Video Game / Scratchin' Melodii

Scratchin' Melodii is a currently in-development Rhythm Game by LJ LephemStar with a demo released for SAGE 2021 with three songs, and another released for SAGE 2022 with five songs and the first part of the story mode. A third demo was released for SAGE 2023 with the same amount of songs for the story mode and two bonus songs along with a remade version of the second song, "Cream Cheese Icing." It's mostly inspired by games like PaRappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy, with plenty of its own twists to keep things fresh.

After a young DJ named Melodii is caught with spraying graffiti all over a wall, they're tasked with doing various jobs to receive Community Service Points and pay back their debt. With the AGES NoteStar in possession, they set off to do just that, but getting to that point will require defeating rivals in DJ Battles.

During gameplay, you have to push buttons either to repeat the opponent's lyrics/music or support them. Doing well enough lets Melodii proceed, but deviating from the given song by adding some additional beats grants more points and can even let Melodii ascend to a higher dimension and freestyle. The city the game takes place in is also explorable, with several locals to talk to and goodies to find, but you can also jump into each song in Quick-Groove mode.

The demo can be downloaded here.

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Troping? An art. This site? Our canvas. Now let's get to work and see if you can handle this:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The game uses 3D for most of its environments, but the characters look more like 2D paper cutouts, excluding the Astral Advisors.
• Aerith and Bob: The main character's name is Melodii, while a couple other characters have more outlandish names such as "Biggie Cheesecake", "Jamtine" or "Synthz McWave."
• Anti-Frustration Features: Should a player decide to replay a song, whether it's because they lost or they're retrying for a higher score, the game gives them the option to skip the intro to the song and get right back to the gameplay.
• Art Shift: At one part of "Sidechain Fever", the game shifts to a pixel-art style for Melodii, Rensa and their location.
• Bait-and-Switch: During the opening cutscene for "Grease Poppin'", Synthz comes out of the men's restroom with the women's restroom in view. The camera then pans to a third restroom marked with a music note, which is the one Melodii comes out of.
• Big Eater: Biggie Cheesecake is seen as always munching on cheesecake bites, including right when he's first seen in person and even during his song.
• Black Comedy Burst: When the GovGuys pull out after serving Melodii their sentence, a loud scream is heard. Heading outside reveals they ran over a kid on the way out who lays there unresponsive, covered in a tire track.
• Blush Sticker: Melodii always has two pink ovals on their cheeks to add to their childish appeal.
• Brick Joke: The GovGuys' dog exclaims through Animal Talk out of nowhere that they love child labor. Later, at Synthz McWave's restaurant, McWave lampshades the fact that he can employ Melodii by claiming that child labor was recently made legal since the Government Dog loves it so much.
• Call-and-Response Song: The gameplay, similar to early rhythm games such as PaRappa the Rapper, has the player repeating back verses and note presses from their opponent to earn points. However, there are also sections where the player "supports," or sings along with, their opponent instead of repeating what they just said.
• Childhood Friends: At the very beginning of the game in Melodii's room, you can find a photo of Melodii in a crib as a baby and the Sweetz Siblings as children together, implying that the duo have known Melodii since they were all very young.
• Color Motif: Most of the game uses blue and pink, which appears a lot in character designs, room design, and the HUD. It's even contrasted during gameplay (blue means repeat, pink means support).
• Cool Board: Instead of running for faster travel Melodii can use their AGES NoteStar as a Hover Board.
• Critical Annoyance: Reaching Low-Fi on the health meter will play a constant alarm sound, along with a fast heartbeat sound. This will constantly play until you either improve your health or get a game over.
• Denser and Wackier: The 2022 demo was already fairly silly, but the 2023 version turns it up a notch. Melodii was unaware of vandalism being illegal before the government showed up, and the cutscenes were rewritten to be more casual and goofy.
• Disappeared Dad: Melodii's dad is implied to have left the family after Melodii was born. This makes them warn Jamtine not to have kids if she wants to keep her love.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Each song has an easy mode, but the selection screen for it also has an icon of Melodii looking like they're either making a baby face or they're holding in their laughter at you picking easy mode. Due to the way notes work in the game to handle the ability to freestyle, the lyrics are also horribly cut and mutated, with the songs saying things like "waves water waves break down the tension" and "how long has how exactly butter how been out to sit".
