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Progress Checkup! (Apr. 2025) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hey there! I felt like it was time for another devlog, it's been a little longer than usual I think. I felt it was less of a priority since I'd just shown off a gameplay preview, so my deepest apologies to all 7 dedicated devlog readers...

First off, in case you missed it, Lucid Mode was shown off in a recent gameplay preview of Stir & Mix!

During stages, freestyling well enough on two consecutive lines will allow you to ascend into Lucid Mode, a state where there are no charts or suggestions to follow, just your own freestyles! Successfully completing the stage in Lucid will give you a special ending scene and an emblem on your rank as lasting proof of your success.

To answer a few questions about it I've seen floating around:

Q: Does this mean the other parts of the song are gone? A: No, going Lucid is something that only happens if you manage to activate it yourself. Otherwise, the song continues as normal.

Q: Can it be disabled? A: Yep, if you're like really good at freestyling but still don't wanna ascend into Lucid, there will be a toggle in the Options menu to enable/disable the ability for it to activate.

Q: Can this happen in every stage? A: Probably! That's the plan, unless I find a rare reason it wouldn't work well for one.

In the preview, you can also see that Stir & Mix itself has been updated a bit in the vocal and artwork departments! Compared to the 2023 beta version's vocals, 2cada tuned them with a bit more stylization this time. In terms of artwork, the animations were redone in my current art style, as another step towards a consistent art style by release. In the process, I was able to make the animations much more fluid and expressive!

Little fun fact about that, Jamtine's hair actually used to cover up more of her eyes/eyebrows as if they were bangs of some sort, but I eventually moved it out the way so I could have more freedom with her expressions, which I found important for a character like her. An inverse of that philosophy would be Nami, who has her sunglasses and bangs cover up her eyes/eyebrows to give her a more mysterious feel. It's hard to tell what's going on in Nami's head! (If anything at all!)

Now, let's talk about the gameplay and UI again. Here's a little quickfire of some changes I've made: 

The Next Line Tab has a "NEXT" text sign above it and will stay at the end of the Player's line to help with clarity

 The background bar of each line now adjusts to the line's length to also help with visual clarity

When points are gained or deducted, it now briefly flashes over the score counter instead of having a separate bubble

Holding the button on pow notes instead of tapping them will accumulate extra points until you either release it or reach the max amount. The more buttons you manage to hold at once, the more points you'll get!

Landing notes on the later end of a beat marker without being off-beat can count as swing rhythm, adding extra points.

To account for the new score system and its balancing, you won't need the Perfect Bonus to be eligible for an S-rank anymore

Overall, I'd say the new rhythm/scoring system is much more consistent, balanced, forgiving, and accurate to the game's inspirations compared to how it was in the beta demos.

As for future stuff I'm working on, I've been animating the Boss battle for Act 2. Not much I can really say about it atm, but the song's going for an electro-funk style. Pretty happy with how it's been turning out so far!

I've also been redesigning the stage select screen to be easier to navigate and easier for me add more stages and acts to it. This one's able to just pull the needed information from each song/act and arrange it all accordingly instead of me having to manually do it each time I add something. It's still very much a work in progress, but it's functional! I haven't gotten to drawing McWave's new icons yet... (Don't look too deep into the number of acts here btw, it just stops at 3 because that's as far as I've indexed it at the moment!)

I've also started working on a redesign for the results screen. Since the new scoring doesn't have equal spaces between the rank requirements, I decided to replace the linear rank meter with a more dial-like one that goes through a cycle per each rank threshold you pass. Along with it, I'll have to finally make new results screen animations for Melodii at some point. Not sure yet if the pose Melodii's doing in this concept sketch will be what I end up using, but I definitely will be letting them aura farm more.

