‘Melodia’ Review – Where Is That Sound Coming From?

Marten Jonsson’s Melodia hearkens back to the ancient test of memory skills in which players attempt to match two tiles flipped over at the same time. The catch here is that we aren’t matching numbers or cute little cartoon characters, no way sir; today we are matching sweet melodies!

Yes folks you heard me right, Melodia is all about flipping over squares that each hold their own quick tune. In order to win the game you must flip them over in the least amount of tries possible. For me this is a new idea because like many others I thought that a simple matching game would be simple. I had been playing those since I was a toddler, so it shouldn’t provide for too much of a challenge. I was wrong with that assumption because matching two second long tunes is not something that comes as a natural born talent for me. Perhaps I’m just not that great at distinguishing sounds from one another or even remembering what I hear and where it came from, but I am terrible at this game.

Melodia is a very simple game in every aspect, and so when you first launch the app, I was playing on the Ipad 2, you are given the option to play easy, normal, and hard modes. Other than that you can tap the leaderboard button or more games for a direct link to Marten Jonsson’s website. I started out on medium like I do with most games, and while I did end up finishing the level it took me far too many tries. I stepped back down to easy and slowly tuned into my inner audiophile in order to make my way back up to the normal difficulty setting.

The only difference between each difficulty setting is the number of cards that may be flipped, other than that every game will be nearly the same. Of course the sounds will be located in different places, but at the same time things can get old pretty fast. There’s not too much to be said about graphics quality here since its more about listening than looking. The music is calming and so are the short sounds that play each time you flip a card. I wouldn’t go as far as saying they will keep playing in your head after you put the game down, but they are good enough to keep your attention while you are playing.

While the game could be called short since you really just do the same thing repeatedly with a scrambled board, I do want to point out that this is an original concept, at least to me. I like the creativity here and how different you can make a game by changing one simple mechanic. Taking something from a visual memory game to an audible memory game was a good way to keep an ancient idea fresh for today.

Melodia will only run you $0.99 in the App Store so you won’t be losing anything by giving it a try and I would say its worth looking at if you are interested in a new take on an ancient old game. For anything other than a curious purchase though I wouldn’t really recommend you pick it up if you want something with lasting appeal. On the hardest difficulty you will be matching 15 different sounds so there isn’t anything to keep you playing in the long term. Check out the official website to see more of the game along with some other creative titles from Marten Jonsson!

Review summary Pros:

Unique, good music

Cons:

Lacks feeling of progression, short

Rating: 62%