when they are angered. When creatures are angered they take longer to soothe and can reach new emotional states with more powerful abilities. However when Egg Plants are angered they take longer to hatch, and when soothed they hatch more quickly. It should be much easier now to see the results of your actions, and the effects that the creatures are having on one another and on the Egg Plants.

Last patch I made it so that you unlock different sets of creatures as you get better at escaping from the desert, I’ve now added a Creature Compendium to the game, which shows you these creatures as you unlock them. Once unlocked you can see them in the compendium in the main menu. Each creature has a picture and a short description. As you unlock new creatures you’ll get a splash screen that shows their compendium page to you as well. I’ve also added a button to the pre-game screen to let you preview which creatures you’re up against this match.

One of the issues with the late game is that matches can feel a little too similar, to help address this issue I’ve added Creature Vacations. Now once you unlock it one of the basic creatures will go on vacation and won’t appear in the desert this match. This will help prevent players from relying too much on the particular abilities of once creature type. To complement this I’ve also made the order in which creatures appear each match a lot more randomised.

In addition to all these major features I’ve added a bunch of new art and recorded a bunch of new sounds. You’ll notice that all of the main characters in game voice lines have been updated as well as a few new ones added. Pebble people and Scarab hosts now have proper attack animations, and I’ve fixed some bugs that were stopping their current state from displaying properly. Ecstatic Pricklers finally have their own art. I have a new title screen background. And all the menu buttons have new art and animations, and sounds. I hope you like a few transition animations I’ve added, especially the one in the start match loading screen. Adding all this stuff allowed me to redesign a lot of the code base making things more clear and easier to update in the future.

Make sure to check out the past couple of patch notes if you want to see other recent features I designed to make the game more accessible and deeper.

So please let me know what you think!

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Hot Fixes 10/02/2020 Based on your feedback I’ve tweaked the first few matches to make the game even more accessible to new players. These will hopefully help with learning the game especially as you are starting out. Please let me know what you think. Please delete your previous saves to ensure there isn’t any funny business when playing this new patch.

• I've added a very simplified starting match which has reduced size and features the small egg, the agave, and the pebble people.
• The 2nd match also takes place on this small map and adds the Leap Frog and the Chord Egg
• The 3rd match moves to the bigger map and adds the Bramblers and the Cadenza Egg. 
• The first four matches also have some bonus starting time, to give a bit of extra freedom to learn how things work.
• The first two matches have reduced amounts of Emotional Energy on the ground at the start of the match. 1st Match 2 piles of 1, 2nd match 4 piles of 1.
• Adjusted the compendium to reflect these changes.
• Added Unlock splash screens to inform you as you unlock the new features.

Gameplay features and changes

• Added visible flashes when creatures are soothed or angered. They flash a green-blue when being soothed, and flash orange when being angered. In addition to small sprite movement animations
• Added visible flashes to Egg Plants when they are helped or hindered from hatching. Green-blue when sped-up, orange when delayed. In addition to small sprite movement animations
• Added animations of vines lashing out when Egg Plants eat Emotional Energy
• Added a Creature Compendium so you can learn about all the different creatures currently in the desert.
• Added splash screens after matches where you unlock new creatures.
• Made the pregame gems into buts so you can preview the creatures you’ll be up against this match.
• You can now flee the Tumbler fight by outlasting the timer. If you do you will be rewarded for each Tumbler emotional state you have soothed them through.
• Pebble People now throw pebbles each time they try to move, making it clear which tiles they are upsetting.
• Scarab hosts now slash the air each time they try to move, making it clear which tiles they are upsetting.
• Your emotional energy bar (outside ring) now flashes green when you collect emotional energy.
• Added animation and sounds for whenever you move to a new tile.
• Added sound effects to the menu system.
• Balance: On Vacation, one basic creature is unavailable during each match. This feature unlocks at the same time and the Emerald + Tigerseye. This means the total number of Creatures is 7 down from 8, or 4 before unlock.
• Balance: Increased the players starting emotional energy from 36 to 50, to make the early game a little less stressful.
• Balance: Moved Pebble People to the Emerald gemstone creature set.
• Balance: Moved the Pricklers to the Tigerseye gemstone creature set.
• New voice line for collecting emotional energy.
• New SFX and art for basic notes.
• New SFX and art for Flourishing Light (the 3rd note).
• New SFX for the Dash note.
• New voice line for the player being upset by a creature attack.
• Royal Gelee now heals the play at the end of each bar for two bars 7 emotional energy.
• New title screen, backdrop, and text.
• New buttons throughout all the menus with mouse over animations and SFX.
• Balance: The emotional energy on the ground at the start of the match can no longer spawn next to Egg Plants or the Portal Flower. The total amount released increased to 5 piles of 2, from 4 piles of 2.
• Added an animation to the loading screen when you begin a match.
• Added an escape button to the title screen, so you can quit with the mouse.