To save the most boring for last, optimization. For the notes in stages, I've started using a method called "Object Pooling". (Which I actually hadn't heard of until recently.) Basically, note objects get recycled now when possible​ instead of created/destroyed, which helps reduce memory usage. For materials, I've managed to up performance by using Texture Arrays and a pretty convoluted shader trick where I put the vertices of UV layers at specific coordinates, which are then decoded to be used as material info. (e.g. color, spec, emission) That way, more meshes can share materials while looking different instead of loading in separate ones. Not really sure how common this is, as I couldn't find much info on it, but it seems to be working pretty well so far! I was also able to cut performance costs in some areas by taking a screenshot of a background model and having the game render a flat image instead of the entire model. This works pretty well for shots where large background models are far away or when the camera angle stays static.

That's all for now! As always, thanks for reading.

-LJ

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New gameplay preview showcasing Lucid Mode and some new animations and vocals for Stir & Mix in Scratchin' Melodii! (I tried to upload the video itself here, but it kept failing, so here's a YT link instead!) See you next devlog!

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Progress Checkup! (Jan. 2025) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hey guys! Time for another progress checkup; This is actually the first one of the new year! I hope you were all able to enjoy the holidays. I took a bit of a break from working on most stuff last month and have been getting back on things this month. First, I wanna thank everyone who's wishlisted Scratchin' Melodii on Steam! So far, the game's gotten over 17,000 wishlists! Thanks so much for the support!

In the previous devlog, I mentioned some changes to the rhythm system. In the Dragon Funk preview, you can see the new rhythm system and character icons I mentioned in the previous devlog! Actually, let's unpack some of the new things you're seeing in action there:

Hold Notes This is the first song in the game to include hold-notes! They mostly work the same as they would in any other rhythm game. However, since this game has an emphasis on self expression, moving the control stick during these will let you tune the note's pitch-bend for extra expression points! I showed that off in a post here. As for Pow Notes, I've been working on a way to let the player get expression points from these too! I'd like for most of the special notes like these to be not just a gimmick, but a tool that the player can use to their advantage.

Quadruple Lines Yep! The first blue line in this one is extra long and has 4 rows! Fun fact actually, I had to implement this feature after I realized that part of the song was too long to fit in just two rows. It was pretty difficult to figure out both how to do it and how to execute it in a way that doesn't feel too jarring, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results! In fact, barely anyone's even noticed it; I guess that's just how natural it feels! Not sure how much more often I'll be having lines longer than two rows, but it's great that I have the option now.

AutoPlay You might also notice that the player inputs are perfectly timed... TOO perfect... that's because I've developed an autoplay feature for the game! At the moment, it's mostly for debugging and stuff, but if all goes according to plan, AutoPlay Mode and Replays should hopefully be available to players as well in some form when the game comes out!

"Next" Indicator & Other UI Related QoL Some of the top things players said they had trouble with in the demo were related to being prepared for the next line. So, if you look at the right-end of the rhythm bars, you'll see a little tab that shows the color and amount of rows the next line will have! Also, now each line's suggested notes can be seen before the rival performs them. This did take some thought, as I actually kinda still liked the idea of it appearing as if the characters were making it up on the spot, but to put game design first, it makes more sense to have it displayed as soon as possible so the player has more time to react and prepare. This also opens up more possibilities for future mechanics, so in the long run, I think I've made the best choice here.

Now, let's get into what I've been and/or will be working on that you haven't seen yet!

Act 2's Boss The music for the Act 2 Boss is  nearly complete! I'll likely be starting to animate it pretty soon. This song is the longest one I've done so far, clocking at a duration of a little over 3 minutes long!

More Animation Updates for Stir & Mix At this point, I've done even more cleanups on the sequence you saw in the last devlog and I've finished animating the "I wanna" scene of the song, which will probably have the most changes out of any other scene in the song. When I first animated Stir & Mix, I didn't quite have the time or skills to do everything I really wanted to do with it. That scene in particular I felt was WAY too stiff and boring, especially compared to the more dynamic and fluid scenes that appear in some of the other the stages now. I'd say I'm about halfway done retouching all the animations for this one!

