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[sergiocornaga]

This is really, really good. I'm eagerly anticipating a finished version.

Potentially useful difficulty feedback: got a B on the first level (which I only got worse at for some reason... hitting a lot of beats too early), then A ranks on my first plays of all subsequent levels except tier 3 hard. The tier 3 levels were definitely my favourite, though, I liked keeping track of all the concurrent beats... reminded me of Cheer Readers 2, though your take is frankly a lot more elegant. Lastly, on my first attempt at the bonus level I got kind of confused by the rhythm when the chorus kicked in (and failed) but it seemed to work pretty well!

[rekcah]

So what do you plan to do with this. Web sponsorship or make it standalone?

[fizzd]

I... honestly don't know, heh. Being my first game I want to play it safe and keep it a free thing. Maybe go the Canabalt way and have a paid iOS version once the free one gets popular. So yes, free but with web sponsorship. I put it (only the demo that is) up on FlashGameLicense for bidding, but right now it's still pending approval so sponsors can't see the games yet. Honestly don't know how well it's gonna go, and whether the exposure of the demo is a good thing or not. (FGL says sponsors won't take games which have already had exposure, but then again this is a demo we talkin about)

Any thoughts?

This is really, really good. I'm eagerly anticipating a finished version.

Potentially useful difficulty feedback: got a B on the first level (which I only got worse at for some reason... hitting a lot of beats too early), then A ranks on my first plays of all subsequent levels except tier 3 hard. The tier 3 levels were definitely my favourite, though, I liked keeping track of all the concurrent beats... reminded me of Cheer Readers 2, though your take is frankly a lot more elegant. Lastly, on my first attempt at the bonus level I got kind of confused by the rhythm when the chorus kicked in (and failed) but it seemed to work pretty well!

Thanks, you're probably one of the better ones at the game. I'd reckon it's cause you've played the Rhythm Heaven series before - that's as strict a timing as you can get! Nice to have really contrasting opinions on difficulty from people. Yeah fast paced levels like the first one tend to make you hit earlier just as a reflex, the way to correct it is to think of it as slow crotchets ('1,2,3,4!') instead of what the game tricks you into doing with the voices ('1234567!'). That should put you on course for an S rank

Solarlune - thanks, greatly appreciated. Glad you like the graphics, this game is actually the artist's first time doing pixel art so he should be happy with that

[omgnoseat]

You should totally push this to mobile devices, it's great! You might need to fiddle with difficulty settings. I love how "hardcore" the timing is, but I can see casual users giving up quickly.

[rekcah]

I think you've already gotten enough exposure and probably could garner some more if you use the momentum you have now to promote on other sites beyond indiegames and tig(if you haven't already). You should do fine on FGL although I never use it when I'm looking for sponsorships.

This game would definitely work well for mobile though. I don't know if you coded it using Stage3D/starling but if you did you could probably port it to adobe air with a few command strokes. If not it might be a bit of work.

[fizzd]

omgnoseat: Thanks! I'm defo not gonna adjust the leniency though, cause I think this is the sort of game which game-experience doesn't really help at all but rather music or rhythm-experience. e.g. playing CoD won't help one bit but playing the drums will. So there shouldn't be a hardcore - casual divide if you get what I mean.

This game would definitely work well for mobile though. I don't know if you coded it using Stage3D/starling but if you did you could probably port it to adobe air with a few command strokes. If not it might be a bit of work.

Yeah, I'm using FlashPunk (with StandingWave3 for the sound syncing issues). Flashpunk uses BitmapDatas and they're bad for mobile platforms, I seem to remember, so it's gonna be a lot of work. As far as exposure goes, I've got it on Kongregate now, hopefully it gains some momentum there too. Thanks for the pointers Reckahdam, btw just saying, I'm loving the drums on the Celestial Mechanica tracks! They sound really.. real.

[nupanick]

Yet another referral from maxanum, and yet another account made for this thread. Anyway, thoughts on the game in no particular order:

As a rhythm heaven 'vet' or whatever, I actually liked the visual business in the first level, because right away you're doing the trick RH3 did and forcing players to learn the rhythm, ditching the guitar hero instinct to "trust the screen, not the song."

This game may have a few bugs but it's still leaps and bounds over Pixel Pop, which is the earliest "flash rhythm heaven" I can think of off the top of my head. Whereas that game played the rhythm heaven formula straight but with less original music and more weird controls, I think this game really nails the spirit of the genre (if indeed it is its own genre now), which is to have the controls simple and the timings tight.

I agree that when the second track has been introduced but isn't yet playable, desaturating it would help divert attention. I personally think that after the first level we shouldn't even need the tutorial, and you could introduce all new mechanics by first hinting, then just dropping them in. This ended up happening to me anyway when I played stage 2 Night Shift before moving onto stage 3.

It's unfortunate that Adobe hasn't released an official port of Flash 11.5 for Ubuntu, as it means I have to boot into windows just to play this. I do understand why you did it though, because I have bad experience with flash rhythm games having totally different timing depending on which machine you play them on. Rhythm Doctor has the snappy response time of RH3 with a fully-charged controller as opposed to, say, RH1 running in VBA (emulation lag uuuuugh), or worse, SCGMDX4 (there should only have been threeeeeee).

The overlapping pattern mechanic compares favorably to the tried and true warioware team Remix mechanic, especially in the way it brings all the game's characters together in one song. The goofy characters and the mechanics they represent really capture the quirky feel of the patron series. I got a good chuckle at the way you used a lovestruck boy to introduce the "skipping heartbeats" mechanic.

The chinese count was an interesting touch. It's sort of familiar, actually...
...Wait. Hold everything. This is Rhythm Test. From the GBA. This is a fleshed out version of the zeroth level of the original rhythm tengoku. Just... wow. Talk about roots.

On the Night Shifts: way to go. I can't tell you how many times I've found a "hard mix" of a level to do little more than bring the difficulty from "easy" up to "normal." Night Shift challenged and inspired me. I was a little skeptical you could even DO a hardmode of stage 1, but I was pleasantly surprised by the wub action.

Hmm... Odd. I got to [spoiler removed] but not "bonus." that feels odd. Am I playing them out of order? [edit: fizzd says the bonus stage is permalocked in the kong version because of copyrighted music]

EDIT: Yeah, watched some let's plays and I've noticed that other people could play the "Bonus" between tiers 3 and 4, but that never unlocked for me, even after getting S rank on everything. That might be a gamebreaker. I'm gonna go back and see if intentionally failing every level once before beating it makes the scripting happier.

[X-Tender]

I really enjoyed this Game.
I Played it with Chrome without Pepper Plugin (11.4) and it was flawless.
The Moment of the 2.d Patient where the Girl appears is sooo romantic :D
Lets see what other awesome Patients you add

Great Work!

[archagon]

Really great, especially loved the hard mode of level one. Who wrote the music for level two? That's some seriously great stuff.

[GhostBomb]

I played with Chrome and I didn't notice any lag at all, unless it was really subtle (like a few milliseconds).

[chriskha]

I LOVE rhythm games. I only played the first few levels but this is very cool already. I like the music as well.