"Melatonin" is rhythm discomfort

[@DeadPotatoX_X]

The irregular "thanks for-" [watching] always gets me. I love it.

[@LiliththeMoth]

I think I understand the trouble with grappling with "satisfying" games like Melatonin and a little to the left. It feels mindless in a manipulative way. They're both easy games that are supposed to invoke a pleasurable experience that just makes certain individuals stressed in a way that was never intended by their creators. I find games like this incredibly irritating.

[@timothymclean]

I think they're designed to be pleasant and relaxing for the people making them, which would be great if the only people who discovered them were people like their creators.

[@kirapipikirapika]

i wish i could like the aesthetic of the game because im big into pastels, but the colors are so close to each other and the line work is so thin that all the visuals blend together so when things are moving its almost mind-blurring to look at

[@orbismworldbuilding8428]

When i take melatonin i usually hallucinate and specifically hallucinate my intrusive thoughts

[@francegamer]

There's a certain effect where weirdly, something being easier than you're comfortable with makes it infinitely more stressful. If its not challenging enough, then that just makes it even more stressful than if it was too much for you to handle, because then you would at least be able to get better at it.

[@Litepaw]

That's exactly why I couldn't play any songs on rhythm games when they were on too easy modes.

[@averagejoe7572]

I couldn't even beat the melatonin demo without giving up, if this was the easiest rhythm game I don't even want to think about what's wrong with me

[@bw000m]

this is just like phineas and ferb... ya ain't got rhythm...

[@mozarteanchaos]

to be fair - and i know this is mentioned in the video - this game isn't really great at giving you reliable cues. as an example, rhythm heaven gives both audio and visual cues, sometimes obscuring visual cues to increase difficulty a bit, but usually making up for that with consistent timing and clear audio cues. from the gameplay i've seen, melatonin's audio cues aren't very clear, but it _still_ messes with the visual cues now and then, meaning players might not be able to tell what they're being asked to do even if they're usually alright with rhythm games. although, y'know, it's still possible that rhythm games just aren't your thing. nothing wrong with that, everyone's got different skills.

[@Wince_Media]

As a rhythm heaven fan, I found melatonin more difficult too, so it's not you

[@Rayne_of_Sunshine]

I know it's been nine months, but the game says there are accessibility settings that can keep beats on screen just like the tutorials. I hope this helps!

[@chroma.z]

4:50 I've never heard anyone else describe this so accurately, it's such a weird experience, and yeah melatonin makes it much worse

[@Rincewindl]

honestly, as someone who's sense of rhythm was forged in the fires of staying up past my bedtime and playing rhythm heaven on the ds until midnight, melatonin also fell quite a bit short. the demo for bits & bops, however, already feels like a VERY convincing successor to the series, it made me chuckle at some of the silly things it does and the music is so catchy. oh! also, i heavily recommend to anyone reading this to try out rhythm doctor. it's basically imho the purest form of a "rhythm game" ive ever touched.

[@docsy4529]

Honestly I find it somewhat fascinating that A Little to the Left has been seen as a dark game by some with OCD and triggering for them. As someone without OCD, I did not even remotely experience a feeling of darkness playing the game, just the usual puzzle game frustration at times. Says something about how media is colored by the person playing them. Good Vid

[@yeethittter1285]

I found it pretty surprising too. It's one of my favourite games and I find it immensely comforting, as someone with autism, which gives me a really strong need to organise and tidy because I'm overstimulated by mess. I sometimes play it when I'm overstimulated and it does help

[@Teegii4]

This just unlocked a fukin childhood memory memory While trying to sleep with my parents i woke up and mentally had to clear a level in a video game i was playing to somehow improve schoolwork

[@Rayne_of_Sunshine]

Personally, I think it's a cute game to play in the dark all wrapped up in a blanket with a sugary drink, half asleep in the early morning or at night when I ironically can't sleep. The easiness of it does trip me up, because if there's not enough inputs, I second guess or get too excited for the next beat and screw up so bad I have to restart. So, I often do better or get a literal perfect on hardmode. Although, Dream about Money and Dream about Time kicked my ass for a bit until I just calmed down on both scored and hard. Lmao Megamix had me wired to act as soon as I saw the clock near me because of the level of baseball themed games they have. I will admit, I didn't even know there were audio cues in Dream about Time. I fully watched for the blue portal every time. The cues are quiet for each minigame. Only a few are as loud and distinct as Rhythm Heaven and even then, they can be hard to decipher (looking at you Nature hardmode and Dream about Work). My best scores come from me zoning out and letting my vision blur as I play so I don't think too hard. I give it a 7/10. Enjoyable and aesthically pleasing. Reminiscent of Rhythm Heaven, complete with remixes even, but could have more distinct cues without overlapping offbeats and better tutorials that help walk you through the different individual beats instead of just playing a song demo.

