Memody: Sindrel Song
Tobias Cornwall · 2019 · Indie, Music, Female Protagonist, Emotional, Great Soundtrack
PC
Positive100% · 18
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About Memody: Sindrel Song
Memody: Sindrel Song is a novel take on the music game genre, in which you must accurately mimic musical melodies to build memories that give light to life despite the darkness inside your mind.
The story follows Memody, a 'sindrel' who's just awoken into life. Sindrels naturally live for just six days before a fatal winter claims them, but the opportunity for prolonged life presents itself to her. Sindrels have symbiotic creatures in their heads - daemons - which provide guidance through life, but Memody's is 'defective', poisoning her thoughts with constant abuse. Would life eternal be desirable if it was shared with an inescapable inner critic? By sharing songs with other sindrels and understanding their perspectives on life's value, she might build connections with new friends - and new outlooks - whose light outweighs the dark.
All the game's content - concept, code, graphics, music, writing, etc - was made by a solo developer, while recovering from treatment for brain cancer... which he had on top of serious mental health issues (severe social anxiety and depression). Both the physical and mental brain issues revolved around memory in different ways: a big part of the social anxiety is being haunted by (often objectively trivial) memories of social embarrassment, and the major brain surgery to treat the tumour presented the risk of permanent memory loss. This game explores the dark and light sides of memory, both in an attempt to reduce or prevent that memory deterioration, and to make peace with inner demons.
If nothing else, hopefully it's inspiring. If someone can do this alone with both mental illness and brain cancer, then surely you can achieve your goals if you put your mind to them!
This is the first of several games that'll be set in a world called Alora Fane. If you appreciate deep, characterised - and funny! - dialogue in games, and novel world lore, there should be a lot in this for you!
GAMEPLAY
- It's a music game, but it's not a typical rhythm game. It's more like learning songs by ear on an actual instrument.
- Mimic melodies using piano-like note buttons, in two 'modes' (light and dark) of six notes each. These play distinct tones that are consistent between songs (eg key 1 always plays a Bb in light mode, an Ab in dark mode).
- The challenging difficulty makes success incredibly satisfying! The player's performance is graphed after each attempt, marking clear progress towards a goal. There's also an easier Casual mode.
- Immerse yourself in an imaginative world with deep lore, with lots of clever dialogue that fleshes out seven unique characters, each of whom represents a different outlook towards life, death, and the difficulties we face.
- Learn seven increasingly difficult songs, each with emotional themes related to the characters, story, and life in general.
- Feel moved by this heartfelt exploration of coping with mental illness, finding meaning in life, and empathising with others by listening.
STORY
The story follows Memody, a 'sindrel' who's just awoken into life. Sindrels naturally live for just six days before a fatal winter claims them, but the opportunity for prolonged life presents itself to her. Sindrels have symbiotic creatures in their heads - daemons - which provide guidance through life, but Memody's is 'defective', poisoning her thoughts with constant abuse. Would life eternal be desirable if it was shared with an inescapable inner critic? By sharing songs with other sindrels and understanding their perspectives on life's value, she might build connections with new friends - and new outlooks - whose light outweighs the dark.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY
All the game's content - concept, code, graphics, music, writing, etc - was made by a solo developer, while recovering from treatment for brain cancer... which he had on top of serious mental health issues (severe social anxiety and depression). Both the physical and mental brain issues revolved around memory in different ways: a big part of the social anxiety is being haunted by (often objectively trivial) memories of social embarrassment, and the major brain surgery to treat the tumour presented the risk of permanent memory loss. This game explores the dark and light sides of memory, both in an attempt to reduce or prevent that memory deterioration, and to make peace with inner demons.
If nothing else, hopefully it's inspiring. If someone can do this alone with both mental illness and brain cancer, then surely you can achieve your goals if you put your mind to them!
This is the first of several games that'll be set in a world called Alora Fane. If you appreciate deep, characterised - and funny! - dialogue in games, and novel world lore, there should be a lot in this for you!
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What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
This is a game that grows on you… And in you, like a flower daemon. I have to admit, I had trouble getting into this game at first. I went in expecting a rhythm game, and played it like one. But Memody: Sindrel Song isn’t a rhythm game, and in fact it’s not even really a music game - at least, not exclusively. Yes, the music is there, yes, it’s really hard when you first start out and you’ll fail a lot, yes, the songs are varied and nice to listen to (especially considering the total of 12 unique notes used over 7 songs), and yes, I did spend way too long trying to get 180% on all the songs. But under each song is also a carefully and intricately crafted character. And that’s where Memody: Sindrel Song begins to take on a new shape. Over the course of playing each character’s song, you get to know them. The character designs are absolutely beautiful, and each one has personality and depth to it. Clear thought was put into all seven of them, and it shows in both their dialogue and the feel of their songs. The dialogue itself is undeniably hit or miss; sometimes it broke my immersion through heavy-handedness or jarring awkwardness, and at other times it surprised me with its cleve…9 found this helpful
It's hard to give this game a poor review—not so much because the game is without fault but because of the backstory behind it and the man doing the development. (Just do a little investigation into why this game was made and you'll get the picture. Do a little more research on Toby himself, and . . . well, his mind isn't in the best place, he reads reviews, and he doesn't take negative ones particularly well.) I totally get the idea creating a passion project and releasing it because it'd be a shame not to—I've done that myself with creative writing (also about cancer, coincidentally—Google "Taialin oblivion" for that). But that makes reviewing the game by its own merits difficult. If you're reading this, Toby, I criticize the game, not the person—it takes astounding courage to publish something like this. STORY I didn't expect much, to be honest, but it's more engaging than you might expect.. The Alora Fane universe is built very well, and its themes are sound. I'm thankful I don't have mental illness myself, but I know enough people with depression that this quite literal demon inside Memody will resonate with a lot of people. It does for me about halfway, through no fault of t…5 found this helpful
As someone who sucks at rythm games and has poor memory in general this game sounds like something which just wouldn't be for me but it's super fun to just learn the music patterns, slowly getting better at every attempt and then learning the next part of the song that will give you a headache. great game, criminally underrated4 found this helpful
The most hidden of hidden gems. Amazing writing that should be relatable for anyone with mental health issues and gameplay that pushes you to not give up when faced with a challenge. Lovable yet flawed characters that placate their mental demons in different ways. A soundtrack most games wish they could match. Please try this game.1 found this helpful
<3<3<31 found this helpful
I was one of the beta testers for this game when it first came out on Kartridge, so I’ve spent more time with the game than is shown here - probably a good 10h! In short, I think that it combines a powerful, thought-provoking story with gameplay that is challenging but rewarding. The music is one of the best parts as well, I still have some of the tunes in my head to this day 😊 What sets this game apart from other rhythm games is that there’s quite a focus on memorising and repeating melodies – instead of reacting to a song that’s already playing by pressing the right buttons, you’re a part of the song yourself! The atmosphere is beautiful and each song that you fully master feels incredibly meaningful since the characters that perform them are, figuratively and literally, very colourful. The game deals strongly also with the main character's mental illness, but it's very well done and it’s clear this is drawn from the developer’s own personal experiences. His own story of making the game is quite inspirational as well.1 found this helpful
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