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[RichVreeland]

January
Makin' Music and Stuff

I've been lurking here for years, and I've been working on this on and off for a long time , I figured it wouldn't hurt to log my progress and see what folks think.

January is a generative music tool. You walk around and lick snowflakes with your tongue, and the tool uses a set of rules to make choices about what the next note (or notes) will be. It also gives the player freedom to play various types of chords, and choose when and how notes will be played. There are a bunch of advanced features, which you can explore below. It's being developed with Flixel and Flash/AS3.

Current Build: v020 (Flash)

Controls
WASD or Arrow Keys. Look Up!

Latest
- Change the length of notes!

Features
- Walk Around, Lick Snowflakes, and Make Music!

Advanced Controls
H Toggle HUD, which shows note information.
M Save your performance to a MIDI file!
P Pedal Point Mode. Adds a note underneath every regular note (not chords).
/ Pentatonics! Turns whatever the current scale is into a pentatonic scale, for some old-school riffin'
[ ] Use Brackets to Toggle Through Game Modes.
 "Write" - default mode
 "Repeat" - repeat up to the last 8 notes from Write mode.
 "Detour" - Generate notes freely without effecting your Repeat sequence.
\ - in Write mode, resets the sequence you're creating for Repeat mode. In Repeat mode, starts the sequence back at the beginning.
K - Change the Musical Key!
< > - Toggle through modes (Ionian, Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian)

SHIFT - Change Note Lengths. Toggle between Full (default), Half, or Random
i - Improv Mode, will periodically switch keys, modes, and use pedal point / pentatonics
CTRL - Hold this to move really fast! (aka cheat)
0 - Basically a Demo Mode. Player moves across the screen automatically, uses different gameplay modes on its own, etc
- = - Control Snow Amount (3 Settings: Flurry, Shower, and Blizzard)

Unsolicited Advice
I submitted this to IGF as a way of manipulating myself into working on it some more and making it better. I encourage this method as it has worked quite well for me

Feedback greatly appreciated!

[K1lo]

I really love the art and the winter theme.. but I must be doing something wrong because all I can do is move from side to side of the same screen ?

[Forstride]

I really love the art and the winter theme.. but I must be doing something wrong because all I can do is move from side to side of the same screen ?

You catch the snowflakes on your tongue.

[K1lo]

Ha! Don't I feel silly!  I really love this, it's simple but beautifully put together! 

[ananasblau]

Know what, I'll use that song I just created in your game as music for my game :D

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/wqyyf5yk6aoz4n3/13_Octaves.mid

[rek]

I don't get it, honestly.

It gets dark and you can't see the snow flakes. I don't know what the 1s and 2s that pop up mean. I don't see anything about recording/playing back/etc. The walking pace and screen scrolling pace are infernally slow.

I gave up quickly.

Oh: automatic full screen mode? Hell no.

[firebelly]

It's so pretty.

[RichVreeland]

I don't get it, honestly.

It gets dark and you can't see the snow flakes. I don't know what the 1s and 2s that pop up mean. I don't see anything about recording/playing back/etc. The walking pace and screen scrolling pace are infernally slow.

I gave up quickly.

Oh: automatic full screen mode? Hell no.

Haha, thanks for the vitriolic feedback! My favorite kind (honestly)

Just out of curiosity, are you on a PC? It definitely gets dark (intentional, to simulate going from day to night) but I know the gamma settings on PCs make for darker screens ... I might have to dial it back a bit.

I'm thinking you've hit the nail on the head of a problem I'm having with this... People are expecting a game, they expect fast movement and the like and I'm not sure that's what this is about. It's been difficult trying to communicate a strictly musical concept like creating and then repeating a musical sequence in a setting that abstracts what's going on to begin with.

It's supposed to be slow and deliberate, like someone would be if they were trudging through snow... there's no real reason to run (though there is a hidden shortcut to sprint around)

Can I ask why full-screen as the default view is so offensive? This is the kind of thing that I think is lessened by distraction... it kind of defeats the purpose of the game being a chill experience.

Cheers.

[Connor]

i love it! amazing file writing software, great for if i want to make a music soundtrack

[jamesprimate]

HI RICH 

January looks very nice. I'm glad you've spent some time polishing it.

[RichVreeland]

HI RICH 

January looks very nice. I'm glad you've spent some time polishing it.

PRIMATE. Your conservatory stuff is on my piano, I haven't forgotten! Gonna try to play some of it  thanks for sending it to me!

[melos]

oh, rad, played this a while back. i'll have to try out the new version in a bit and see what i can make! when i'm not busy x_Xxxxx.

using it a bit for a few minutes, i think it could be good for thinking of some short intro snippets for a song (which I could then go and expand!). cool!

[jacksnappert]

Ahhhh I really enjoyed this! Relaxing, meditative... love the fact you have the wind underlying it all too.

This might step it into being more generative, but I kind of want an option to go into a mode where it auto changes the keys and modes once in a while, maybe in a way similar to the note generation?

[RichVreeland]

Ahhhh I really enjoyed this! Relaxing, meditative... love the fact you have the wind underlying it all too.

This might step it into being more generative, but I kind of want an option to go into a mode where it auto changes the keys and modes once in a while, maybe in a way similar to the note generation?

Hey Jack! Thanks for the feedback. Hmm ... maybe like an "autopilot" mode, that will occasionally toggle on and off all of the various features? That might be neat, as a way to generate some interesting sounds without having to do much.

Maybe it could do this:
- Periodically change keys
- Periodically change modes
- Periodically toggle pedal point mode on/off
- Periodically toggle pentatonics on/off

Does something like that sound like what you had in mind?

[RichVreeland]

Wow, I just did a quick test of this idea and it's AWESOME. Will definitely be including this, thanks for the suggestion!

[jacksnappert]

Yep, exactly that. Awesome dude, glad it worked out!