The next step

The adventure game didn't make it past the panel, so the new hot project that I am working on is called 'Heroes of Rock'.  Currently we are still trying to figure out what we want the game to be.  We know that the core concept is a game that involves music that you play with your guitar, but other than that a lot still needs to be decided.  The previous team prototyped it as a platformer, but we are playing around with some other genre ideas as well.  

The other major decision that needs to be made is what music we want to use.  That is do we want to generate our own original tracks that go with the levels we create, or do we want someone to be able to plug in their own music and play.  There are pluses and minuses to both options, in fact they actually correlate with each other.  If we come up with our own music we can correlate them with our level design and make some beautiful set pieces.  The downside is that the replay value will be low because we have to create both a level and a song and tie them together; furthermore, we want to do different genres so the art style changes every level as well.  On the other side of the coin if we have the player generate the tracks with their own music the replay value is only limited by the number of songs the player has.  However, the down side to this is that the art can't be as distinct as we discussed before.  The set pieces can't be as amazing, and the art style can't tie in to the music as closely as if we picked the genres ourselves.  A cool balance in my opinion would be if we generated the levels based on the song and were also able to identify the genre.  We could then apply different skins and such to the levels and characters to match the genre.  For example if a rap song is picked all the characters get chainz, but if a country song was picked they all the characters get overalls and cowboy hats.  Its a pipe dream, because it would be extremely difficult to define the genres, especially considering how rapidly they are becoming similar to one another.

I have wanted to work on a music infused game for a couple of years now, ever since I played Audiosurf, but since then the idea has really caught on fire.  It has been a while since I have played most of these games so I thought it would be a good time to replay my favorites and see if there are any new games using music as a mechanic.

BIT.TRIP RUNNER

We actually talked about an auto running platformer on Thursday where the player would play the guitar to jump,attack,etc.  But, I don't want to be the game that is bit.trip with guitars so I think that idea would need to be changed heavily to make it more unique.

Gameplay: The music syncing with the level is done so well.  The music is all upbeat and fun.

Art: Fun, colorful retro style graphics that go very well with the chiptune music.

Final thoughts: If we are going to make a game of any genre where the level flow is based on music that we compose this is the high standard that we will be held against.

Audiosurf

You can't talk about music based gameplay without bringing up Audiosurf, this was the game that got the mechanic going.  Even though it came out in 2008, it still has the best gameplay generated as generated by a players music.

Gameplay: The game mechanic is so simple, collect blocks of the correct color.  Any one can understand it, but it is something that is easy to generate based on music provided to the engine.  The track generation is so good (once again the high mark to aim for if we do something similar).

Art:  Generic futuristic sci fi Tron like graphics, they look good, but more importantly they aren't highly stylized so they don't look wildly out of place with some genres.  The difficulty we will have is that as soon as you add characters it becomes hard to make them generic enough for all genres without making them bland.

Final thoughts: Similar to what I said for BIT.TRIP BEAT, if we go with player generated levels this will be the standard that we will be held against.

Beat Hazard 

(warning lots of flashing lights if you are stroke prone you may not want to watch)

This is game combines two music generated content with a twin stick shooter.  It is also on XBLIG and is usually around the top of the best sellers list (20 or so).

Gameplay: This took the very popular twin stick shooter genre and added gameplay generated by your music.  I don't think the levels are actually generated by the music (I am pretty sure they are just random), but they match the gameplay pace to the pace of the music extremely well.  That is when the music is playing slower enemies are less aggressive and you shoot slower.

Art: Just like with Audiosurf we see sci fi themed graphics (it is a common style for twin stick shooters), but their presentation is completely over the top with all of the insane particle effects, explosions, and strobing lights.

Retro/Grade

I have never had the opportunity to play this game because I don't have a Playstation, but I heard about it in the spring and thought it looked cool.  In case you couldn't tell by the gameplay video, Retro/Grade is a side scrolling shooter with a twist.  You play each level in reverse, rather than shooting all the enemies you have to collect the bullets that were shot to kill them as they return back to your ship.

Gameplay: This is such an interesting idea, but the bottom line is that it is essentially Guitar Hero.  I know that it is essentially Guitar Hero, but the idea is unique enough that I still want to play it.  It is all pre generated levels based on music that they had created for the game.

Art: Yet another well presented, flashy game with space graphics (standard for side scrolling shooters).  This game does the best job of having the ridiculously over the top, epic set pieces defined by the games music.

Rayman Origins

The first 4 games I went over were all indie titles, but Rayman is most definitely not, this was my favorite game that came out last year and there is a reason for it.  For all the other games that I have covered, the music defined the gameplay, but with Rayman, the gameplay defines the music.  Every little action you do layers some music onto the score, but it feels so natural that it seems almost as if it was meant for you to jump off that creature at exactly that time.  They don't actually play the sound when the action happens rather they 'predict' when the action will happen and play the sound slightly before it, which makes for a more natural event.

Gameplay: The gameplay is so smooth, everything just flows and feels right.  The controls are some of the best I have felt for a platformer, they feel tight and you never feel like the controls made you die.

Art: The art in this game is amazing, it is probably the most stylized of the games on this list and it fits the music and the humor of the game.  This was a game that had an art style that defined the music rather than the other way around.

The standards have been established for music based games.  However, if you look closely you can see that there are a lot of ideas that haven't been done with music yet.  Some of them are bad, but we just need to find that one gem to make the game great.