Refined Model Sheets I don't talk about these very often, but sometime around 2023 I started using model/reference sheets for the characters. (I might show them off someday, but for now they're staying private!) Before this point, the designs are pretty inconsistent from shot to shot, so this helped a lot with that. Recently, I've done some revisions I'm really pleased with. Their designs are finally becoming... well, final! I'll be reworking the affected characters' hub world sprites at some point to reflect these changes.

Slight Reworks for some Act 1 Songs On the sound side, Stir & Mix's vocals have been reworked again! As I've mentioned in the previous devlog, 2cada's tuning style and techniques have evolved a bit since we first started working together, so we thought it'd be fun to go back and incorporate some of that into it. We'll also probably be reworking the structure of Nami's song a little bit at some point just to make it a feel a bit more solid, which may require a new line or two from her voice actor, Meggie-Elise! So funnily enough, it seems some of the songs will have end up having TWO unused beta versions after this.

Also, a quick PSA: Please note that beta versions of content will NOT be included in the full game. I've heard people ask for them to be "brought back" or toggleable, but in my situation something like that is both easier said than done and I also just... don't want to LOL. With as many directions I can take this game, I know I can't satisfy everyone, but I can make a game that satisfies me, so I'm aiming for that! And hey, maybe other people will like it too.

I think that's all I wanna talk about for now! Thanks so much for reading. It can be a bit of a daunting task to write these at times, but I'm glad to keep you up to date on the project when I can.

-LJ

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Dragon Funk is the first stage in Scratchin' Melodii to introduce hold notes! On these, you can tune the note's pitch-bend with the control stick for extra points. Also, freestyling on certain lines against Pitaya will catch her off guard and let you land hits!

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You can now wishlist Scratchin' Melodii on Steam! Here's a preview of a new rival battle called Dragon Funk, feat. BethyVA as the voice of Pitaya! 🐉

Credits: Music, Art, Animation, Etc - LJ LephemStar (me!) Vocal Tuning/Mixing -Mia (2cada) Pitaya (Voice) - BethyVA

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Progress Checkup! (Nov. 2024) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

​​Hey again guys! Sorry if it's been a bit since the last devlog. With how much I've been up to, it sure feels like it!

Let's get right into it. For starters, the 3rd rival battle of Act 2 is complete! I'll likely be showing a gameplay preview of it sometime soon. This is the first song to use the new framework that I'll be using for all the other stages going forward, which also means I've had to spend the past couple weeks getting the previous songs working with this new system too... Did you know that in the demo builds, if I wanted to change something about the gameplay, I'd have to manually go back and change it for EACH individual song one by one? Well now, imagine all the songs had like a peace treaty to just share one good, clean, and organized system that I can easily tweak and add to as I please. So development is gonna be smoother than ever from here! This is how most games are SUPPOSED to work, but I was a liiittle too stupid to figure out how to do this until recently!

While I was moving Cream Cheese Icing over to this new system, I took the opportunity to make the chart a bit more beginner-friendly! For example, the first line went from this...

To just this!

As you can see, it has less notes, therefore it is less scary for new players. Believe it or not, I actually never intended for Cream Cheese Icing to be so difficult for new players in the first place! Naturally, being too good at my own game can make gauging the difficulty curve a bit tricky at times, but I think I'm figuring it out!​

You may have also noticed that the characters have new UI icons too! I felt like the old ones were too flat and boring, so I did a new take on them, aiming for more dynamic shapes and angles, not to mention how my art style's just kinda grown a bit in general since I last drew the icons. I also ended up leaving out the circles behind them. I was a little worried I was gonna run out of unique colors for all of them at some point, plus SOME of these guys can have really big hair and/or hats that pretty much just cover up the whole circle anyway. (hi rensa)

Speaking of artwork, here's a little look at some of the updated animation I've done for Stir & Mix! (Try to imagine it in not highly-compressed-gif-form. I promise it looks better in-game!)