• Expressive Accessory: As seen in "Sidechain Fever," Rensa has a hat with a bobble on top, which turns into the tail of a question mark when she's confused or of an exclamation mark when she's surprised.
• Expy:
  • Take Ronald McDonald, give him a funkier design and a laid-back, easygoing attitude, and you have Synthz McWave.
  • Nami's stoic nature and image is very reminiscent of Daria.
• Face Plant:
  • Jamtine's first impression is her darting out of her house, tripping and landing face-first on the sidewalk. Naturally, it's Played for Laughs.
  • Right after Melodii exits their home in the beginning, there's an unknown little girl lying face-down on the road with no explanation (however, it is heavily implied she's the source of the screaming heard after the government agents leave Melodii's house). She's not moving, cannot be interacted with and has no collision.
  • Melodii's miss animation during "Grease Poppin'" during the line about "groove coastin, smooth roastin" has them immediately fall flat on the floor.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Melodii is visited by Federal Investigators for drawing graffiti. It's a crime they take very seriously, Downplayed as their punishment is only community service.
• Friendly Enemy: So far, most of the opponents (sans Nami, sorta) do not harbor any ill will towards Melodii.
• Genre Roulette: The songs present in the game go through several different genres. The first three include hip-hop, vaporwave, and love-themed bubblegum pop.
• Hover Board: Melodii's AGES NoteStar can be used as one enabling them to travel faster.
• Letters 2 Numbers: The Sweetz Siblings mark a fence with "NEVA 2 SWEET".
• Letting the Air out of the Band: The music goes flat every time you fail a song.
• Loading Screen: The loading screen shows Melodii spinning on a record and jumping occasionally.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Considering the screaming fit Jamtine throws shortly into the beginning of "Stir 'n' Mix", it's safe to say that her lovesickness has certainly taken a toll on her sanity.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Nami's name means "wave" in Japanese, alluding to her calm, laid-back surfer girl-like demeanor and vaporwave aesthetic.
  • Jamtine, the third opponent of the game, has a name that's a cross between "Jam," as in music, and "Valentine", and the basis of her song is her and Melodii baking cookies to give to her crush.
• Mickey Mousing: A couple songs have some things that happen to the background to reflect the player performing poorly. The most notable instance of this is in "Grease Poppin'," where the characters watching in the background will get visibly irritated and voice lines from the customers reflecting this also play.
• Mood Dissonance: Melodii's VS. screen pose shows them looking around in total shock. This works well enough for the first two battles as they would have a reason to be shocked and the opponents are somewhat intimidating, but not so much in the latter two where the opponents are friendly and they've entered on their own terms to make cookies/cook burgers.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Synthz McWave dresses up as a clown in his restaurant, but he's an amicable guy willing to show Melodii the ropes of how to cook and let them help during the lunch rush hour to get community service credit.
• Promoted to Playable: Jamtine becomes playable in "Supastar Tennis" when she joins Melodii's team.
• Rank Inflation: Performing exceptionally well during a song by repeating everything almost perfectly and adding your own style grants an S rank.
• Recurring Boss: The Sweetz Siblings have, so far, appeared in "Cream Cheese Icing" and "Supastar Tennis," being the only characters in the game to go up against Melodii twice.
• Retraux: The loading screen and the tutorial are meant to look like a 1990s CRT, despite the game running on modern hardware in HD.
• Scary Black Man: Biggie Cheesecake is large, imposing, and never smiles. There's a good reason Cinnabay sings for most of the song, as Cheesecake's one single line terrifies Melodii.
• Scoring Points: Rankings are scored under three criteria: Rhythm, Expression, and Obedience. Rhythm is for overall accuracy, Expression is for ad-libbing, and Obedience is following through with the prompts. Doing the bare minimum of following along will only get you up to about a C rank, encouraging the player to mix things up.
• Shout-Out: Scattered all over the place, whether it's one towards Sega or rhythm games.
  • Melodii's turntable is called the AGES NoteStar.
  • The graffiti Cinnabay and Biggie Cheesecake spray on the fence are pastiches of the Sonic & Knuckles and Bust a Groove logos. There's also a Pac-Man-style logo with a record and a cheesecake as a power pellet.
  • The stage you battle Nami is known as the Groove Coast.
  • Rensa and her rival battle "Sidechain Fever" is one to the Puyo Puyo series, with the song cover stylized like a Puyo Puyo Fever cover.
    • Rensa and Melodii clear creatures that look and act similar to the titular Puyos.
    • MC Bean Machine, the guest vocalist, is likely named after Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
