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[Kunal]

This is an iOS rhythm game I've been working on during weekends. The player makes the stick figure dance to the beat of the music by sliding their left and right thumbs. They need to move the yellow markers towards the green circles just as they are about to disappear. The player also gets to choose any song from their device's music library.


(Edit: 35 MB download of some blurry footage
http://bit.ly/pTjIOq)

Here are a couple of screenshots (programmer art warning !)




Right now I just have a first cut of the beat detection  and 'choreography' routines up and running. I'm trying to make sure the beat detection works fairly well with disco/dance/pop songs (since that is the theme of the game), rather than handle every kind of genre.

I've also made this HIG-violating animation editor. Later on I hope to make it available within the game itself, and also create the infrastructure for players to create, upload, share, and rate their own dance moves.

[Kunal]

Over the past few weeks I've been working on the scoring system and failure/reward conditions. The general idea is to make the scene seem more active as the player does better. As the health circle gets filled up various elements are added to the scene . If the player keeps missing the beat then the  health bar drops and the scene looks progressively more austere.   Right now there is no audio feedback when the scene elements change, so that needs to be rectified. Once the player's health circle is full they can tap it and the scene transitions to outer space and doubles the scoring multiplier.

Here's an example to demonstrate

Just a spotlight and the dancer



Spotlight goes out and the background lights up



Hordes of dancing clones appear (ok maybe not hordes)



I've also been fiddling around with a camera system. The general principle is that the camera should zoom in during the quieter sections of a song, and zoom out during the louder/more energetic sections. For the space scene I've also added a bit of camera jitter to give the sensation that the player is hurtling through space.

Worldwide high-scores are going to be a problem since there needs to basically be a leaderboard for each song. Unfortunately GameCenter and OpenFeint seem to require you to create a leaderboard manually (i.e. there is no programmatic way to create a new leaderboard). I'll probably have to run my own server for this.

[Kunal]

Here is some shaky-blurrycam footage of the game in its present state (about a 35MB download)

http://bit.ly/pTjIOq

I've managed to get a decent camera system working. Some of the graphics have also been re-done. I also added some pink hair because I was kind of bored.

The idea now is that the player gets to choose the kind of stage they want. One is a disco setting with reflective floors, and spotlights etc. Another one is atop a moving truck beneath a blue sky traveling across a changing landscape. It isn't happening now, but I plan to make some of the scene elements also react to the 'energy' of the song at the time (in addition to how well the player is doing)

Also got a few of the animations tweaked so that they seem more lively. There is still a lot of work left here. I've just got about 5-6 moves in there and I think there need to be at least 15-20.

[eigenbom]

this is cool, love the pink fro

[FK in the Coffee]

 
Has an Elite Beat Agents flair to it.  I love it!

[JackMenhorn]

Ouendan!

[Kunal]

Thanks everyone !  I feel flattered that you would mention the fabulous EBA/Ouendan in the context of this game.

In my admittedly biased opinion, I think the thumb-sliding motion on the iphone feels a bit nicer than the stylus-tap/drag motions you do on a DS touch screen.

When things are further along I'll post here to see if anyone's interested in doing some beta testing.

[BattleBeard]

 Woah, a Ouendan-inspired game. Noooow we are talking! Can you do Space Channel 5 next?

[tesselode]

Is this going to be like ReRave?

[Kunal]

@tesselode - I just tried out ReRave. It didn't feel all that similar to me at least (apart from sharing the basic premise of all rhythm games - do-something-in-sync-to-music)

@BattleBeard - Sadly I never played Space Channel 5 (which is awful because I'm a huge Mizuguchi fan). Might have to see if my PS2 still works and find a copy.