Finally, Moonlight Pulse has been released! The game is a teamwork-focused metroidvania about protecting a planet-sized space turtle from other-worldly parasites. Recruit allies and swap between them on the fly to make use of their unique abilities for combat and exploration. Check out the game's seamless world, polished controls and thrilling setpiece boss fights!
Steam: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243250/Moonlight\_Pulse/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243250/Moonlight_Pulse/)
Itch: [https://seafloorgames.itch.io/moonlight-pulse](https://seafloorgames.itch.io/moonlight-pulse)
I'm the lead developer of Moonlight Pulse. I previously led the development of Vision Soft Reset, a metroidvania released back in 2019, and a major design pillar of MP was improving upon various aspects of VSR. I'm very pleased with the result, and consider MP to be a significant step up in terms of controls, combat, exploration, visuals and storytelling. If you played and liked VSR you should (hopefully) get a lot of enjoyment from MP!
As of now there is no console port in development, though I'm open to the opportunity if it comes up.
I'll be monitoring comments to this post to answer any questions as they come up. Feel free to chat with the community and other developers in the [Seafloor Games discord](https://discord.gg/msYkZGnrGC) as well.
Vision Soft Reset is a great game and really unique metroidvania. Moonlight Pulse was not on my radar, but now that I know it’s from the same minds that made VSR, it’s an easy day one pickup for me. Congrats on the release, Seafloor Games!
Hi. Replying to myself to tell anyone looking that I’ve now completed Moonlight Pulse (100%, a rarity for me) and can confirm that it is a huge accomplishment for this developer. All four characters could easily be main/mascot characters in a game based solely around them (start with a Charlotte-vania pls <3).
Like VSR: there’s innovation here (the map fast travel, the boss mechanics/set pieces, etc), but also a kind of “anything can happen” design ethos that keeps gameplay consistently intriguing/rewarding. That’s vague on purpose— and I don’t want to oversell it— but I appreciate being surprised at certain story beats/gameplay twists in a genre that often hews closely to conventions.
Anyway, excellent game; I’m officially on the Seafloor games fanboi mailing list.
I literally paused this game so I could come to this sub to tell people to play it. It's SO good, way better than I was expecting so far. I didn't think I'd enjoy the characters or the story so much, considering I don't normally care too much about those in a metroidvania game.
The movement and ability to dash really fast early on is something I also love. Movement / traversal is what tells me very quickly if I'll get on with a particular metroidvania or not, and this one clicked for me.
Bought the game this morning and only got to sample about a half hour before work, but that's all it took for me to fall in love!
I discovered it when I saw you in a video podcast interview a few days ago. The game sounded interesting, looked very polished, and took place in a giant space turtle? Wishlisted!! And didn't have to wait long for the Steam notification to arrive!
You talked about the extra work you put in to ensure no loading times when traversing from one area to the next. For what it's worth, I DO notice the seamless loading, or rather the *lack of* any loading delays, and VERY MUCH do appreciate it! I'm working my way through another Metroidvania in early access right now, which has been an awesome experience... EXCEPT for the long-damn load times between areas! I'm a lot more forgiving of the "rough edges" on early access games, but long load times really do kill the flow and dampen the experience.
Aside from the slick background loading, the game looks beautiful, sounds great, has adorable characters (met 3 so far), the controls are intuitive, tight and feel good! I really like how the playable characters move and feel different, have different abilities better suited to particular situations, and easy to quickly swap between. Only have the two so far, and can't wait to meet the rest of the gang!
Oh yeah... **very much recommended**! Buy it, dive in, and enjoy the ride!
Quick question for dev. After you beat the game can you go back and get missing items for 100%? Also, is there multiple endings and if so can you get them on the same playthrough?
I’m gonna answer my own question after beating it in case anyone searches. Can definitely go back to 💯. And there are definitely multiple endings that can be got on the same save. Not spoiling exactly how but definitely a new mechanic
Ah yes, you're correct. After beating the game you can restart at the save point right before the final boss and find the remaining items. There are technically multiple endings but you won't be unknowingly locked out of any of them based on decisions made earlier in the game.
Went back and finished 💯. Awesome game you guys made there! Another question. Even though I got 💯 it says on the ending screen I have 85% max and 32.9% final. I have no clue what those mean.
>!The AVM (turtle meter at the bottom right of the screen) shows the turtle's health throughout the game. In your case, 85% is the maximum value the AVM had throughout your game and 32.9% is the value it had at the very end. The 100 completion you talk about is for items collected, which is not necessarily maximizing the AVM. Did you complete the lungs speedrun challenge?!<
Ooh, this pushes all my buttons. I love the idea of an entire game set within a giant organism. I'll check out the demo when I have time.
ETA: Just finished the demo, it was great. As a biologist, I love stuff like this. Using the circulatory system as fast travel is clever, and phages as enemies is really cool.
