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Finding a fun and challenging rhythm game can pose challenges. Luckily, the indie game Melatonin brings a solid balance of difficulty, uniqueness, and calm music to create a memorable experience. As you play the game, you'll go through different dreams, such as eating food or lifting weights.
While the rhythm minigames seem simple, they quickly become complicated, especially if you want to earn three-star ratings. Getting used to each game can become challenging, so you'll naturally look for hints and tricks to access more nights. As you look through the best beginner tips, you'll get started and realize how to help the protagonist enjoy dreams.
Find Your Calibration
As you start the game, it'll have you try to calibrate the lag. Doing so helps you to line up the audio with the video, so your timing matches the beat. However, you should enter practice mode for a dream when you calibrate. Doing so will help you practice a new task while ensuring you find the right timing for your setup.
While the initial calibration shows you a visual prompt to get you to time it, ideally, you should avoid using it. Every person has slightly different timing, meaning you may find it difficult to match if you don't go off the noise. Instead, focus on the sounds and pay attention to the practice. If you consistently get perfects based on the sound, you found the proper calibration.
However, if you keep getting late or early ratings, change the calibration until you find that sweet spot. You can reduce the lag and make it easier to find the right setting if you play with headphones, so consider doing so. If you ever get a new TV, monitor, or setup, calibrate it again since the lag will vary between devices.
Don't move on with the game until you find the perfect calibration for your situation. Otherwise, you'll train yourself to press buttons off-beat, making future levels harder than if you calibrated it correctly.
Physically Track The Beat
Melatonin emphasizes four beats in its songs. Keeping track of the four beats will make completing levels easier. While it may seem excessive, nodding your head or swaying your body to the beat helps you feel the rhythm, maintain the beat, and time your button presses correctly.
For example, you may prefer rocking your body to the beat, while someone may want to tap their toe. Toe-tapping works well since you can put your foot down for the downbeat and up for the upbeat. You may fear you'll look ridiculous, but you'll make it easier to play through the game and unlock more nights.
Learn The Visual Cues
Every night will have its set of visual cues you must memorize. For example, the first level has boxes that send food to you. If they inch toward you, they'll shoot food quickly at you after three beats. On the other hand, if the box opens up, it'll launch the food in your direction. If it takes longer to open, you'll see the food fly high in the air, meaning it'll take longer to reach you.
Along with all these visual cues, the game will play music and sound effects to help you. Since the game focuses on music, it does an excellent job of considering these elements and getting them to match. While some may seem confusing at first, you'll get a feel for them as you keep watching and trying. Stick with the training mode until you feel comfortable enough to try the level. Doing so will help you understand all the cues associated with the challenge, so you know what to do.
If you struggle with the timing while matching the visual and audio cues, you should turn on the metronome in the accessibility settings. Doing so will let you hear the exact beats, so you'll get a feel for everything.
Get Two Stars On Every Level In A Night
As you go through a night, you'll receive a rating based on how you perform on each one. A one-star rating shows you received a passable rating, a two-star rating means you did good, and a three-star rating means you played almost perfectly. If you plan to progress through the game without going too quickly, try to reach a two-star rating on each dream before you finish the night.
Before you can finish the night, you must get eight stars from the various levels. Even though you can get three stars on two levels and one star on the other two, doing so will place you in a rough situation. The end of the night has you go through a compilation of the entire night. That means if you want to perform well during the end of the night, you must feel comfortable with all the songs. Otherwise, you may struggle to move onto the next night.
Practice Levels And Learn The Music
Whether you reach the end of the night or struggle with different levels, you can keep practicing. Luckily, the patterns and music remain consistent in each level. While the normal and hard difficulties will vary in what you do, they have a set pattern each time you play, so keep practicing, and you'll learn it.
Not only will you learn the levels and patterns, but you'll get a feel for the music. When you first start a level, you lack any experience and won't know about any of the tricky portions. Sometimes, the songs will slow down or throw a strange beat at you.
While you shouldn't worry when they first happen, ensure you spend time learning exactly when those moments happen to help you do a better job with the song. Even something as simple as memorizing the song and humming along to it can help you identify the crucial moments to time your button presses.
If you find levels hard to learn and memorize, try to play with the accessibility features. Seeing which buttons you must press and when can make a difference during your experience.
Bump The Difficulty Up To Hard
If you can't reach two or three stars on the normal difficulty, you should think about increasing it to the harder setting. Some people may view this as ridiculous since they can't do well on the standard setting, so why should they try the harder one? However, doing so can train you to perform better at the standard difficulty.
The harder difficulties have difficult beats and faster tempos. You have to remain precise with your inputs if you plan to do well in them. After your mind gets used to the faster speed, normal mode will be easier for you to process. Since you already tackled more difficult patterns and parts in the higher setting, your brain will have an easier time when you go back to normal. You'll then find it easier to reach the stars you need to continue.