GameClub Melodive (by Johan Gjestland)

Hey Gjestlanf, if you are still here I want to ask you something. In a previous post you mentioned that you may make games using the mellow diver engine. Do you have any ideas in particular you can share about the future of the mellow diver engine. Please tell I absolutely love mellow diver and will continue to support you.

 

Have to chime in. After salivating on the video during the WIP phase I took the plunge without hesitation and am very happy for it too.

The game looks great, sound is great and the control is very responsive, given the context (like a flight sim). I do not find it easy and this is not said as a complaint. So far after playing 30 minutes I get to 5000 meters depth or so, which seems fair, not too easy or not too hard. You can really get in "the zone" with this game, where you don't notice anything else going on around you and of course Focus is key for a game like this.

I do agree a better tutorial of sorts would do wonders, the fact it's ambiguous will probably lead to some negative reviews but keep your chin up, it's a great game and a grand first effort.

Question: now, playing a game that puts you "in the zone", does anybody else get an itchy face when you play a game like this? Lol. I remember the same problem when I used to play road rash on the 3do eheh

 

I picked this one up because it looked different from anything on iOS and it was only a dollar. Glad I did, it's a pretty immersive and relaxing game! Could someone recommend me good settings tho? Do I want high handling, high speed, low gravity and alot of boost? The first few tries were pretty ugly, was basically trying to fight gravity the whole time and was spinning out of control. Once I got the idea to just drop (figured out what's up and down) and how to boost I did somewhat better, but I only have a high score of like 5000

 

The "handling" is sensitivity. (About half or a little lower is good for phone. More for iPad.) Increasing speed and gravity will make things harder, so just focus on building up your boost at first.

 

Yes, welcome! Please do stick around.

 

This is very good advice and spot on. A very funy mode is zero speed and full boost with light gravity. Also: There is no right or wrong, suit the game to your liking/skill level. However increased handling is necessary when the speeds get higher and boost is the first thing you should upgrade. There is possible to have much boost, so don't feel the obligation to max everything out. The Speed-upgrade is mainly a shortcut for higher speeds and thus higher scores, but I personally have played a lot with almost minimal speed and a lot of boost with the light gravity-setting. I find very fun and relaxing, and you can explore more, not only zip past stuff.

Also I have another insider-tip: The shiny blobs known as Metallic Melodium is in reality the basic building blocks for the world. The last 64 blobs you picked up will be used to create new terrain, so If you pick up large blobs, it will get more dense and if you pick up blobs with a small diameter in the horizontal plane, the terrain will open up. It makes a lot of diffrence when you get deeper.

 

Yes, I forgot! Big salutations and congratulations to Hwest for being the first down to 10 000 m and becoming the world's premier Melodive Master! I am impressed that it took you less than a day to do it!

 

I also would like to say that the game is best experienced with headphones because of the 3d audio and lack of bass in the loudspeaker. And reverb doesn't work under 6.0.x because of an apple-bug. 5.x is fine however. Reverb under 4.x is not supported.

Also there has been reports that the game is kind of playable under iPhone4/touch 4th gen. I would seriously advice against playing the game on these devices as dual-core is much needed to keep the frame-rate smooth at 60 fps (because of the procedural ever-generating terrain). I will try to include these devices in future (more level based) games. I am deeply commited to 60 fps, as this is needed to makes 3d games truly immersive in my opinion. Screen size is also a big factor here, and this was originally an iPad-only game, but was made universal my popular demand. What works for some, will not work for other's, but the game is probably a bit harder on the iPhone.

Also, for this reason, if you have the HDMI-connector, please try it on a big screen, or preferably a hd-projector. It's a blast, imho. The perfect setup would probably be an iphone5 as it have native 16/9 support, and then it's more like a controller if you dim the screen all the way down on the device.

The Melodive-rececption has exceeded my expectations ten-fold, so I will try to include more robust HDMI-support in the future, as I feel it's perfect for the big screen and I wish that more player would try it!

 

I am impressed with this game all over again each time I launch it. Such a great smooth feeling experience.

When I got that record I was using low gravity, handling just below half, about 1/3 speed and almost full boost. I have since moved handling to full and boost back down to about 75%. (edit: just got new records with these settings)

Honestly as long as boost is at least about half you should be fine. Low gravity and low speed make things much easier. Full handling is nice as you get better and go faster, but it can also get you in trouble if you don't stay calm.

Those records are very achievable once you get the hang of things. I expect someone will come along and make those records look like nothing. I basically head straight down as much as possible. I don't really bother chasing after the smaller bits of melodium, just keep going down and you will run into enough to keep fueled. Keep heading towards the dark areas and stay slow and under control. You can go very slow if you need to, use quick taps if you have high boost and keep inching down.

If you reach a very congested area it may be necessary to fly horizontally for a while to find a way down. However, it seems as if each 'level' extends forever with the same chunks repeating, so often you must make a tight squeeze to get through. Sometimes you get unlucky and end up going down what looked like a gap that is really a dead end. You can only really turn around and go back up about once per level usually, so it is important to keep moving down.