When working on Stir & Mix related stuff, I can't help but feel a bit of a sense of dread knowing how people may react to it... Honestly, sometimes I kinda wish it never got as popular as it did in 2022. But hey, doing my own thing regardless of what's expected of me is the most Scratchin' Melodii thing I could do!

Speaking of which, Mia learned a ton of new stuff while doing the VOCALOID tuning for the last rival battle we worked on, so we might revisit Stir & Mix's vocals again at some point before release to give it even more style! (By the way, Mia and 2cada are the same person! Sorry if I refer to both names interchangeably! She's been the one doing all the VOCALOID tuning and vocal mixing for the game since 2023.)

Well, I think that's all for now! Here's another friendly reminder that there will NOT be anymore demos of the game. Any new content will be saved for the full game's release. I know I've said it before, but I probably won't stop saying it until people stop getting confused about it LOL. Thanks for reading!! I appreciate you. - LJ

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Progress Checkup! (Aug. 2024) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hello again, strangers! I thought it was about time to add another devlog again! This time I'm trying out a more in-depth approach to this, to somewhat make up for the lack of gameplay previews. Let me know what you think!

For starters, I've revamped the rhythm system 🤯 (like... again! 🤯) Don't freak out, though. Surface level gameplay-wise, it works mostly the same as it did in the last demo, so you won't have to re-learn much. I just needed to redo some things so it'd be easier for me to work with in the long-run while developing the rest of the game. Way less headaches await me now when working on new levels. In the process, I was also able to incorporate some neat new aspects to it and make the core aspects of it better. If you're familiar with older rhythm games, it's now a tad closer to what the dog was doing.

The opponent's icon has been covered up to avoid spoilers. I might be updating all of the character icons soon, actually.

I still plan to revamp the game's tutorial at some point. Something I've noticed is that often, new players don't seem to understand the purpose of the beat dots. Initially, I thought the idea that "on the beat dot = on beat" would come as second nature to new players without need for explanation. However, I hadn't considered that many players are likely to be more familiar with rhythm games that don't even have beat dots in this manner, so they're probably inclined to focus more on getting as close as possible to matching the order of the suggested inputs, and in this game, even at the cost of being off-beat if they aren't keeping up. So, I think the most important thing I need to emphasize when I give a new in-game explanation of the mechanics is the beat dots and really getting new players into the mindset of prioritizing the tempo. I think I should also have the tutorial's gameplay portion try to discretely get the player used to the control scheme to help people who haven't particularly memorized where all of their controller's buttons are without looking. This'll probably result in the tutorial song shown in the demo being replaced in the full game. I do still like its instrumental though, so maybe that will be repurposed for another game feature, at least.

There's probably some guy out there who just REALLY loves Astral Advisory as the tutorial song that will be very upset to hear this. In solidarity with them, I've depicted their enthusiasm with this rather silly image I've created.

As for other levels, now that I've got the updated rhythm system up and running, the 3rd rival battle of act 2 is almost complete. If you didn't like the Pow-Notes in Supastar Tennis, you might not like me very much after this! So far, I think this level has some of the best and most ambitious animation work I've done yet, so I hope you'll look forward to it. Not sure when I'll show a gameplay preview of this level, but I probably will at some point.

Also, I've made a new logo for the game! I'll gradually be phasing this one in to replace the old one, but until the full game releases you'll probably still see the old one hanging around too in some places.

That's all I can talk about for now, but thanks for reading! - LJ

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Scratchin' Melodii - Progress Checkup (Apr. 2024)

Hey guys! Just giving another progress checkup. Been working on a lot of stuff lately for Scratchin' Melodii! Keep in mind, since I won't be doing anymore demos, the stuff I talk about in these won't be released until the full game is released. 

Here's what I've been working on:

Redone Nami.WAV animations (Halfway Done!)  You already saw some of these in the 2023 demo!

Redone Stir & Mix animations (Done!)  I've been reanimating/cleaning up some of the animations in the levels that were animated earlier in development, as many of them are either off-model to how I currently draw the characters now or just aren't consistent with the quality of my more recent work.

