The Melting Apartment
UPDATE: Nov. 19/2023
• Cursor speed adjustments
• A few incidental lines of text added.
A moody and surreal horror adventure game inspired by Italian giallo movies and Junji Ito.
A young woman disappears soon after moving into an old building at the edge of town. Can you find out what happened to her and escape with your life?
• A short nightmare: Enter the doomed building and solve the missing persons case.
• Different paths: Multiple endings depending on your actions.
CONTROLS:
(A) on Game Boy / (Z or J) on PC: Interact, Use Item
(B or START) on Game Boy / (X or K or ENTER) on PC: Cancel, Open Inventory
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Comments
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enjoyed this a lot. how many endings are there though?
seem to be 3, and dying of [exposure] doesn't count as an ending
ahh i see, i've found them all then. nice
I played this after Don't Let Her In and wow, really makes me wonder why there weren't more games like this on the Gameboy Color - Everything works so well and is just so much more than I thought would be possible. Do you know if this runs on original hardware?
yup, all our games run on original hardware. i even have physical copies of a couple myself
Very nice! One potential issue I ran into was that if kill the manager, reach an ending, and play again without refreshing the page, the manager will already be dead the next time you reach that room. Which I guess could be convenient for getting an ending quickly if you got all that way only to miss something important for that room and leaving, but I don't know if it's intentional.
It is a bit odd that leaving after you collect evidence but without burning the house still counts at leaving it as unsolved, but I guess anything else wouldn't really fit the theme of the game.
For instance, I could imagine trying to take the heart to a medical facility for treatment, and maybe installing big dialysis machines and stuff in the house so it's not relying on human sacrifice rituals, or even seeing how a court of law might try to figure out how to make a horrible monster-building stand trial, but that seems beyond the scope of what this game is going for.
The questions this game leaves me with are interesting, and I'm sure the imagery I get from thinking about them will influence my own work.
Is The Melting Apartment playable in an actual GameBoy, with an EverDrive?
I tried to play it but it wouldn't boot. The initial screen, the one you see when you turn on the gameboy, shows, without the "Nintendo" word on the bottom, and it just gets stuck there.
Very cool game, just had a little problem with the fight at the end… what happened???
Epic game (<- has only done the quit ending)
Im about to play it on my 3ds with an emulator! I really expect much of this game, views really good
Great and awesome game, congrats! Found a small bug, when you read the diary, it first disappears from the table, but if you check the photo from the table, it will reappear again
Awesome game, I loved the concept! Played it in tangent with 3 other scary games (first game I played).
Nice game!
Nice game and amazing graphics! Keep it up!
loved the art! lovely and atmospheric little game
Very fun! Small, but the pacing is good and it doesn't overstay its welcome. Short and sweet with some lovely art and music and a campy, spooky atmosphere. I particulary liked the vibrant colours. A lot of Indie horror games can look a bit muddy, but this really pops even with the limited palette.
If I have any flaws (and I don't know if I do) I'd question the inventory. It felt like it was more of an afterthought as opposed to a system with a point, the game is just too short to need it.
Definitely recommended. I'd absolutely play a series of little games like this!
Nice little game, I put the apartment out of its misery.
wow :) this was really good /love the style
If its posible to ask, what gine did you use to make this?? Loved the game btw
this was made in game boy studio https://www.gbstudio.dev/
gb studio!
hey! I'm really interested in playing this game on my 3ds, but the pocket file won't work properly as a gameboy color rom. Do you happen to have a .gbc file? If not, no worries! it might be a problem on my end :)
never tried to play them on a 3ds but the .gb download above the pocket link SHOULD work
Yeah, the gb one works fine but i wanted to play it in color :/. such is life though i guess
hmm...can you test your rom on a normal gbc or gba emulator? the game was only ever exported as a .gb file (the only option for export in GB Studio), but still plays in color on any gameboy emulator. I wonder if there's some sort of setting in the app on your 3DS that's causing it to show up without color
Great game, we need more stuff like this. There arent any Giallo games out there
Hi! We played your game on stream and really enjoyed it!
got the 'burn' ending first try. got so scared omg
One of the most unique experiences on this site. Really captivating and enjoyed every second of it. Awesome job !
I made a video on your game if you're interested :)It was a really well crafted game with really great endings! Loved the aesthetics of the game and how things develop and change as the game goes one! Was super fun and well crafted!
It wont let me click on the start button. Im on a macbook, Can someone help? What do i press to get it to work
SAME
you press Z, you don't use the mouse at all in this game.
Great story. I loved it. Especially the monkey boss thing
I find it kinda disappointing that I had to talk to all of the neighbors for the Manager boss battle to be triggered, but it's still a good game.
talking to the neighbours is entirely optional
So, I only need to talk to the Manager again to trigger the boss battle? Because when I didn't talk to either him or the neighbors, there was no boss battle.
I actually found 5 endings:
Leave immediately
Die in the apartment
Leave midway through
Die in the basement
Burn down the building
the deaths arent endings
You get a unique cut scene and the game literally ends (you have to get through the opening scene again.) So I'd count it. If it restarted you from a checkpoint or something I wouldn't.
ok but the game doesnt count them
This has such a unique artstyle. Great job keep doing what you do 10/10.
Keep up the good work
loved to play, very atmosferic, the visuals and music matches very well with the story!
This is the best Gameboy game I have ever played. I wish it was longer. I would buy this type of game! Please make more!!!!
how do you survive this?
i did the leave ending, i aint doin anymore
played through the first ending and def got eated but this game rocks!! thanks so much for making and sharing it! we are def going to play through the other endings later tonight :D
-DNA
Pretty cool game.
This is a very good game. I could be biased because Junji Ito inspiration but, the visuals were artistic and well-made. I like that you face the grim reality that everything bad has already happened and you can't save anything but at least you can put a stop to it.
Awesome game
Very cool game, the atmosphere is very creepy and it is a very cool storyline. The pictures are probably my favorite part because they are so creepy.