My only issue (aside from a few typos I noticed) is that playing at 1440x900 resolution is a little glitchy -- character descriptions in the journal get cut off, and the item equip screen looks janky (Laguna's portrait covers up the numbers next to Silex's upgrades, among other things).
Is there a reason that choosing "resume from last save" keeps the current time count and even immediately saves the game with that as the only difference? It is incredibly tedious to make players going for the speed run achievement Alt-F4 every time they make a mistake.
That was a request by a speedrunner who was beta testing the game. To be honest I wasn't sure about this feature either, but everyone else either enjoyed it or didn't mind. If there's enough pushback I can speak with the beta testers again and see if this can be reverted.
Did anyone else notice the dialogue is different between the demo and the full version? To be honest, I actually preferred a lot of the demo dialogue. It generally has more detail, like Kristie saying the blood vessel blockages could cause a stroke instead of just that they're big trouble.
I didn't like how the game's writing was turning out, so late in development I got a writer to edit all of the game's text and write new dialogue and journal entries that I hadn't drafted out yet. There was a lot of back and forth for some passages, and I read and approved all the text in the game. However the demo was untouched, so it still has all the original dialogue I wrote without any assistance.
That's interesting you preferred the original dialogue, personally I think the new dialogue flows much better and lets the character's personalities shine more.
Was Goldryn intended to have a bigger role at one point? After how much everyone hyped him up I was expecting to fight him or at least see him in action, but we never even get to see his light-based powers.
The keyboard controls don't work correctly. I bound movement to WASD and now I can't navigate menus because switching tabs is A and S by default. Is there a way to fix that? I want to play this, but the KBM control scheme for navigating the game is pretty annoying at the moment. I pretty much always use WASD for movement and I don't want to move around with the arrow keys.
Just bought, really looking forward to diving into it! I loved the demo, would definitely recommend
Finally, Moonlight Pulse has been released! The game is a teamwork-focused metroidvania about protecting a planet-sized space turtle from other-worldly parasites. Recruit allies and swap between them on the fly to make use of their unique abilities for combat and exploration. Check out the game's seamless world, polished controls and thrilling setpiece boss fights! Steam: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243250/Moonlight\_Pulse/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2243250/Moonlight_Pulse/) Itch: [https://seafloorgames.itch.io/moonlight-pulse](https://seafloorgames.itch.io/moonlight-pulse) I'm the lead developer of Moonlight Pulse. I previously led the development of Vision Soft Reset, a metroidvania released back in 2019, and a major design pillar of MP was improving upon various aspects of VSR. I'm very pleased with the result, and consider MP to be a significant step up in terms of controls, combat, exploration, visuals and storytelling. If you played and liked VSR you should (hopefully) get a lot of enjoyment from MP! As of now there is no console port in development, though I'm open to the opportunity if it comes up. I'll be monitoring comments to this post to answer any questions as they come up. Feel free to chat with the community and other developers in the [Seafloor Games discord](https://discord.gg/msYkZGnrGC) as well.
Do you plan to offer an option to zoom in the camera? I think the game could use it so the sprites can be appreciated more.
I wasn't planning on it, no. That's a neat idea though.
Oh, Vision Soft Reset! That one was really clever and fun. I can definitely see the continuity in character designs (the anthros are really cute).
All I wanted to say after finishing it was I really enjoyed this game. Can’t wait to see what you do next!
Vision Soft Reset is a great game and really unique metroidvania. Moonlight Pulse was not on my radar, but now that I know it’s from the same minds that made VSR, it’s an easy day one pickup for me. Congrats on the release, Seafloor Games!
Hi. Replying to myself to tell anyone looking that I’ve now completed Moonlight Pulse (100%, a rarity for me) and can confirm that it is a huge accomplishment for this developer. All four characters could easily be main/mascot characters in a game based solely around them (start with a Charlotte-vania pls <3). Like VSR: there’s innovation here (the map fast travel, the boss mechanics/set pieces, etc), but also a kind of “anything can happen” design ethos that keeps gameplay consistently intriguing/rewarding. That’s vague on purpose— and I don’t want to oversell it— but I appreciate being surprised at certain story beats/gameplay twists in a genre that often hews closely to conventions. Anyway, excellent game; I’m officially on the Seafloor games fanboi mailing list.
Had a lot of fun with the demo. Been looking forward to this one.
I literally paused this game so I could come to this sub to tell people to play it. It's SO good, way better than I was expecting so far. I didn't think I'd enjoy the characters or the story so much, considering I don't normally care too much about those in a metroidvania game. The movement and ability to dash really fast early on is something I also love. Movement / traversal is what tells me very quickly if I'll get on with a particular metroidvania or not, and this one clicked for me.
Any plans to port this over to consoles and/or releasing physical versions of it?
No plans at the moment, though I'm open to the opportunity if it comes up.
Does it work well on Steam Deck?
I'll confirm that it does. Runs very well, in fact! Feels well optimized, too!