Bug fixes

• Bug/Balance: Egg Plants that collect Emotional Energy as they hatch now actually invest that energy into the creatures they release, and the number updates to reflect the final total.
• Fixed a bug that was causing all of the art to be distorted. It should look much better now!
• Fixed some bugs with the save game system that were stopping progress from updating.
• Fixed a bug which let you face off against the Tumbler indefinitely
• Fixed some display issues with the match timer once you summon the tumbler
• Fixed display issues with the par bar in the post game screen.
• Low time sounds will no longer play when the Tumbler summon animation is playing.

Known Bugs

• Tutorial doesn't load on mac.
• Very low amounts of emotional energy are sometimes invisible.
• Projectiles only check the player’s current tile so you can walk into a valid projectile tile at the last second, but not be hit.
• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the par-score system, and medal system. (Par score will be reworked in a future patch).
• The tutorial is very choppy, to the point of being unplayable on some systems, Please let me know if this is an issue for you, along with your system specifications.

A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.22

Minimum viable strategy game

Hi everyone, 

With this patch I’ve decided to round things off since I’m very happy with the state the game is in. It is at the point where I need testing and feedback on the early-mid player experiences now that I have a lot of systems in place to support them.

The one big change is the Match Gem system. When you start out you will only have access to half of the types of creatures (Emerald Gem). You will then unlock the other half (Tigerseye Gem). And if you’re still able to escape you will unlock the full set that contains creatures from both gems.

I’ve added a lot of minor features which should make the experience much better for everyone, along with (hopefully) finally squashing some major bugs.

I really hope you enjoy this version of the game. It now has all the major planned systems in place to support everyone, except a few secret things in the works to support high-level expert play. 

Make sure to check out the past couple of patch notes if you want to see the big recent changes.

So please let me know what you think!

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Gameplay features and changes

• Added sound effects for when creatures are soothed or angered.
• Added sound effects for when Egg Plants have their hatching helped or hindered
• Added a sound and animation to Egg Plants when they hatch
• Added vine animations and sfx for when eggplants eat emotional energy
• Added portal animation to tutorial
• Added portal activation text to tutorial
• Made it so the happy prickle pear produces Emotional Energy more quickly in the tutorial
• Made it hard to skip the post-game screen when escaping through the portal
• Overhauled 8-way movement system.
• Flint stones can push diagonal emotional energy in addition to horizontal and vertical
• Added sprites for the Flint Stones push Emotions effects.
• Angry brambler will now throw vines diagonally
• Happy Brambler now pulls emotional energy diagonally.
• Bored Brambler can only throw vines 2 tiles away.
• Royale gelee and happy scarabs now drop to the ground when their creature host is cheered up.
• Beat flash during warmup, to help with timing.
• Updated how to play advice to focus on the goal and introduce more concepts.
• Added an option to delete your progress. Access it in the how to play menu.

Bug fixes

• Fixed goals not increasing when you equal the goal.
• Fixed some bugs around shoveable objects sitting on top of happy lizards or each other
• Fixed a bug with Final Eggplants being treated differently to regular ones causing crashes and bugs.

Known Bugs

• Royale Gelee doesn’t do anything when you eat it.
• Tumbler timer has display issues in some circumstances
• Very low amounts of emotional energy are sometimes invisible.
• Projectiles only check the player’s current tile so you can walk into a valid projectile tile at the last second, but not be hit.
• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the par-score system, and medal system. (Par score will be reworked in a future patch).
• The tutorial is very choppy, to the point of being unplayable on some systems, Please let me know if this is an issue for you.

