Melatonin Is the Pastel Rhythm Heaven-like I’ve Been Dreaming Of

ign.com:

When I say Rhythm Heaven, which minigame pops into your head instantly? Is it the karate guy punching plant pots? The choir kid trio singing? Plucking hairs off of vegetables? For me, it’s the wrestler interview in Ringside.

Whichever one it is, there’s no denying there’s something deeply memorable and satisfying about those rhythmic minigames, which is why I was instantly drawn into Melatonin. It’s a new indie release from developer Half Asleep that successfully (if ironically, given the sleepy theme) replicates those serotonin hits from landing perfects in a Rhythm Heaven minigame. Set within the mind of a very sleepy person, Melatonin’s rhythm games are all loosely themed around their fantastic dreams of mundane activities: food, shopping, exercise, work, gaming, and so forth. It’s a soothing, pastel backdrop for the pleasant audio and visual call-and-response gameplay I desperately miss from the Nintendo DS days.

And, like many of the games I’ve covered in this series, it’s mostly the brainchild of one person: David Huynh, the founder and only member of Half Asleep. Melatonin is his first game, a huge first milestone on a career path he only recently began to envision for himself.

Huynh’s educational background is in general design – graphic, audio, UI, architecture, the works. While he was always a gamer, he explicitly didn’t want to get into game design at first.

“I intentionally wanted to keep my work stuff away from games since I already spent so much of my day listening to podcasts and reading reviews and stuff like that,” Huynh says. “But I don't know, at some point, I just got really burnt out of work and I decided who cares if my entire day is focused on games and stuff. I want to try this out, so I started