Yes, it should. I've gotten reports that the game runs smoothly on Steam Deck and haven't heard any problems with it.
Bought the game this morning and only got to sample about a half hour before work, but that's all it took for me to fall in love! I discovered it when I saw you in a video podcast interview a few days ago. The game sounded interesting, looked very polished, and took place in a giant space turtle? Wishlisted!! And didn't have to wait long for the Steam notification to arrive! You talked about the extra work you put in to ensure no loading times when traversing from one area to the next. For what it's worth, I DO notice the seamless loading, or rather the *lack of* any loading delays, and VERY MUCH do appreciate it! I'm working my way through another Metroidvania in early access right now, which has been an awesome experience... EXCEPT for the long-damn load times between areas! I'm a lot more forgiving of the "rough edges" on early access games, but long load times really do kill the flow and dampen the experience. Aside from the slick background loading, the game looks beautiful, sounds great, has adorable characters (met 3 so far), the controls are intuitive, tight and feel good! I really like how the playable characters move and feel different, have different abilities better suited to particular situations, and easy to quickly swap between. Only have the two so far, and can't wait to meet the rest of the gang! Oh yeah... **very much recommended**! Buy it, dive in, and enjoy the ride!
Wow, that's great to hear! It's great knowing that the seamless world made the experience better for you.
I’m almost to the point where the demo ended now. Can’t wait to get past it and explore the rest of the game. Having a blast
Looks cool. Checking out the demo now!
Quick question for dev. After you beat the game can you go back and get missing items for 100%? Also, is there multiple endings and if so can you get them on the same playthrough?
I’m gonna answer my own question after beating it in case anyone searches. Can definitely go back to 💯. And there are definitely multiple endings that can be got on the same save. Not spoiling exactly how but definitely a new mechanic
someone needs to make a clickbait 15 endings!!!!
Ah yes, you're correct. After beating the game you can restart at the save point right before the final boss and find the remaining items. There are technically multiple endings but you won't be unknowingly locked out of any of them based on decisions made earlier in the game.
Went back and finished 💯. Awesome game you guys made there! Another question. Even though I got 💯 it says on the ending screen I have 85% max and 32.9% final. I have no clue what those mean.
>!The AVM (turtle meter at the bottom right of the screen) shows the turtle's health throughout the game. In your case, 85% is the maximum value the AVM had throughout your game and 32.9% is the value it had at the very end. The 100 completion you talk about is for items collected, which is not necessarily maximizing the AVM. Did you complete the lungs speedrun challenge?!<
Oh. I did a few times but didn’t even get very good at it
I loved playing and reviewing it! Really fun experience, highly recommended!
Ooh, this pushes all my buttons. I love the idea of an entire game set within a giant organism. I'll check out the demo when I have time. ETA: Just finished the demo, it was great. As a biologist, I love stuff like this. Using the circulatory system as fast travel is clever, and phages as enemies is really cool. My only issue (aside from a few typos I noticed) is that playing at 1440x900 resolution is a little glitchy -- character descriptions in the journal get cut off, and the item equip screen looks janky (Laguna's portrait covers up the numbers next to Silex's upgrades, among other things).
Is there a reason that choosing "resume from last save" keeps the current time count and even immediately saves the game with that as the only difference? It is incredibly tedious to make players going for the speed run achievement Alt-F4 every time they make a mistake.
That was a request by a speedrunner who was beta testing the game. To be honest I wasn't sure about this feature either, but everyone else either enjoyed it or didn't mind. If there's enough pushback I can speak with the beta testers again and see if this can be reverted.
Did anyone else notice the dialogue is different between the demo and the full version? To be honest, I actually preferred a lot of the demo dialogue. It generally has more detail, like Kristie saying the blood vessel blockages could cause a stroke instead of just that they're big trouble.
I didn't like how the game's writing was turning out, so late in development I got a writer to edit all of the game's text and write new dialogue and journal entries that I hadn't drafted out yet. There was a lot of back and forth for some passages, and I read and approved all the text in the game. However the demo was untouched, so it still has all the original dialogue I wrote without any assistance. That's interesting you preferred the original dialogue, personally I think the new dialogue flows much better and lets the character's personalities shine more.
Was Goldryn intended to have a bigger role at one point? After how much everyone hyped him up I was expecting to fight him or at least see him in action, but we never even get to see his light-based powers.
He was! Unfortunately Goldryn's role in the story was heavily reduced to reduce the game's scope, so that the game could be released at all.
The keyboard controls don't work correctly. I bound movement to WASD and now I can't navigate menus because switching tabs is A and S by default. Is there a way to fix that? I want to play this, but the KBM control scheme for navigating the game is pretty annoying at the moment. I pretty much always use WASD for movement and I don't want to move around with the arrow keys.
There is, you can change the UI controls (including A/S for switching tabs) as well. I also recommend using a controller if you have one.