Lucid Mode (Getting there!) Remember that experimental "Ascension" or "3D Mode" from the 2021 and 2022 demos? Well, I've finally got it working again with the new rhythm system. It's called "Lucid Mode" now. (Unless I change my mind again!) The most difficult part so far has been programming what happens when you fall out of it, but after a long week I think I've pretty much got it under control now. I'll show a preview of this mode when I think it's presentable!

??? (Act 2 Rival Battle 3) (Being Animated & Storyboarded)  Believe it or not, this will be my first time fully storyboarding a level's animations! I usually just kinda jump in with whatever I have planned in my mind, but I thought a more organized process would be worth a try this time.

Optimization Progress I've been learning some more optimization tricks, most recently with the beans in Sidechain Fever, of which I've managed to pretty much double performance! They look the same, but don't be fooled; their textures are handled differently now!

And other stuff that I can't talk about yet!

Now, with all these awesome things in the works, you're probably craving a look at some of it! Well, I don't feel like it. So here's a background model of a barbecue grill with placeholder materials.

A local of Uptown JamWell was asked about their thoughts on this barbecue grill. They stated: "If we're being real here, you could probably cook banana burgers on this barbecue."

Thanks for reading!

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Thanks for 600,000+ downloads on the Scratchin' Melodii demo!

I feel like I'm on the right track now, so in case you didn't catch me mentioning this before, there will be no more public demos of the game. From here, I'll just be focusing on finishing the full game and I'll try to occasionally show some progress too!

But real quick, let's talk. For future games I make after I finish this one, I don't think I wanna do any public demos for them. I don't exactly regret the Melodii demos, they've helped me shape my first game for the better, but it's led to a lot of stress on me too.

For starters, I don't like how often my test demos are treated as if they're normal game releases. Being brought up as a "free trendy indie game!" before the game even comes out kinda concerns me. (Especially since the game's definitely going to cost money when it does come out!)

The 2022 demo in particular got way more attention than I ever intended/anticipated. Now a good chunk of people hold the way the game was back then as something "sacred" that should be preserved in the final work, while I really just want to move on and keep growing with my art.

The level of attachment some people have with the replaced/unfinished content is something you'd expect between sequels or remakes of an old game, but it's happening here between mere months of development of the same game. I don't want to feel nervous when pushing the game, its music, or anything else about it closer to my vision. Artistic growth is exciting to me, and frankly I don't want this to ruin that for me.

So yeah, TL;DR I'll probably be handling unfinished game stuff more privately for now.

Sorry about the long thread, I truly appreciate all the support and I hope you'll look forward to the future of the game :)

[lj-lephemstar]

It takes a lot of tweaks and practice for me to get my character designs to a point where I’m satisfied with them. The little details count! Here’s some of the thought process that went into finalizing Melodii’s, mostly focusing on their silhouette.

There are some older animations in the demo that I still need to catch up to this new basis, so I've been slowly refining them as I find the time to. You might've noticed I started doing so with the animations of Nami.WAV, but to a bit more of an extreme since I felt like making the visual composition more interesting there in general!

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Devlog: Scratchin' Melodii - Expression 101 (Freestyling Guide)

I posted a less in-depth version of this on Twitter the other day, but here's a full guide for freestyling and staying on-beat in the Scratchin' Melodii demo.

Sorry if I've been a little slow keeping up with Tumblr lately, things have been pretty hectic since I released the new demo, so I'm trying not to overwhelm myself! Rest assured though, I won't leave out anything TOO important from this blog. Speaking of which, if you haven't already, the latest version of the Scratchin' Melodii Christmas SAGE Demo is now V1.031, which fixes a good chunk of bugs. To update, you just have to either redownload from the itch.io page or if you installed the demo using the itch.io desktop app, it should update it on its own. Just check for the version number in the top left of the title screen to be sure! I hope for this patch to be stable enough for me to leave the demo be, but I'll just have to wait and see. I hope to take a very nice break soon. Thank you all, and I wish you a happy holidays!

