Cantaloupe Chronicle

Awesome point&click game! It's brilliant and gives so many vibes from so many different tv shows, books, movies and so on. I don't kno why exactly but it reminds me of Stephen King's THE COLORADO KID, a book I love so much! I'm having such a good quality time playing this game! I can't reccomend it enough!

I received this game from Keymailer and streamed it on Twitch. I was not impressed. I wanted to love it. There is definitely potential. But ultimately my viewers and myself got bored with it. It was too much running around, not enough helpful hints, and boring dialogue. We stopped playing after about 1.5 hours in. I wouldn't bother with this game unless you prefer the slower plot line and simple point-and-click story.

Cantaloupe Chronicle is a nice and short point-and-click adventure game. It has inventory-based puzzles and interactions with NPCs but no dialog puzzles, logic puzzles or (non-optional) mini-games. The 3D models and animations are perhaps a little too simplistic, but the design of the locations is quite good. There's almost no voice acting. Some content is missable; apparently I did a rather poor job of exploring the town at nighttime, and some encounters are available only on certain days. The puzzles are simple but still quite enjoyable. Item descriptions, dialogs and Fanny's comments provide lots of hints. One minor annoyance -- way too common in point-and-click games -- is that the interaction prompt for some objects changes from Examine to Use only when those objects become relevant for a puzzle. But since the game is quite simple, and it's almost always clear what we need to do next, this never becomes a serious issue. In fact, sometimes this change works as an extra hint. The notebook shows which NPCs have new dialog lines (but some optional interactions may be unlocked by showing NPCs certain items). There's also a built-in hint system with just the right amount of vagueness in the hints. The UI for using the inventory is somewhat non-standard. Also, it would be more convenient to be able to run by double-clicking instead of holding a mouse button, and, besides, releasing the button when the cursor is over a hotspot results in interacting with that hotspot. But all the UI issues are very minor.

For a game that promotes its innovative article-writing system, "Cantaloupe Chronicle" focuses more on character interaction and inventory puzzles like a traditional point-and-click adventure. It allows only a little freedom in the writing itself – except for the final article – but even with its limitations, I appreciated the chance to let my creative juices flow. Being a writer myself, I definitely had more fun trying to be a journalist than traipsing all over town exploring every location repeatedly to find elusive items that are only accessible after you’ve been given the task to find them. Thankfully the puzzles themselves are quite logical and fun to solve, and I never had to call the in-game hint line. Personally I would have appreciated the game better with voice acting and a more appealing visual style, but the relaxing atmosphere and the genuine small-town feel were cozy reasons to escape the real world’s unsettling news stories for a few hours of creating my own. EDIT: The developer did clarify later on that you can write the articles completely yourself. The pre-made texts can be edited with whatever text you want... so the maximum character limit should not be as much as an issue. https://adventuregamehotspot.com/review/5899/cantaloupe-chronicle

I really wanted to like it, but it's buggy to the point of being unplayable. Twice I got to a point where the game was so broken I couldn't continue and the only option was to restart a new save. I still haven't finished the game because I just don't want to have to start again. Edit: Updated review based on comments below, works well now and is a cute game

I've played the game for a bit now, after the graphics caught my interest. It's a rather unique style, and the handling / UI is different than most games in the adventure genre. That being said, I do think it's a unique and fun game, although it might not be for everyone.

I had fun playing this game, although I didn’t unlock all the achievements during my playthrough. Overall, the experience felt cozy, and the puzzles were palatable. It's easy to engage with without being overwhelming. It’s the kind of game you pick up when you just want to relax and enjoy something light over a weekend coffee. That said, one moment stood out for me. When the game asked me to write my own article, it made me feel a bit anxious, as I have little experience with writing. It’s one of those love–hate moments: different and interesting in concept, but not necessarily something I found enjoyable. Full playthrough: https://youtu.be/STuM5I_s3_A