Melolune is an indie RPG game developed by Laura Shigihara. The game has not been released yet, though a playable beta is out, which is free to download here
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This game provides examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: This game loves this trope! As you progress, your Hammerspace slowly but surely becomes a wardrobe. Though at least, clothes also provide some protection in battles.
- Ambiguously Gay: There is a guy in Debonet who is really impressed by Achaius' blue eyes.
- Animal Talk: You thought you can't start conversations with animals... wrong! Some of them will be happy to talk to you!
- Animate Inanimate Object:
- Wooden Sign... multiple instances of them.
- Beware of fighting melons!
- Background Magic Field: "In my world, there are silent melodies all around us... If you listen carefully, you can catch them, and turn them into a song... Some of us can turn them into more than that... We call these fragments: Melolune."
- Battle Theme Music: "Sweet Unlucky" is the most memorable one, and don't forget about "Ultimate Battle"[1] which is re-used in Plants vs. Zombies.
- Berserk Button: A sociopathic Ciro soldier successfully triggers this on Achaius. "How about this. After we poison them, I'll let you bury their dead bodies.", uttered the Soldier, referring to the entire population of Leeble Village... no surprise he got a kick on the ass.
- Beta Test: The demo also serves as an open beta. If you find glitches, you are welcome to report them to Laura.
- But Thou Must!: Several conversations offer you only one option to progress. The other option either does nothing (which is good if you'd like to stay and explore without making progress) or makes the character repeat some of their previous sentences.
- Cat Folk: Leebles: cat-like, small, cute, sentient, talking creatures - with wings!
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: You are free to change your clothes, though you won't see any change on your characters, for they don't have various sprites for various clothes. Still you can see what are your characters wearing in the "Equip" menu.
- Character Depth: The core characters tend to have this trope.
- Character Development
- Children Forced to Kill: And how! Our heroes literally slaughter an entire Ciro soldier camp next to Leeble Village! (Though they all respawn.)
- Child Soldier: Dominic once was a Ciro soldier.
- Civilized Animal: Leebles, for those who consider them animals... But we don't.
- Cliffhanger: The end of the demo - the story remains unresolved until the finished game gets released.
- Cool Shades: Hawk.
- Curtains Match the Window: Andy.
- Cute Kitten:
- Played straight with real kittens.
- Subverted with Leebles: they are not cats, though sometimes they also play that role.
- Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: Ciro soldiers... as you might have guessed...
- Dressing as the Enemy: Achaius, Aero, Dominic and Andy disguise as Ciro soldiers in Debonet.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: The zombies in this game are rather funny than frightening.
- Everything Talks: Besides animals, wooden signs also talk sometimes... and who knows what other stuff?
- Fictionary: The Ciroan language.
Word of God says there are syllabic similarities to both Latin and Japanese. Moreover, the Ciroan songs on the Melolune OST ("Melolune" and "Carya de Mio") do have meanings. But this is all we know: actual meanings of specific words, phrases, lyrics are not revealed. - Fantastic Sapient Species: Leebles.
- Fan Work: Fan work for Melolune is pretty much encouraged and appreciated. Sometimes the creator announces contests to motivate fans to create fan work. Here is an example. If Laura really loves your fan work, it might end up on her websites, in her forum avatars/signatures, or even in the game, as honor.
- Find the Cure!: Achaius gets infected in Debonet and can only be cured by Dolby's melons.
- Flashback: Happens a lot of times in the game.
- Forced Level-Grinding: Did you accidentally walk to a screen that turns to be a dead-end? Or are you just coming back from somewhere? You go back and you are attacked by the enemies you defeated before! Most typical occurrences from the demo:
- The Ciro soldier camp next to Leeble Village.
- Dolby's cave: you can't move a pixel without being attacked, and so you must sweep all the paths over and over again as you come back and forth.
- From Bad to Worse: Though some Leebles express their worries about the increasing number of Ciro soldiers camping near the village, it's not really a problem as long as the soldiers are neutral. But it turns out they intend to destroy Leeble Village.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Would you like to switch from windowed mode to full-screen or vica-versa? Press F12! Great, it works! And now you're back in the main menu... without a "resume" option... and you realize that you've just lost all the progress you've made since the last save. The only option is to reload your latest saved game, then.
