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Memody: Sindrel Song?

6 years ago2,701 words

As I mentioned in ∞ the previous post ∞ (which is more worthwhile than this one, so I don't want this to replace it so soon!), I'm wondering whether to rename Sindrel Song. If I do, there are other changes I'd like to make too based on that - like renaming the protagonist - and I'm writing about it now because whether or not I change the title will affect the writing that I still need to do (which is pretty much all I need to do before I can start testing), so I'd like to have a clearer idea before moving forward.

I'm considering the title Memody, which is a combination of "Melody" and "Memory", which is what the game is about. "Sindrel Song" could still be retained as a subtitle. I like stressing the memory aspect to make it clear that it's not just a standard rhythm game.



The more I think about it, the more fitting it seems, because the gameplay's based around those two things, yes, but it also somewhat ties into the "mental illness" theme I've been exploring in the story. One of the most awful things about my specific broken mind, which I've written about before, is how embarrassing memories leave deep mental 'scars' that come up again and again and make me cringe every time. This seems to be a common enough thing based on the experiences of others I've looked into (my issue is one of frequency and severity rather than producing something novel, like, say, hallucinations), so I've made it a part of the story. The protagonist says something early on that she feels embarrassed by, and it keeps coming back to haunt her again and again afterwards. I hadn't thought to explicitly tie that narratively to the concept of memory, but that's exactly what it is. So it's a game about memorising melodies, but also a story about the pain that unwanted memory can bring us, I suppose.

I'd been trying to cover a wide range of insecurities and common/relatable/non-'insane' mental illness symptoms like anxiety and depression and feeling lost and all that, but maybe making the 'unwanted memory' thing more of a focus will tie the gameplay to the story in an abstract way, and will be less scattered and sketchy, as it is when trying to explore too many things in what's only a short game.



If I were to change the title, I'd like to change the protagonist too. Currently she's called Glimmer, and she's based on a character with a long history who started off as Solaar in MARDEK; I wrote about that history in ∞ this post ∞. It's always bothered me (more than it should, really) that Glimmer has seven letters though; I've stuck to six for all the other characters to fit with the number 6 motif. At first I thought it being seven letters was fitting because she's 'defective', but "Memody" is defective too, in that it's almost one word and not quite another. In the script I have so far, the other characters tend to respond to Glimmer introducing herself with bland things like "that's a nice name" or "it sparkles". If Memody were to introduce herself, the other characters could be confused about whether it's "Melody" or "Memory", leading to feelings of being misunderstood and 'wrong' in some sense just for being who she is. Something like that. I can already imagine how each character could get her name wrong! So I could definitely do more with that name, silly-dialogue-wise. I also feel that the game's name might become more memorable if the character's name was played with a lot in dialogue like this. And it'd mean that it'd be following on from MARDEK in that the game shared its name with the main character, though that's no more than a little bonus.

I like Glimmer as a character, in an abstract sense as a product of my mind, but the mental archetype I have of her has some very distinct traits. She talks in an eccentric way I can't easily describe, inspired by how Solaar talked, and her attitude is defined by a surface New Agey love and joy ∞ Pollyanna ∞ attitude to cope with inner turmoil. Her motto is "Smiles are brighterous beacons that wake us up from daymares". She says things like (when asked whether she's a nervous and anxious person too, by two people who found that they had that in common):


"I shall unfortunately have to decline membership to the nervous and awkward club, for I would not wish to cloakerise myself in darkness on purpose, no not at all! The night already does that, so why steal the day's light away all sulkfully when you could instead reverentiously copy the beaming sun by showing your teeths crescently and infusing your words all full of fulsome pleasance that sets the souls of others alight with yay?"

(The response: "What.")

"Smiles are brighterous beacons that wake us up from daymares!
That is a thing which I know to be true, and you should too, if that is what you choose to do, and to want! :3
Love is Heaven, and its pearly white gates wait behind every pair of pouting lips if only they'd be open~!"