I try to collect every chunk of metallic melodium that I see as long as it is basically on my way down. I don't fly around looking for the stuff. Also, keep in mind that you can take quite a generous amount of bumping, as long as you are not overusing your boost. Often you can recover from what seems like the end if you manage your boost and bouncing smartly.

I do have a lot of experience with flight sims and that is a much bigger factor than any settings or strategy, so practice is key.

 

Hi there, thanks for asking!

Here is my vision:
I want to make a group effort in making several games based of "the mellow dive"-engine. (can i take the name please, i love it! There is only so much one person can do. Melodive was born out of experimenting and just having fun with it. Create your own world kind of thing. Very empowering stuff, I must say!

So this is something I want to share with people who gets the game and grow upon this very humble beginning. Melodive was never meant to be a huge hit, I just wanted to show what is possible to do with tilt controls and raw graphic power with no fancy effects or beautiful texturing. 3D audio is also very nice stuff that can be used in many diffrent ways.

I hope to find people with diffrent skills that can go together in a collective to create a string of games based of the same engine. The engine is pretty rudimentary at the current stage, but would be extended with each release. What I have now is a point based voxel-engine that generates geometry that has rounded corners, unlike minecraft and now this brilliant block fortress (kudos!). It is very fast so with a multu-core device it is possible to generate geometry and tesselate it (make it possible to render to screen) without the device dropping a beat.

I have also experimented with shooting, descruction of terrain and construction (much like the above mentioned block fortress) and I would like the next game to contain all these elements and a lot more. But it could be a hundred diffrent games. The map of melodive is 96x96x576 voxels, but it could easily be 512x512x64 or some other number depending on how much memory you want to use. It looks bigger than it sounds and the engine can also sub-divide to make it look even bigger. I had to keep it small in Melodive because I wanted a truly 3d-world with a lot of detail in every direction and not only a flat like low-rez 3d world that most flight sims offer on iOS (Disclaimer:Melodive of course lacks the finesse in flight dynamics as these games offer, i didn't mean to compare in that sense, it's a question about priority). On top of the terrain you put 3D-assets or procedurally generated content (mushrooms and crystals now, but it could be anything like cities and enimes).

So I think the best next game would be a shooter with both construction and destruction, but probably with hand-crafted levels, preferably user-crafted levels also as an option. A also like the idea of having a full rts going on in the world, with small guys running around doing mindless tasks, a little like the dozers in the fraggles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1abGUL626yo
However it should try to push the medium in some sort of way, and not on the graphical side, but on the creative.

On the practical side: We would need programmers, alpha testers, idea makers, 2d- and 3d- artists, sound and music makers, math savvy people, web and social media-experts and definitively some demo scene-people. I really dont know how to proceed with something like this, or even if there is any interest. I just know that most of the work in Melodive has been thinking things out and experimenting and not actually writing the code.

So I would love to hear from everybody who has connected with the game and thinks this is a good idea and would like to participate. I will try to organize something if I get a little help and a few pointers, I am an amateur in this field.

 

Thanks for replying sounds cool. I wish I could help in someway (besides naming the engine of course) but I don't have much experience with coding or any of that. I do hope that you continue to develop more games like this, they r very unique! #

 

This looks cool. I will add it to my wish list for when I have a upgraded device. (I only have an unsupported touch 4 )

 

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread...it uses in-game music AND contains an unlockable sequencer. When the sequencer is unlocked, can it be used by the player to generate music for use in-game?

 

Yes, that is correct. The way it works: make a pattern in the sequencer and press start-button, your creation will be saved. Soon the song will start to morph and evolve. But when you pick up a piece of metallic Melodium, your saved pattern will be loaded into the in-game sequencer and the cycle repeats itself. That way you can make your own theme song, but still get a lot of variation.

 

Ggggg

 

So maybe it was the tuning or just playing the game over and over but now able to maneuver around very well now. Playing on my iPhone 4S , I changed handling to half as suggested, amped up boost with about a quarter speed on low gravity and am now like 15th on the leaderboards. Really fun simulator/game (whatever you want to label it) well worth a buck and I look forward to future games with this engine

 

I got my first review in Japan: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.applefan2.com%2F35874%3Futm_source%3Ddlvr.it%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter. So now I am big in Japan (a lifelong dream!). Top 10 music game in Japan is pretty good!

Melodive is currently among the top 10 music games in 6 countries for iphone and 8 countries for ipad, but I'm trying to get into the top 10 simulation charts (only 1 yet). If you like the game please follow me on twitter @melodive, and please tweet/blog about the game. Spread the word, every sale counts!

Anyhow I just wanted to thank everybody here for the support and please rate & review in the AppStore if you haven't done so already (no in-game nagging, so I'll nag here instead! )

 

Congrats on the review I really like the sound of more games being made on this engine. I can see some kind of underwater Minecraft game doing really well. (SubCraft? )