[lj-lephemstar]

If you hadn't heard or were just waiting for the first wave of bugfixes to be done, the new Scratchin' Melodii demo is now available on itch io for Christmas SAGE! (By the way, optimization is still incomplete, so the game may be buggy on computers that can't run the game at its intended 60fps)

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Scratchin' Melodii Development Progress Checkup (Sept. 2023)

Hello! You may have heard that the SAGE 2023 demo of Scratchin' Melodii had to be delayed, as something came up in which I had to reevaluate my life priorities for a bit. I can't give any solid dates on when I'll be postponing the release of this demo to at the moment, but for now I'll say that you can probably expect it before the end of this year.  I'm aiming for this demo to be the last demo I release before I finish the full game, BUT keep in mind, that does NOT at all mean that the full game will be done soon. There's still a lot of work to do!! And in case I haven't made it clear enough before, I do plan for Scratchin' Melodii to be a full game that you purchase with money when I complete it. The reason I've been releasing small free demos is just to gather feedback and testing. This is my first game, after all!

Anyways, here's the progress checkup.

These will be featured or partially featured in the next demo:

Overhaul of Cream Cheese Icing (Rival Battle) (Done!)  

Supastar Tennis (Rival Battle) (Done!) 

Sidechain Fever (Rival Battle) (Done!)

Gameplay UI & Beat Detection Overhaul (Halfway done!)

Story Mode Overhaul (Under construction...)

Automatic Button Layout Option (Done!) 

I'm also working on a lot of other stuff that I'll be saving for the full game. You may have noticed that batches of songs/levels are separated into "Acts". Keep in mind, this is only a way of sorting the songs based on when and where they appear in story mode, the next demo will not include the entirety of Act 2, only two songs from it. I hope you'll look forward to it! :)

-LJ

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"Fever means it's hot, baby, four pops makes a chain" Here's a preview of Rensa's rival battle in Scratchin' Melodii, Sidechain Fever! 🧙🏾‍♀️🟢 Feat. Jordo Price as MC Bean Machine, and a pixel art sequence from Marceline Gainsboro! Be sure to check out the SAGE '23 demo on Sept 1st!

Credits: Music, Main Art & Animation, Etc - LJ LephemStar Vocal Tuning/Mixing - Mia (2cada) Voice of M.C. Bean Machine - Jordo Price Pixel Art Sequence - Marceline Gainsboro

[lj-lephemstar]

I'll be having another early demo of Scratchin' Melodii at SAGE this year! Be sure to tune into SAGE 2023's trailer tomorrow to catch a small glimpse of a new rival battle!

Dreams do come into Reality! The SAGE '23 Trailer is coming. We will be premiering the trailer AUGUST 13 at 12PM PDT on Youtube. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/rov4-sQuStU Length: 27 Minutes and 30 Seconds

As well, feel free to come down to the SFGHQ Discord and join the watch party as it happens tomorrow! Link to the discord here: http://discord.sonicfangameshq.com/

Credits for Render: @rummysm Andreas Scholl

[lj-lephemstar]

"Get ready, Melodii..."

Here's a first-look preview of a new Scratchin' Melodii rival battle, Supastar Tennis! 🎾🌟

If all goes according to schedule, it should be playable in the SAGE 2023 demo of the game. (Early September!)

Credits: LJ - Art, Animations, Music, Etc Mia (2cada) - Vocal Tuning/Vocal Mixing

[lj-lephemstar]

"For anyone who's been waiting for a reason to get funky, this reason's covered in cream cheese icing..."

Here's an early look at the redone version of Cream Cheese Icing in Scratchin' Melodii!

The vocal tuning and mixing was done by Mia Syphn, who will be handling that part of the game's songs from here out! She's been doing amazing and I can't wait for you to hear the rest.

(Sorry about the audio glitches btw! My screen recordings just kinda do that for some reason🤷)