- Game Maker: The game is being developed with RPG Maker.
- Hammerspace: The player is able to carry an infinite number of items of various sizes. For example, Suby's enormeous glider perfectly fits in Achaius' pocket along with clothes, items, and the arsenal.
- Happily Adopted: Achaius and Dominic don't mind living in the Leeble Village amongst very caring Leebles.
- Healing Boss: The game has Mola in a boss fight. The boss doesn't self heal, but is instead supported by two melons, one of which heals the entire group. Additionally, said melon can get revived if it is destroyed.
- Healing Loop: Mola is supported by two melons, one of which heals the group, and does so at a rate faster than the party doing basic attacks. In addition, Mola is able to revive said melon if it's downed. This loop is stopped by using a consumable damage item.
- Heroic BSoD: Achaius, Dominic, and Aero are pretty much freaked out after a Ciro soldier attacks Mani.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: The player also carries various weapons and armory in their Hammerspace.
- I Am Not Weasel: Aero is often mistaken for a cat. Usually it's Played for Laughs.
- Idle Animation: Most characters have some idle animation.
- Indie Game
- Invisible to Normals: Melolunes.
- It's All My Fault: Dominic believes he's responsible for Mani got injured by a Ciro soldier, because he taught Mani to trust humans.
- Kick the Dog: A Ciro soldier attacks a Leeble. Besides that it demonstrates the cruelty of Ciro soldiers, it starts up the story.
- Leitmotif: The core theme of the game is music.
- Long-Lost Relative: Achaius and Caleigh. Although they haven't find each other yet in the demo, supposedly they will in the full version of the game.
- Mooks: Ciro soldiers. They are nameless and are free to be slaughtered without any moral consideration. No one will ever shed a single teardrop for them, or
think of their orphaned kids they left behind. - Multi-Platform: Averted completely. Would you like to enjoy Melolune on any non-Windows systems? You can't! And no, it won't work with Wine!
- This is a feature of RPG Maker.
- Musical Gameplay: The very beginning of the game, when you need to put Melolunes on pedestals. When you place a Melolune on a pedestal, a music sample starts to play. When you remove it, the sample stops being played. This also happens in a cave.
- No Name Given: "Big sister." Despite the creator was caring a lot to name the vast majority of the characters (even minor ones), this pretty girl is still left without a name.
- Can you imagine that Achaius' family really didn't name her? Probably she does have a name, it's just not revealed.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Aero.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Flesh-eating zombies in the swamp... and high-class zombies. Ahh, and there is one who really loves plants.
- Premiseville: The Leeble Village.
- Recycled Soundtrack: "Ultimate Battle" from Plants vs. Zombies is the boss theme for this game. Laura Shigihara explained that it was always intended for Melolune but ended up getting used for PvZ first when George Fan heard the composition and asked if they could use it for the Conveyer Belt stages. Laura agreed under the condition that she retains full rights to the song for her to still use for Melolune.
- Respawning Enemies: Want to fight your enemies again to gain more XP? Resurrect them! How? Just go off-screen and then immediately go back. They'll be waiting for you again.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Leebles.
- Sequence Breaking: Due to the game's beta state, many possibilities haven't been tested and fixed yet, so you can easily provoke some odd phenomenons:
- No matter how long journey have you already made, you can easily go back to Leeble Village anytime... where the Leebles act like you have never left...
- There is an inn, where a woman suggests you to go out and talk to a wooden sign (which again, works!) and sleep there. After you did so, just go back to the inn, and the woman will continue to suggest you the same, despite it's already morning.
- Pirates: Hawk and Andy.
- Shoot the Medic First: When you see a healing unit in common enemy formations, attack it first because they will most likely fully heal the group when they act.
- Shout-Out: Likely that the plant-loving zombie is inspired by Plants vs. Zombies. Easily possible, considering the relationship of their creators...
- Sociopathic Soldier:
- The Ciro soldiers who camped next to Leeble Village.
- And the ones who poisoned Achaius also weren't so nice.
- Sugar Bowl: Leeble Village.
- You Meddling Kids:
- The Leeble named Flint doesn't like human kids.
- Achaius and Dominic are not really liked by Ciro soldiers.