A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.21d

Escaping through the portal, metagame structure, and eggplant growth

Hi everyone, 

We’re on a hat-trick with another great patch. Since I’ve got most of the game systems working well together, I decided to spend this patch upgrading the meta-game systems. This should make the process of learning the game, and going from novice to expert a whole heap easier.

To support these changes I made one major system change: Escaping through the Flower Portal. In order to escape from the desert, and claim your escape bonus points you will need to feed the Portal Flower enough emotional energy for it to summon its portal. Once it has enough emotions it will start vibrating, then you can sing to it to summon the portal. Then simply step through to escape completing the match and get your bonus points. To help with this I also added a little counter to the Portal Flowers score text to remind you how much you need.

Two other changes, which go hand in hand, are the new pre-game screen, and the meta-game progression. The first few times you escape the desert, it gets a little bit harder to make it out. In your first match the portal plant will only require 10 emotional energy before it can summon the portal, but after escaping that amount increases. To help you keep track of this goal, the new pre-match screen tells you how many emotions it needs, and reminds you of the goal. It will also tell you about other possibilities once you have overcome your initial challenges.

I’ve also made some pretty big changes to the scoring system to help enable a more diverse range high-scoring strategies, and added a post-game screen that gives a detailed breakdown of what contributed to you final score. I’ve rebalanced the amount of points you get for escaping, and for soothing the Tumbler (see bullet points for details). I’ve also added a score multiplier which you can get by escaping with time still left on the Portal Flower’s match timer (see below). But keep in mind processing Emotional Energy through the Portal Flower is still the core mechanism and required to access all of these bonuses.

I’ve added some new art to all off the Eggplants and the Portal Flower, that will help you see how much emotional energy is needed to unlock their next state. All of these plants now steadily fill up from the bottom as they eat more Emotional Energy. And to remind you once they are full, they release some of their own emotional energy into the creatures they carry.

There were a whole heap of small changes and I’ve fixed all known major bugs with this patch, so read on below for those details.

Please let me know what you think of the changes. I think the path to becoming an expert soother far more clear now,

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Gameplay features and changes

• Added animations for the significant events in the match. The story and events should be much clearer now.
• Portal Flower escape: you now need to step through the flower portal in order to complete the match, and gain your escape points bonus. To do this feed the Poral Flower the listed amount of Emotional Energy then sing to it. Once the portal appears you can walk onto it to escape and get your bonus.
• Goal meta-game system increases the difficulty of activating the Portal Flower over the first few matches, but also increases the reward for doing so. Minimum 10, maximum 25 bonus points.
• Pre-Match screen states the goal, and what you will need to achieve it.
• Post-Match Screen states each of your sources of points and what your total score is.
• Rebalanced Soothing Tumbler bonus points (40->50, 80->75, 160->150).
• Added Time-Banking system. The more time the Portal flower has left when you step through the Portal, the bigger your score multiplier will be at the end of the match. (10s = x1.1, 20s = x1.2, 30s = x1.5, 60s = x2.5, 90s = x5)
• Adjusted the tutorial to teach the new Portal Escape system, and reduced the amount of emotional energy required to summon the tutorial flower portal.
• Soothed Pricklers now re-enter Pinata mode, instead of just shooting out emotional energy at randomish times.
• Rebalanced Happy and Ecstatic Pricklers, they will produce less emotional energy than they used to.

Bug fixes

• Calm-Happy-Ecstatic scarab sprites now give unique buffs to final light (50%, 100%, 150%).
• Fixed all issues that can trigger a complete loss of input. Please let me know if this is still occuring.
• Fixed a bug that allowed other creatures to walk onto Scarab Hosts current tile in some circumstances.
• Egg Plants no longer get stuck opening because they are too happy.
• Fixed implementation bugs from the 0.21d preview with the cost to open the portal not actually increasing.
• Fixed the hard crash bug. Please let me know if it still occurs.
• Tumbler no longer enters pinata mode after the match ends.
• Fixed many sprites and animations from 0.21d preview which we not displaying properly in game and in menus

Known bugs - Though still let me know if you are seeing these

• Projectiles only check the player’s current tile so you can walk into a valid projectile tile at the last second, but not be hit.
• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the par-score system, and medal system. (Par score will be reworked in a future patch).
• The Boss timer becomes unreadable for some values.
• The tutorial is very choppy, to the point of being unplayable on some systems.