[@icelandpenguin]

Thanks for the review. Really enjoyed this game and found it to be a lot harder than Rhythm Heaven. The lo fi eletronic with chiptune thrown in to the mix was a bop. Much like the best songs on Rhythm Heaven, the connection between the sound cues and music were inextricably linked by the end of the game that I was sad to find that the OST on streaming didn't include these effects (god bless Rhythm Heaven for including SFX versions to their OSTs). I like how the transition from Normal to Hard attempted to removed a lot of the visual cues and tested the player on recognizing the sound and beat of the music (Dating and Tech minigames comes to mind). I do think some of the cues, whether visual or audio, are very difficult to read in real time, with Nature and Desire coming to mind. The soft colors and general art direction fit the music, but I wish there was more surrealism (they are dreams after all!) and variety in the visuals, especially with the mashups. The themes of the game felt paper thin, and although I didn''t go into this game looking for robust philosophical takes on the relationship of dreams and reality, it made the few cutscenes in the game distracting. Also, the load times for each Night on the Switch is crazy long. Utterly devoured this game and was hooked after hearing the credit card swooshing SFX on Shopping.

[@ConvincingPeople]

As a fellow sufferer of fairly horrifying intrusive thoughts from OCD which periodically wake me up at night, all I can say is… yeah? Yeah. Thankfully melatonin doesn't exacerbate them for me, but hoo boy.

[@disquettepoppy]

I feel similar things about "cozy games" as a whole. They tend to be stressful in a very unpleasant manner just like life under capitalism, like something is always weighting me down, a baggage that is semi-accessible by my thoughts, the sensation of forgetting something important I have to do, while I'd rather curl in bed. Unlike precision platformers and other "hardcore" action games, which I find way more satisfying and exciting and ones of the best moments while playing a game were full of adrenaline when being close to overcoming impossible gauntlets.

[@Artidume]

my main issue with melatonin is that it's cues are too similar. you can't tell off just audio if a cue was for this beat, or that beat a little later. Rhythm heaven (at least most of the time) had cues that were distinct for every rhythm. It's probably alright, but it just ticks me off too much to want to try it. Great video, by the way!!

[@freezespeed2259]

agreed

[@made.online2149]

melatonin is also responsible for my circadian rhythm discomfort

[@ItsDanbo]

The cues in itself were quite difficult to get the hang. The game is also very unforgiving if you’re slightly early or late. Rhythm heavens has plenty of time for you to hit each beat and has details if you’re slightly early of slightly late but doesn’t punish you terribly for it.

[@SodiumTF]

I tried this game out because it looked similar to rhythm heaven. The amount of visual cues required was absolutely baffling, there are some levels (Stress, Money, and Future come to mind) where it is literally impossible to complete the level without either memorizing the pattern or looking at the screen, thar is part of what made rhythym heaven so fun to play for me. Also similiar to your critique I hate the amount of games that rely on a quick reaction time with little to no audio difference (like Time or Desires), if they had fixed these issues I might have enjoyed this game but the real turning point for me is when the metronome game (where you have to stay ON BEAT) changes BPM without warning multiple times, the level was generally extremely easy aside from that though. Also the final remix has a completely unskippable like 20 second intro whenever you mess up a perfect..... bruh...

[@chantolove]

that god damn phone hop stage makes me nauseous

[@AmikaChill]

My problem with melatonin is the music itself, most of the beats are just simplistic to the point of not being worthy of remembering The only one I liked was the "Past"

[@axelprino]

Maybe it's just me being absolutely horrendous at understanding music but rhythm games can sometimes feel like aesthetically pleasing QTE's on steroids, in the sense that I'm not really processing the music I'm listening to but rather my brain just decomposes the level into a series of inputs to memorize with the whole audio being interpreted as sound cues + set dressing to bop to, kinda like how a bullet hell is hit-boxes with pretty sprites/models to make the image visually and thematically pleasing. It's the whole concept of one part of my mind is taking care of the mechanical task while another one is free to appreciate the art, or more likely be busy thinking about something else. So I don't really blame a developer for completely missing the point and going with a more mechanically abstract approach with an arbitrary "vibes" skin on top, one can sometimes enjoy something and seek to replicate it without fully getting what's going on.

