melolune | mybluedream

Melolune Facesets: Andy’s Animation Test

March 8, 2011 at 1:08 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: andy, animation, melolune

Andy! The stoic blue-haired scoundral who hangs around Izaya in search of someone to accompany him to Debonet…

New Forum Online!

February 25, 2011 at 11:17 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Tags: forum, melolune

Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you guys know that thanks to my friend Kan, we finally have an awesome new forum for the website! It’s completely new, there are barely any footprints on it yet… So I want to invite all of you to come hang out and help get things rolling. Please feel free to post, share creative works of your own (art, music, photography, etc.), start up a dev log for a game or creative project you’re working on, or just chat about random things… In the future I’d also like to do some forum games (like mafia!), and for those who are interested in Melolune beta testing (or just want to know where to post feedback on the current build), there’s a whole section for that too ^_^

Updates and Requests

January 27, 2011 at 7:36 pm | Posted in Melolune, Music Album, Plants vs. Zombies piano version series | 22 Comments
Tags: melolune, plants vs zombies, plants vs zombies soundtrack, sheet music, The best it can be, Traces, video games

Hi everyone, I just have a few quick music updates for you today!

First of all, Davixus and Q Flat Major (rad nickname!) realized that a lot of folks were asking for the “Zombies on Your Lawn” sheet music, so they kindly put together an arrangement that’s available for download here. Thanks guys! Also, several people have asked me to update the lyrics section of my website to include “Traces” and “The best it can be,” so I’ve added those in case anyone still wants them ^_^

Last but not least, one of my New Year’s goals is to come up with a good and consistent way to record piano and singing. Sadly, my webcam can’t handle either of these, so the audio is always incredibly distorted. A lot of folks have recommended recording the audio and video separately, which would be great except for the fact that my audio setup (which I use for work) is placed in such a way that it’s nearly impossible to record video (the Korg is right up against a wall and moving it would be difficult since it’s connected rather tightly to the Behringer and computer by a bunch of wires). I was about to rearrange my whole setup when I happened to read that most camcorders (even older ones) actually have pretty good audio (good enough to record piano supposedly)… so now I’m onto plan B: Find my old camcorder, charge it, and put it to the test!

Provided that it works, does anyone have any requests?

Melolune Facesets: Dolby’s Animation Test

January 14, 2011 at 1:04 am | Posted in Melolune | 14 Comments
Tags: animation, dolby, GDC, melolune, plants vs zombies, video games

Got another one for ya! Here is the brave and enigmatic Dolby of the Mountain Melon Farms:

In other news… is anyone going to GDC this year? I’ll be giving a couple talks there. One is a panel on audio in casual games, and the other is a panel given by the Plants vs. Zombies team. I’ve got to work on slides for those this week; I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do for them yet but hopefully I’ll figure something out

I always encourage people to attend to GDC if they’re interested in getting into the video game industry because it’s a great opportunity to learn and meet folks (and some of the talks are really interesting). Satoru Iwata (the president of Nintendo) is going to be the keynote speaker this year. The conference is pretty expensive, but if you apply early enough you can go for free as a volunteer, which I’ve been told is a fun and rewarding experience (you still get to attend a lot of talks and there’s plenty of free time to talk to people and browse the showroom floor).

Melolune Facesets: Achaius’ Animation Test

January 12, 2011 at 1:07 am | Posted in Melolune | 20 Comments
Tags: achaius, animation, melolune

Melolune Faces

A couple years ago, my friend Hima asked if I’d write an ending theme song for “U.S.G. ~A New Beginning,” so I wrote “Starshine” in exchange for help with the faceset art in Melolune. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I received them a few weeks ago! I still have to send him my sketches for Sophie and Liele, but besides that, the faces are pretty much finished! Piti (his artist) did such a great job; he was able to improve them so much, but still somehow maintain the original style of my sketches.