  • In "Sidechain Fever", Melodii's hair during one of the lines can be potentially styled to look like Jimmy Neutron or Sonic.
  • In "Sidechain Fever", one of MC Bean Machine's lines has him mention "a pup learnin' how to punch chop".
• "Simon Says" Mini-Game: In addition to the overall gameplay being based on repeating button presses, finding stickers in the overworld leads to a minigame where a sequence of arrows is shown that you have to repeat to actually receive them.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Jamtine, by a mile. Her song, "Stir and Mix" is about baking cookies for a guy she likes, even swooning over him mid-song.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Lampshaded when Jamtine wanted to take the McWave's job opening to get an opportunity to get closer to her crush. Melodii questions why can't she just talk to said crush, which she responds by admitting she keeps getting nervous around him. They end up proposing that Jamtine bake cookies for said crush that better appeal to Jamtine's abilities instead of taking the job opening, leading to her rival battle.
• Stoic Spectacles: Nami sports a pair of round Opaque specs to emphasize her phlegmatic nature.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: As explained in this tweet, some songs give the characters voices with Vocaloid software to give the game more of a surrealistic feel, which is especially noticeable in "Grease Poppin'".
• Temporary Bulk Change: Near of the end of "Stir and Mix", the butter on the table becomes alive and turns extremely muscular, before dancing and then returning back to normal. Get a game over and it'll get angry and smack Melodii with a backhand slap. The camera switches to Melodii's perspective at that moment so you, the player, get to experience it firsthand.
• Through His Stomach: The premise of "Stir and Mix" is Jamtine baking cookies with Melodii to hopefully win the love of her crush. The latter explains it's how their dad and mom fell in love.
• Tinfoil Hat: A guy who's suspicious of McWave's restaurant wears a tinfoil hat to indicate just how crazy he is.
• Tongue-Out Insult: In the first level, "Cream Cheese Icing," Cinnabay does this at the beginning of the song. Likewise Melodii can stick their tongue back at her as she's repeating the latter's lyrics.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Compared to the SAGE 2022 Demo, the Sweetz Siblings are far kinder towards Melodii in the Christmas SAGE 2023 Demo; while they’re still proud rebels and oppose the “feds” without fear, they’re much less antagonistic with Melodii regarding their mission. Rather than trying to defeat Melodii out of disgust for them trying to get a volunteer job, they simply offer to let them help with their latest graffiti piece. They also assure Melodii that the neighbor that owns the fence that they are painting on is completely fine with their artwork, which the neighbor himself confirms, and mainly just drag them into their rival battle because they don’t seem to fully understand the kind of trouble that Melodii is currently in at the time. After learning the details of their encounter with the "feds", Cinnabay instead comforts an upset and worried Melodii by assuring them that they don’t have to be afraid of the “feds” and even offers to help Melodii with their mission to pay the fine by taking them around town to places that they can’t reach on foot in her and her brother’s car. As a result, Cinnabay and Biggie Cheesecake come off as less of an obstacle to Melodii and more of a set of rebellious and teasing but still very loving friends with a sibling like bond with them.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Biggie Cheesecake particularly enjoys cheesecake bites, as indicated by him eating them in "Cream Cheese Icing" and being frustrated when he runs out of them.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Melodii isn't bothered a single bit by the sight of an obviously unconscious and possibly dead child lying face-down on the road right in front of Melodii's home, heavily implied to have hit by the government agents' car.
• Versus Character Splash: The VS. screen shown between battles has Melodii looking shocked on the left and the rival looking more confident on the right.
• Vocal Dissonance: The Puyo-like beings are given voices in "Sidechain Fever." You would think they would have high-pitched voices to go along with their look, right? Well...
• Vocal Evolution: All the vocals for the SAGE 2022 Demo songs were redone by voice synthesizer cover artist Mia (2cade) for the Christmas SAGE 2023 Demo, resulting in a clearer and more natural sound.
• Voice Grunting: Each character has a different style of grunting used while talking in the cutscenes. They sometimes have normal vocals in the songs.
• Warm-Up Boss: The first rival battle against the Sweets Siblings is fairly easy without being tutorial-level like Astral Advisory, with it including the main flow of the game like repeats (single or dual-laned), interruptions during songs, and supports.
• Wingding Eyes: During her hyper-lovesick fit in "Stir 'n' Mix" Jamtine's pupils turn into pink hearts.
• Year X: The footage in which Melodii is graffitiing a wall is marked as "06.19.XX".

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