A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.21c

Voice Over, Tumbler sounds, balancing, and fixes

Hi everyone, 

I’m really happy with where the game is at after these last two patches. I think it’s a lot of fun to play when trying to maintain high scores. The low level risk-reward gameplay of the song power system works really nicely, and opens up a lot of trade-offs that ripple out beyond those low level tactical decisions.

This patch focused on adding polish, rebalancing around the major changes from 0.21b, as well as fixing a lot of long standing bugs. 

You’ll notice newly recorded voice over lines throughout your matches. This will give hints about the story as well as offer guidance to the player.

I’ve added a few more sound effects to the Tumbler encounter, which should make this a lot clearer and more interesting.

Two important balance changes are the Song Power change and the Egg Plant bonus time nerf. With all of your new abilities it was getting a bit too easy to open all the Egg Plants before the end of the match. As such, I’ve slightly reduced the amount of bonus time you charge the Flower Portal for when soothing any Egg Plants. But I’ve also buffed the maximum Song Power rank. Once you have 8 song power (hat starts flashing) you next note will always unleash a fully charged Final Light, including soothing multiplier and knock back.

I also tracked down a couple of game breaking bugs, so input and hatching should be a lot more reliable now.

There were a whole heap of small chances with this patch, so make sure to read below for all the details.

Please let me know what you think of the changes. and thanks for reading and playing,

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Gameplay features and changes

• Added lots of voice over for each of the significant events in the main game. These act as both story and player advice.
• Added sound effects to the Tumbler, that encounter feels a lot better now.
• Happy Scarab not have different emotional states, and provide different multipliers to the player’s Final Light. Instead of being summoned at increasing rates. Calm +50%, Happy +100%, Ecstatic +150%.
• Scarab Hosts have improved Prepare animations which along with some bug fixes, should mean it’s much clearer when they are about to rear up and attack.
• Once you’ve fully charged your song power the next Note is always Final Light, with full soothing multiplier and knockback effect!
• The music changes when you are at low hp, to help make the danger clearer.
• All three types of Egg Plants give slightly less bonus time to Flower Portal (match length).

Bug fixes

• Fixed several bugs around Royal Gelee.
• Eggplants can no longer eat Royal Gelee
• Fixed several bugs with creatures crossing multiple emotional boundaries at once.
• Extended double move window to 0.25 seconds
• Fixed some issues that can trigger a complete loss of input. Please let me know if this is still occuring.

Known bugs - Though still let me know if you are seeing these

• Calm-Happy-Escatic scarab sprites look the despite different effects.
• Projectiles only check the player’s current tile so you can walk into a valid projectile tile at the last second, but not be hit.
• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the meta game and scoring, and medal system.(Meta game stuff is taking a back seat while gameplay changes solidify).
• I’ve seen a single hard crash. If you have any ideas what causes this please let me know.

A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.21b

New song moves and Eggplant effects

Hi everyone, 

The two major changes this patch are the new ways of singing, and new effects which are unleashed by each Eggplant as it hatches. You can now dodge then dash, for an aoe song, and you can build up song power by avoiding the final note of your combo, before finally unleashing an overjoyous note. I’ve also added FinalEggplants, which stick around to spread their special effects for the rest of the encounter. They work much like the other happy creatures, but each have a unique effect.

I’ve completely overhauled the singing system. It used to be the third consecutive note would be ‘Final Light’ and would always improve happiness by 5. Now Final Light’s happiness is based on your song power. Song power grows each time you sing a normal note, but is lost if you are attacked by any creature. Song power also decays each turn you  move after the first, unless you dash.

Song power can build upto 8 charges at which point you become Euphoric and have 12 turns to deliver a fully charged Final Light. Final light also has Happiness multipliers at 2, 4 and 8 charges of song power.

I also added the Dodge dash combo. If you sing then move on your next turn you will enter the dodge state. From this dodge state you can dash adjacent to any creature, causing you to move and sing 3 notes, one forwards and two to the sides all at once.