Since they all have a number of different expressions, I decided to play around in Photoshop tonight. Here is Achaius’ animation test:

I’ll probably post some more animation tests later… especially once I get Sophie and Liele in the mix. I can’t tell you how fun and rewarding it is to finally see my characters come to life like this ^_^

Indiegames Interview

October 12, 2010 at 10:43 pm | Posted in Melolune, Video Games | 10 Comments
Tags: indiegames, melolune

Hi everyone ^_^ Jeriaska from indiegames.com was kind enough to interview me about the Melolune soundtrack. Here is a link to the interview if anyone is at all interested in checking it out (it was just posted today):

Melolune soundtrack interview at Indiegames.com

Also… stay tuned for a song and music video about a certain race/class combination in WoW that I’ve been advocating for a while now, hehe…

Melolune piano version series #1

September 29, 2010 at 12:57 am | Posted in Melolune piano version series, Video Games | 7 Comments
Tags: Carya de Mio, Eclipse and Starlight, melolune, video game music

Hi everyone! I guess I was in sort of a musical mood tonight or something, because after I finished Rigor Mormist I felt like recording some stuff from Melolune. And that led to me thinking I should start a Melolune piano version series as well, since there’s so much music from it that I want to share with you guys ^_^ So… for #1 I’ll start with these:

Although I’m sure a lot of you have heard it already, the original version of “Carya de Mio” actually has lyrics… it’s a lullaby that one of the main characters’ mothers used to sing to him when he was a child. You hear it during a scene when he’s reflecting on all of the good things she did during her lifetime. His last memory of her was when she asks him to recall the lullaby right before she passes away… she explains that the lullaby is “sung during dark times to help us remember that even when things are looking dim, we try to be full of light… that perhaps some of our light, would help to make someone else’s world a little brighter.” She hopes that she shined enough light onto him that he would lead a good life as well.

I put it up the original song on my bandcamp page (the player is below), but you can download it for free as well using this link. I hope you enjoy it ^_^

Traces Cover

September 1, 2010 at 11:21 am | Posted in Melolune, Video Games | 19 Comments
Tags: melolune, Traces

Hi everyone… I wanted to share something today that made me happy. My friend Kan did a cover of my song “Traces” that I thought was very beautiful. For those who don’t know, “Traces” is one of the few vocal songs from Melolune. It’s the theme song for Liele, a character you meet late in the game… Anyways, hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Oh, and here’s a link to the original song for those who haven’t heard it yet:
“Traces” (Liele’s theme) from Melolune

And here is Kan’s cover via youtube:

Indie Crunch Mode and Forums!

August 24, 2010 at 10:50 am | Posted in Melolune | 45 Comments
Tags: indie rpg, melolune, video games

Hi everyone, after seeing keito’s comment I thought I should post something really quick so you don’t think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth or anything ^_^

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to update in a while, I’ve actually been in sort of a crunch mode with Melolune for the past couple weeks. For those who don’t know, Melolune is an indie-rpg I’ve been working on for the past 2.5 years and I’m almost finished with it… in terms of content, I’m about 90% done. But the thing that’s taking up the most time is balancing the darn thing! I redid the database a while back (enemy stats, equipment prices, gold and experience, character skills, etc.) and now I’m playing through the game over and over again to try and make sure the battles feel balanced and the cutscenes feel sincere. This takes an amazing amount of time… but I think it’s worth it.

Since the story is the heart of the game, it’s really important to me that the players feel moved when they get to the important cutscenes… and at this point, one of the most important scenes/turning points in the game (that happens right after the last demo) just isn’t there yet. There’s also a lot of music that I still need to compose for locations in the game! Since I’m hoping to get Melolune completely wrapped up this year, I’ve really got to dig my heels in and finish this last part (without over-taxing my wrists of course, hehe)… Anyways, please wish me luck! I’m summoning all my will power to get this done

Let’s see… besides that, I’ve been writing new songs in the evenings. One of which I hope to share with you guys soon in video form (provided that I can get my World of Warcraft account up and running again in order to capture a few scenes to fit the lyrics, hehe ). I was also inspired to set up a forum for us; both for the purpose of giving Melolune-testers a place to post feedback, and also to give folks a place to talk (after seeing the dialogue that emerged in the comments section of the “Favorite Video Games” entry I thought it would be really cool). Since it’s still kind of under-construction (it’s just a free forum, but I’m steadily adding content) I’ll let you guys know about it when it’s ready!