Feb 06
2025
Message in a Melody—Can the power of music save the human race?
Posted by: K L | Comments (13)
Can the power of music save the human race?
When you and the Raqullan regime descend upon Earth, the plan is to force all humans into submission. Otherwise, exterminate. But when you learn about this curious practice they call music, you realize the humans may be worth more than just labor.
Message in a Melody is 40% off until February 13th!
Music does not exist in Raqullan society, and your curiosity to learn more may be enough to keep the humans alive long enough to understand it. Is it an art? A tool? A weapon? You may have to come to a conclusion when the fate of the human race rests in your claws.
Message in a Melody is a 150,000-word interactive science fiction novel by Tyler S. Harris in which your choices control the story. It is entirely text-based—without graphics—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination. There are some opportunities to click a link and hear the song that inspires the scene. Open in a new tab to listen if you’d like.
• Play as male or female. You do not have to choose a sexual orientation and can play as straight, gay, bi, or aromantic.
• Become a master of science, oration, weapons, or perhaps even a musical instrument.
• Build relationships in a manner similar to humans. Find a partner, a companion, or even a lover.
• Help a friend to research weapons, cure a disease, bring animals from your home planet to Earth, or become a musical prodigy.
• Be the first of your kind to perform music for a human audience.
• Gain enough power to become a member of the Raqullan High Council, or throw it all away to become a starving artist.
• Discover songs (achievements) as you play. Can you discover the entire playlist?Will music be the bridge that crosses the divide between Raqullans and humans? Or will the troubled waters from the first contact be too much to overcome?
Tyler developed this game using ChoiceScript, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.
Congrats on the release fellow author!
Congratulations on the launch @tylersharris!
Thank you!
Welcome to the group, mate.
It’s been about a year and a half since Zoo-pocalypse marked Tyler S. Harris’s emergence on the Hosted Games scene, and I’ve been looking forward ever since then to whatever he would do next. I don’t know how accurate it would be to say I actually enjoyed Zoo-pocalypse, but I don’t regret playing it, and I know I’ll play it again. It’s astoundingly dark, and frequently thought-provoking, and there’s at least one scene so devastatingly beautiful it left me raw.
Message in a Melody clearly explores some similarly dark themes. In fact, once again it looks like Harris has set us up to play an apex predator who regards other species of sentient beings as theirs to exploit or destroy - but this time, the other species is us. That alone would have me eager to plunge in, but the possibility of music as a saving grace between sapient races has me even more intrigued.
Thank you, @tylersharris! I’ve been excited for this one.