There were lots of big changes with this patch. I think these are the last of the major systems for a while, and so I’ll switch over to rebalancing around these changes, then making the game more accessible.

Please let me know what you think of the changes. and thanks for reading and playing,

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Gameplay features and changes

• Song power added. Normal notes now build song power, which is unleashed on the third note sung in a row.
• Dodge-Dash added. Give access to a tile area of effect song, and helps avoid hazards, and maintains song power.
• Added bubble buff, to Cadenza Eggplants. Walking over a bubble collects it shielding the bearer from one attack and knocking all adjacent creatures away one tile.
• Added Royale Gelee to Chord Eggplants. Walking over Royale Gelee slowly eats it reducing causing harmful gems to fly out, but also reduces emotional state. Upto 30% of gems released.
• Added Vitamin D beam. Standing in a beam of light increases any actors susceptibility to happiness for several turns.
• Changed the Scarab Flowers to summon happy scarabs which any actor can walk over to collect. Also changed happy scarabs to be a single use buff that doubles the effectiveness of the third note in your combo, the final light.
• Improve input code around knock back effects, so that the first ability take precedence.
• There is now a hard cap on Eggplant numbers, 3 Cadenzas, 4 Chords and 6 Waves.
• The final Eggplant of each type leaves behind a hatched eggplant, which continues unleashing its effects.

Bug fixes

• Tutorial level is now packaged with the game. So now it works on other people’s computers, and not just mine.
• Fixed a bug preventing randomisation in Creature orders.
• Double moves should no longer be possible

Known bugs - Though still let me know if you are seeing these

• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the meta game and scoring, and medal system.(Meta game stuff is taking a back seat while gameplay changes solidify).

Patch Notes 0.21a

Tutorial, Creature tweaks and Visibility overhaul

Hi everyone, this is just a quick little patch that should make the game a lot more approachable for new players. There is now a big multi room tutorial which introduces you to a all the basic concepts and features of the game.

I also changed two creatures, happy Pricklers and upset Fint Stones. Pricklers now grow energy right where they stand, so you’ll need to walk over them to pick it up (or push Eggplants next to them). And Flint Stones have a new attack pattern, 2 tiles in each cardinal direction, so you’ll have to change they way to dodge them when you wake them up.

I’ve also overhauled the visibility system, so things should be a lot more consistent in where and when they show up.

The tutorial covers, movement, happy creatures effects, hatching eggs, soothing upset creatures, and infusion flowers harvesting energy.

This first tutorial really only covers the basics, but will hopefully set you up to try out the main game and not be quite so overwhelmed. The plan will be to roll out a series of puzzle levels in the future which will teach the player about more advanced systems and interactions.

The level editor for creating tutorials and puzzles is now fairly advanced and should be able to cover most concepts and interactions in the game. So I should be in a good position to roll out a bunch of puzzles in the next update (2 weeks?)

Anyway thanks for reading and playing,

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Gameplay features and changes

• A big multi room tutorial
• Flint Stones attack pattern changed. Now shoots fire in a big cross pattern.
• Happy Pricklers no longers shoot energy in a random pattern, instead walk over them to harvest.
• Updated sprite for happy Agave spin.
• New sprite for Happy and Ecstatic Lizards, no longer uses their calm sprite.
• Lots of new Singing Witch sprites/animations

Bug fixes

• Overhauled visibility system, creatures, obstacles, effects and gems should no longer show up offscreen.
• Fixed a bug with scarab swarms messing with passability.
• Added a delay to input when returning to menu screen.
• Bonus points should now be correctly awarded when you beat each stage of the boss.
• Frogs no longer receive happy scarab buff when angry.

Known bugs - Though still let me know if you are seeing these

• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the scarab buff (you have it but it doesn’t always show up)
• Display issues with the meta game and scoring, and medal system.(Meta game stuff is taking a back seat while gameplay changes solidify).

Hello everyone!

I'm really looking forwards to hearing what you all think about the game. So please share your thoughts here, on twitter @Trev_Murray or by email SupensionOfDisbeliefGames@gmail.com

There's a lot of unusual systems and features, along with fairly unconventional singing and happiness mechanics, so I'm looking forwards to hearing what people like, what they struggle with and what they think needs work.

Thanks for playing,
Trev