Rhythmgame Demo

[abstauber]

Hey guys!

I've secretly developed a nice little minigame for the ShattenReyze

Personally I'm not the biggest fan of complicated logic/number fiddling minigames.(mostly because I'm not smart enough for those)
Therefore I prefer action/reaction games like the fist fights in Indy 3, astro chicken or, if anyone remembers, the jump'n run scenes in Rise of the Dragon.

So to come to the point, I've started to make a rythm game for ShattenReyze.
The gameplay is going to be like guitar hero and/or Frets on Fire. The best part is: it is even compatible to Frets on Fire and its songs.

I'm planning to add a game section, everytime Eric collects an aura (which is about to happen 6 times in the game). If the player looses, the game gets easier, so everyone should have fun.


This is the progress right now:

• It reads midi files for the timing. You can use all the tools from Frets on Fire to create new songs.
  And since FoF can import guitar hero songs, you can use those in this game too
• There are 4 levels of difficulty.
• There's a timing issues on slow computers (like mine), which I've already reported on the AGS boards.
• The drawing of the notes are currently not connected to a kind of "global timer". So if your system hangs, the game gets out of sync.
• And it's not playable at the moment

If you want to take a peep, it's here:
http://www.sonores.de/reyze/Rhythmgame.zip (25mb)


There 4 songs in it. The first one is a short test song, I've created. The other 3 are from Frets on Fire and pretty nice.

Deprecated now.
http://www.sonores.de/reyze/RythmGame_demo.7z  (25mb)

[abstauber]

Hey,
now with 100 % more gameplay

It still lacks a lot of features and there might still be a timing issue with shorter notes.

Deprecated now.

http://www.sonores.de/reyze/RhythmGame_Demo.zip

Keys 1 through 5 are the frets and return is for strumming.

Anyone with any thoughts ?

[abstauber]

Actually I thought, this whole minigame wouldn't take me more than a weekend. Well - after two weeks I've been proven wrong 
But finally I think I'm done.

So how does it work and how will it be connected to ShattenReyze
You are going to play this, when you meet Lesja for the second time. She tells you a little about it and Eric connection to Chris.
After that, the minigame starts
Instead of chosing the song yourself, each character has a song connected to it. So for the first time, you have to play Lesja's song in order to catch her aura with the amulet.
If you can fill the amulet, the aura is sent to Chris and gives him the ability to play a new chord and to leave his prison.

For now I haven't merged the code into ShattenReyze, as AGS 3.2 is still beta. But it's written as a module, it won't be hard to add it in the future

So how do you play it?
If you've neven played Guitar Hero, Rockband or Frets on Fire, this concept might appear a little strange to you.

When the music starts, colored blocks are falling from the top of the screen. When the blocks reach the lighter gray area, you have to press the corresponding number of the column/color + return. So green is one, red two, yellow 3 and so on.

Compared to guitar hero, the numbers represent the chords and return is the strumming of the guitar.


Where is it?
Here! Same link, same 26 MB

Deprecated now.
http://www.sonores.de/reyze/RhythmGame_Demo.zip

If it's too much trouble to leave some feedback, I'd like to place it on the BlueCup's Critics Lounge as well. But ouf course this would spoil the suprise, so please drop some line

[Ben304]

Haha wow, this is pretty darn cool!

It seems quite playable, and I'm very impressed! Some of the notes seemed to have slight timing issues, but it could just be me being bad at the game (although I'm pretty familiar with the 3 FoF songs ).

I tried it on both a fairly new and fairly old computer... it did seem to have some jerkiness on the old computer, and I had to predict notes before their time... but in saying that, the start animations for Shifter's Box make that computer crawl, and they're not very program heavy, so I guess as long as we warn people about recommended specs, it shouldn't be a drama.

Also, you're a crazy guy for going and scripting this up. I respect your craziness, and think it'd be a great addition to the game!

edit: Oh, and this is waaaay cooler than some lame logic number twiddling game

[abstauber]

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, the timing is still not 100% and I'm afraid, it'll be hard to get it there. AGS has only 25 ms per loop and I have to check, if something has happened in the last 25 ms.

If you're on a slower machine, it might take even longer for one loop, that why it gets choppy then - the computer should be able to play it at least at 40 fps.
Maybe I should add a check for the frames and deactivate the minigame, if the computer is too slow - at least that'll be an option.

Anyway, thanks for playing. Now this minigame can still be a surprise for the demo launch

[Creyze Shattbot]

I'll see if I can go on and make a Ukrainian folk song to use for the first challenge. I imagine this could be really fun, not rocking but having to play folk melodies. I also thought that maybe the game could use a bit more "mysterious" background, so it does not actually look so much like a real guitar action game, but more like "the lost art of communicating with the spirits via timed keyboard input".

[abstauber]

Hey, as CJ updated the AGS 3.2 beta, I've updated this minigame too.

It seems like most of the timing problems are now gone. And as a bonus I've added "Breaking the Law" from Judas Priest as Track 1 (only easy and hard difficulty) 

Download:
http://www.sonores.de/reyze/Rhythmgame.zip (25mb)

[Ben304]

I promise I'll try this on a number of different computers when I get the chance (which won't be for a week or two).

But, it is great to hear that most of the timing troubles are out of the way! And whilst I am quite fond of Judas Priest, Breaking the Law is not one of my favourites. If I was pedantic, I would chant 'Blood Red Skies' or 'A Touch of Evil', but I'll let you off this time 

[abstauber]

Hehe... I actually chose Breaking the law, 'cause it was the in the first cracktro I've ever seen on the amiga.
After that cracktro I needed to know, which Band it was and so I've got to known Judas Priest.

(sounds like Nerd-Side-Story )

I'm excited to hear, if those timing problems are gone on bigger hardware base. Thanks for testing

[Ben304]

I never really got into Judas Priest until I heard the song 'Painkiller' - which I realised was the most ridiculously metal song ever recorded. I couldn't help but liking them after being exposed to such a preposterously powerful display of rocking.

Sadly, I never had an amiga (too young, sorry  ), so I've not familiar with cracktros

[abstauber]

On the Sega Dreamcast there has been a revival of cracktros. What a great (but short) time ...

Btw. ShattenReyze has a cracktro too, in case you haven't noticed yet

[Ben304]

I have noticed, and I thought it was very cool.

I just forgot what a 'cracktro' actually was until you reminded me that you made one

[abstauber]

Cracktro btw. is a term I've initially learned on bigbluecup/yabb

Anyway - I can also compile a Metal Edition of the Rhythmgame for you. Just give me the Frets On Fire songs(links to the songs) and I'll add them.