I find that entertaining. I also really like her ∞ musical theme ∞; it's one of my favourite compositions. I would have incorporated it into this game, but I can't because of the limited six-note musical scales. So for ages it's been an aching shame to me that it might either never be used in a proper game for the character, or I'd give it to her anyway in a future game and have a sindrel with theme music that doesn't use their specific scales - and whose theme didn't even appear in their original game despite it being about music - which felt wrong.

I chose to use Glimmer as the protagonist when I started this game, long before it evolved into its current form, and the protagonist I've got now isn't really that character anymore. I'd still like to use Glimmer in something one day, but I don't know if this is where I should be using her. Maybe it'd be best to just consider her a development placeholder, though it'd definitely feel strange to change the main character of the game at this stage! I wouldn't really be changing her though; it's more like I'd be using a new name for what actually is a new character, since she's not really Glimmer - as she exists in my mind - anymore.

(I've been trying to write Glimmer's quirky speech style in dialogue, but it's not flowing forth like it did in 2017, where those quotes are from. Not having to do that - while also not redefining the Glimmer character to lose that - would be a big relief.)



If I made her into Memody instead, there's already a character called Melody, who I'd need to rename to reduce confusion. I don't exactly want to, because her being called anything other than Melody feels so wrong, but I made a list of all the musical terms I could come up with or find which had six letters, and I found one that maybe might fit, perhaps even moreso than Melody.

The possibilities I had (six, pleasingly) were Rhythm, Sonata, Timbre, Presto, Vivace, and Rubato. Her song's not rhythm-focused as such, Sonata sounds too stuffy and formal, Timbre has an awkward pronunciation and reminds me of lumberjacks, Presto reminds me of ∞ magicians ∞, Rubato doesn't really fit or sound right...

Vivace is a tempo marking meaning to play music fast and lively, but ∞ it also means ∞:

1. Full of life or vitality; vivacious.
2. Long-lived, enduring.
3. (botany) Of a plant that can live for many years; hardy.
4. (botany) perennial

Sindrels are plant-based (they're not mammalian, despite their looks), and the whole point of the setting is that the wintrels live through the winters, transcending death. It's about Life! This character is especially joyful and lively, and she was the first one whose life was extended thanks to Hearth. So maybe Vivace seems even better than Melody? Her being called Melody had nothing really to do with her attitude beyond her love of music (and her making of instruments for the others), so Vivace would have a dual meaning that that name didn't.

I like Melody as a name too, a lot, but having the protagonist with a name (Memody) that closely ties to the game's themes and gameplay, rather than giving that to a non-player character, might be more fitting.

"Vivace" has an awkward pronunciation too (there's the Italian "vi-VAAH-chee", which I'd naturally say, but "vi-vass" seems to be valid too, especially for the non-musical meaning), but the meaning aspects make up for it, I feel. "Melody" feels gentler while "Vivace" sounds sharper, more aggressive perhaps, but her personality is meant to be like an inspirational speaker (a TED talker, say), bold and extroverted and inspiring, so maybe that's not inappropriate. Melody sounds more innocent and like a dainty little girl to me, so Memody might be more fitting for a newly-'born', naive character like the protagonist (it also feels a bit like baby-talk, suggesting both naivete and a not-quite-there mind, hmm).

It'd feel really weird for sure to have spent months with these characters only for them to drastically change their names! But I imagine this kind of thing happens all the time when games or films are stories are coming together...



So I'm torn about whether to stick with what I have, or whether to do some renaming. Or I mean maybe since I've written all this, I've probably already made the decision, but I also understand the weight of it, so it's not simple and easy to just do it. Any changes I'd need to make would be quick and minor; it's not as if I'd be having to remake anything from the ground up. Renaming the character is pretty much a formality since she's not the character Glimmer anymore really; I'd need to change some lines of dialogue, but that should be trivial. The same goes for renaming Melody to Vivace. I might give her a new outfit (I want to anyway for some story reasons), but that shouldn't take long.