[@freeformfunposting]

Melatonin somewhat expresses to me how actually difficult it is to do a "rhythm heaven-like" well from a developer perspective. There's a very specific level of difficulty that you essentially have to dial in, if it's too easy it becomes monotonous, and if it's too difficult it stops being intuitive to play.

[@Person.1234]

It might be worth checking out Thumper, I'd say it's like the polar opposite of Melatonin

[@puppyhelictriangle]

Thumper is alright! it actually did quite a lot more for me as a rhythm heaven fan than melatonin did, it's got the same "music lover's rhythm game" thing. rhythm heaven better tho

[@c0zmozys]

i lkove thumper even tho itz a nightmare for me

[@IsaiahSugar]

The end of these videos being 'thanks for watching' but is sometimes cut off I like that its sometimes cut off I don't know why i like it so much

[@jedkronfeld6948]

you expressed a lot of the issues I had with the game really well. I liked the theming, but I feel like lofi works best went it's got a staggered and loose feel, which felt like a real mismatch with gameplay that demands precise timing. there were some shining moments though, I thought the credit card level's music matched the cues really well and the office one was a fun challenge, but the rest felt a bit half baked. I think it makes for a good game for someone who really likes lofi and hasn't played a lot of rhythm games

[@ToffeeBun]

This was a really good video, I'm happy you started showing up in my feed :>

[@bigredradish]

i didn't know much about this game until this video but it really does strike me as We Live In A Rhythm Society. that tone's a real turnoff for me and i don't care much for the music itself being like, STRICTLY 4/4 from what it looks like. rhythm games are at their best when they teach and explore music, at least to me

[@MookalH]

yeah you hit it on the head. i wanted to like this game so bad but the gameplay just falls too short for me. i really really hate to put indies up against each other but bits and bops (judging from the demo) just plays so much better

[@electricnezumi]

when I saw melatonin, I was like "aw, that's cute" and then I was like "this game probably sucks though, right?" I didn't think it could pull off 1. consistent theming 2. reasonable difficulty 3. distinctive and suitable music and it kinda seems from this video like it's mediocre at all of that, so I feel vindicated in ignoring it despite loving rhythm games.

[@AzureLlama]

Melatonin...weirdly reminds me of Omori.

[@BurgerSoda]

We have melatonin now, but soon we’ll have dopamine and adrenaline

[@basicnobody]

one thing i don't really like about melatonin is that in most rhythm games, you should be able to close your eyes and still get a good score (sound cues), or turn of your volume and get a good score (visual cues). if you were to not look at the visual cues, you wouldn't be able to get very far in the game.

[@Styxx_the_Fox]

I love rhythm heaven and melatonin, its a game that i play when i dont want to go to stressful... its a good game for beginner imo.. I love it

[@thomashuang1362]

I feel a little like this video overestimates the amount of familiarity of rhythm that someone not enfranchised has. I watched my partner seriously struggle on levels that were almost mindnumbingly easy for me. Was a good system shock on how musicality wasn’t actually as common as I assumed it was

[@SlickMajic]

Wow I must just not have any rhythm because I can’t even 3 star the levels 😢

[@aydenlentz3345]

I loved melatonin great game and loved the vibes

[@Sleepy_astro123]

The intro can never be not true

[@nickziegler1904]

There is one type of cue this game uses that I don't think rhythm heaven ever has and that's the left/right pan of the audio determining what input you have to make. The coin catching, and lava ladder climbing one are really bad for this. I think the coin tries to distinguish left and right by the sound of the cue itself as well as the pan but i found the difference hard to parse. The ladders one is just pure pan which is just really bad. Maybe discerning left from right is a completely valid skill to test for a rhythm game but I found it to be overly hard and couldn't force my brain to adapt to it well enough to make it fun. It sucks too because I like the music in the coin catching one a hell of a lot.

[@rowboat10]

rhythm hell was right there

[@kingwolfie0849]

wdym its easy? okay, a lot of the levels are easy, but some of them were hard for me, even when i had the thing that lets me know when to hit a note, on. also if anyone does find the game abit hard, try to get the rythem pattern on your head abit, and it does get abit easier.

