Cantaloupe Chronicle Review

A cub reporter’s internship teaches her how to get the facts and how to live with the realization that there’s always more to learn.

Cantaloupe Chronicle Title-Screen and menu

Tim Rachor’s Cantaloupe Chronicle is a self-published interactive cozy mystery. It is interesting and fun to play. It explores how to live without closure and imparts the painful lesson that there’s always more to the story. Sometimes we aren’t able to know it all. Cartoon graphics and appropriate sound-effects increase the cozy mystique. Adventurers write news articles while investigating an extraordinary happening in the town of Cantaloupe. A simple point-and-click interface allows players agency over this quaint, realistic story. Despite the frustrating inability to label saved games and one frustrating puzzle that felt too random and beyond player control, and a task that seems a little out of place, playing Cantaloupe Chronicle is a memorable experience due to the memorable characters and the beautifully drawn settings they inhabit.

Fanny spends a week interning at her Aunt Jill’s newspaper in the town of Cantaloupe while staying with her Uncle Clark. She’s there to learn the basics of journalism: gathering facts, interviewing people, taking photographs, and writing articles. Jill assigns her articles during the day to hone her skills. Her first story is a fishing contest. As she successfully completes each story, they become more difficult. Adventurers help her grow and learn as a reporter by directing her actions using a mouse driven point-and-click interface. While doing this work, she learns about a mystery that pervades the town. She spends her free time, which mostly comes at night, investigating this mysterious event.

Left-clicking on a spot on the screen makes Fanny walk over there. Pressing Spacebar or the right mouse button reveals all the hotspots on screen. Hovering over one of them reveals its name. Left-clicking on a character makes Fanny speak to them when adventurers left-click on a conversational choice. The default font when selecting the choices is cursive. Happily there is a setting in the settings menu to make the font more readable. Pressing the middle mouse button opens Fanny’s notebook. Its top contains the “Save” and “Load” buttons. Its left side contains a bag for her inventory. The notebook also contains a newspaper story writing interface, notes of her past conversations, notes on the mysterious event and a settings menu. All of these items are easily accessible.

The software saves progress when players exit the game. Adventurers may continue where they left off by left-clicking on “Continue” on the Title-Screen. The game also has many save slots. They are organized by date and time. Adventurers save their game by clicking on the “Save” button at the top of the menu, then left-clicking on an empty slot. Adventurers load the game in a similar fashion. They left-click on the “Load” button, then left-click on an occupied slot. It would be easier to remember where adventurers left off if they could add unique labels via their keyboard. The active story reminder and the past conversation notes help a little but not enough. Even with their presence I still had trouble remembering what to do after a break.

Left-clicking on the inventory reveals Fanny’s items. Right-clicking on an item provides its description. Left-clicking on on an item puts it in the box on the lower-right corner of the screen, which means it can be used in the environment by left-clicking on a spot on screen. Fanny lets adventurers know if she’s successful.

Fanny possesses two very useful items. The first is her phone. Once adventurers select it, they receive hints when they left-click on it. The second important item is her camera. She takes pictures for all of her articles. taking a publish worthy photo requires using the mouse to align the viewfinder with the green target. They are aligned when the name of the photographic subject appears on the screen. Left-clicking takes the photo.

Taking a picture of the hotel.

Below the inventory lies the newspaper story interface. It constructs Fanny’s articles. She writes her stories at the office computer. Left-clicking on the computer turns it on. The game presents a close-up view of the computer’s screen. To publish a story, adventurers left-click on the notebook’s newspaper icon, then left-click on the check boxes which represent the article’s elements: introduction, background, catch and conclusion. Its important to put these elements in their proper places. The introduction goes in the beginning, the background strengthens the introduction. The catch baits the hook to “catch” the reader’s interest, and the conclusion ends the article. Once all these sections are in place, adventures left-click on the print icon to publish the article.

Fanny stores useful notes from past conversations below the newspaper icon. A task list would be even more helpful. Adventurers scroll through them by left-clicking the left and right arrows at the bottom of the book.

Fanny's final article topic is the town mystery. A body was found in the local lake. She wants to discover the who, what, when, and why. When Fanny writes the final article, adventurers left-click on the story elements then type the text from Fanny’s notebook themselves. This puzzle truly tests adventurers’ reporting skills. Because making it to the minimum number of words for the article can be difficult. It’s a worthy puzzle for the finale.

Despite the slight inconvenience of the Save/Load system, adventurers will want to keep their breaks short. When adventurers left-click on her truck, Fanny travels to some lovely places in pursuit of her stories. Adventurers select her destination by left-clicking on highway exit signs.

Driving down the highway. Adventurers click on a sign to select a destination.

The placid deep-waters of Reservoir Lake are especially inviting. Useful things can be found there. Western Town is another interesting place. Its yellow scorching sands are home to Bo, a funny and eccentric character. Especially when he speaks with a charming western drawl.

Fanny Standing next to the placid waters of Reservoir Lake.

Fanny walking the scorching yellow sands of Western Town.

The sound-design is as well made as the graphics. It strengthens their power. Cars honk, cameras click, radios squelch with static. The music is bouncy, bright and cozy. It primes adventurers for a new, much anticipated experience. The introduction and ending of Cantaloupe Chronicle are endowed with great voice acting. The scenes are introspective, analytical and regretful. The characters within the scenes are thinking hard and wondering what they could have missed. The voice-acting intensifies the scenes because hearing voices allows adventurers to cultivate empathy for the characters. The game conveys the rest of its content using well written text. Working together, the text combined with the sparse voice-acting make adventurers feel like a part of their surroundings.

This well-conceived world, has many realistic puzzles to challenge adventures. My favorite puzzle involves making a delicious snack for the police. It uses a strange ingredient that adventurers must find in an unlikely place. But in hindsight it makes sense.

The rest of the ingredients are found in kitchens. Not all the puzzles are that easy.

Cantaloupe Chronicle has a frustrating puzzle where players listen to the radio to discover the whereabouts of a police officer they must interview. They use their mouse to move the cursor left and right until they hear the message. They know when they have found the correct frequency because the radio lights up. There’s no way to tell when they radio will light up and adventurers have to find the frequency multiple times to hear the full message. Searching for the message takes a long time. The game suggests talking to a character about it, but, all they say is the radio is broken keep trying and it will eventually work. Since all adventures can do is move the cursor back and forth, and wait, they may find this puzzle frustrating because it feels random. Puzzles should always be within the adventurer’s control, or else, it removes the adventurers from the game.

Fanny also performs a task for her Uncle Clark, lining up buyers for his invention, that takes adventurers out of the game. Since adventurers help her write her articles, it would have made more sense to me if Fanny wrote an article rather than simply lining up buyers.

Overall, Cantaloupe Chronicle a fun game that adventurers will enjoy. It’s quaint, interesting and lovingly made. The radio puzzle and sales mission are slightly out of place but don’t distract overmuch from the rest of the story. Adventurers should definitely check it out.

Cantaloupe Chronicle is available on Steam

Score: 7/10