I'm thinking of a combination title: Memody: Sindrel Song. "Memody" could be the type of game (memorising melodies) as well as the protagonist, whereas "Sindrel Song" is a description of the specific setting and story. Doing this could mean that I could make other "Memody"-format games if people like this one (though this is meant to be a stand-alone game rather than the start of a series, in case that hasn't been clear; I don't want to start something I can't finish).

Something I'd like to make if people do like this is a version where you can create your own (probably sindrel) character and make your own song for others to play, with all the online sharing features you'd expect like selecting them from a list of all available songs, rating them so the best come up first, etc. While it bothers me that something like that would be 95+% crap (I say sensitively), people do seem to like content creation, and it seems like a format that'd easily allow for that. It could definitely give the game extended life and a wider appeal too. So I could call that "Memody: Songs of the World" (or some way better title I'd have to think of if I did decide to do this).

Another thing I'd like to explore is an RPG, where the 'battles' use this call-and-response melody system; that could use "Memody" in its title too. But that's idea's little more than a vague wisp at this point.



A couple of people mentioned trademarks on the previous post, which isn't exactly an area I've ever had to be concerned about before. I wonder to what extent it matters when making and self-publishing a small independent indie game (rather than, say, trying to register a business for commercial purposes).

There definitely seems to be a small company - or whatever it is - called Memody CIC, which, as I mentioned in the previous post, seems fairly small and local. It's in the UK, interestingly, and seems to offer "songwriting and recording sessions [for] young people and learning disabled adults". They seem to have a website (www.memody.org), which just says it's a private blog and can't be accessed. So it's not as if they're a huge household name or anything. They dominate the first page of Google results, and they seem to be offering a noble service, so I wouldn't want to disrupt any of that. Still, it seems like the kind of thing that'd get most of its business from putting up flyers in local community centres, things like that, rather than people randomly finding them on Google.

There's a gov.uk site that seems to let me search for registered trademarks, though since this is all beyond my sphere of knowledge, I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly at all. Searching for "memody" brings up 65 pages, 641 results, but the pages I've checked all seem to include the word "memory", not "memody". So I don't understand that. I also checked what I think was an American trademark site, but nothing came up in that database? Again, this isn't exactly something I understand.

Using "Memody" as part of a larger title ("Memody: Sindrel Song") seems to me like it gives the game a specific and available identity, but I've no idea how all this stuff works. I'm just a person who likes making things and calling them words that I feel are fitting. Anything involving brands, marketing, business, trademarks etc is far outside my comfort zone!



It's sort of annoying to write two posts in a row again, but as I said, I feel I should resolve this before moving forward, and it's helped to write this out.



EDIT: Also, if I did make this change, I have a much better idea for an intro than the one that I already have.

Currently, it begins with a black void, in which a glimmer of light appears; sindrels awake via a dream, and what they see in that dream becomes their first word and their name, which is why this is what it is. The glimmer grows until it encompasses the screen; it's like entering a tunnel of light. I've planned this from the beginning, though there's not much to it really beyond the 'dark to light' thing. You just had to sit there for like a minute and watch it (or skip it).

If the character's name is Memody though, the game could still start as a black void, except this time a single note plays. The gameplay buttons appear, allowing you to play a note in return. If you correctly play the note you just heard, the screen brightens slightly, and two notes play: the first, followed by another. This would go on one note at a time until you'd played a whole six note melody, which would be Memody's leitmotif, used significantly later in the game. The void would now be completely bright, and Memody would wake up into the world.

I like that a lot, because it serves as a wordless tutorial which the player can engage with before having to watch an intro cutscene, and it's based around memory and melody so both of those apply to Memody's naming. It wouldn't work if she was called Glimmer; it'd feel clumsily rammed in for gameplay reasons alone.

It feels so late in development to be considering such things, but I'd rather make changes like this which could make a big positive difference than discard them just because I'm veering away from an established plan!