[@NegativeReferral]

Nothing personal, but I think your voice recording on this particular vid could use a de-esser; it's a little sibilant for my ears.

[@DownTrodded]

Thanks for… for what? What did I do? What have I accomplished while watching this video? I don’t get it.

[@Mart1n192]

I really like the Aesthetic of Melatonin, but there were a few stinkies among the minigames, It is much shorter and easier than any Rhythm Heaven game but at least the Hard Mode makes up for it

[@dylanfarquhar6283]

very good video, amazing. Also CUUUUTE

[@jedkronfeld6948]

wait did you record this after taking a melatonin lol

[@QuintonMurdock]

Even fun well made rhythm games are nearly impossible and insanely stressful for me. Idk my brain just is not willing to work with them

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

Honestly, I saw a lot of thr same flaws (not with the themeing, I'm a bit too stupid for that), but I am so willing to overlook a lot of it for an indie rhythm game that is more than "notes flying at my face"

[@ScifiMushroom]

i have never really liked the cozy kind of aesthetic games to be honest, it feels insincere and marketing-y to me, not like the creators were trying to be dishonest or anything like that but it just feels like the game puts itself into a box too much trying to be marketable and fit the rules of an aesthetic and ends up feeling very corporate

[@Liam-kj5te]

Cool video but I feel moderately called out because I could not beat the third level of rhythm. I'm just broken I guess lol.

[@That_Gorou_Guy]

But you gotta admit the soundtrack for melatonin is 🔥🔥

[@kfcnyancat]

No I really don't.

[@That_Gorou_Guy]

@@kfcnyancat dam. 💀

[@heireau_]

thanks!

[@vacantvisionary]

You're welcome fo--

[@Kalitayy]

Most cozy games are either just lazy nothing burgers that capitalize on cutesy, pastel, beige aesthetics or “being on the winning side of capitalism” simulator. That include highly acclaimed games such as Unpacking, Melatonin, A Little To The Left and Stardew Valley. A lot of people love Stardew Valley, but I find it sickening. The game bored the crap out of me and the most fun I had was when I tried doing this Southern accent on every single dialogue because of how uninteresting the characters are. There’s literally nothing to do but at the same time, you have do to everything. On top of that, you’re playing as this nepo baby whose ultimate goal is to kick Joja out of the town and cause a guy (or possibly even more people) to lose their jobs. The only cozy games I found to be quite enjoyable are Power Wash Simulator and Minecraft. I tried some cute little alligator game but again, the most fun I had was when I did stupid voice acting. Cozy games are like a tumor in gaming because people just can’t be bothered to use their brains anymore to simply play video games, so it’s mostly just “vibes”.

[@puppyhelictriangle]

i like "a good snowman is hard to build" a lot, im also jaded but it won me over.

[@Kalitayy]

@@puppyhelictriangleIt’s the puzzle game, right? Puzzles are usually great. I love Manifold Garden even though most won’t consider it “cozy” but it’s pretty calming and fun.

[@puppyhelictriangle]

good snowman is really charm offensive and i was ready to be a bitter hater, but it was really tasteful & subtle where it needed to be. Something about being a faceless void monster + the super interpretive and understated music, very cute but didn't feel insistent about its cuteness. also i liked the puzzles a lot

[@KITSUMOX]

ive seen gameplay of this game and whooh boy it just doesnt look like fun at all

[@eggheadtwoSCM]

Bruh who is u

[@joelhagdahl5769]

a dog

[@dewroot5176]

@@joelhagdahl5769 _Bork!!_

[@marx96xVx]

4:45 "i need to wash my hands again or I'll abuse a child" is a a really weird thing to say and to think it's a funny joke

[@chroma.z]

I don't think it's meant as a funny joke, I think she's talking about intrusive thoughts

[@puppyhelictriangle]

yes, it's not a joke that's just what ocd can do

[@jukmifggugghposer]

I didn't interpret it as a joke, rather a rejection of the usual framing of OCD of "oh I'm so quirky and I like when stuff is in order". I think she's basically saying that OCD is a serious thing with serious, harmful effects, and that's the impression the game was giving her.

[@baphomette666]

@@chroma.z yeah. it's something you'd really only intuitively grasp if you had OCD but the comparison works.

[@dode3614]

@@puppyhelictriangle hmmm that sure implies some uncomfortable things