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[agj]

What about having a turn-based mode, where you have a finite set of blocks and you get to do with them what you want?  Or does this go against your idea as to how the game should feel?

Do you mean with the possibility of reordering them? That's not a bad idea, but the problem of actually being able to tell what particular drop of color is part of which piece would be a problem , especially with all the overlapping. If you mean without the reordering, then the main difference with what I have right now would be not having a time limit. Are you against having a time limit?

Generally, I think the weakest element of the game is the (graphical user) interface at the moment.  That's probably the easiest thing to work on though   Your ideas of overlays/pictograms sound good, but they won't fix the interface issues I feel are there.

When you say interface, what exactly do you mean?

[muku]

Because that would likely result in a poorer performance (a slight hiccup after placing a piece).

You don't have to do it all in one frame. Spread it out over a couple of frames; even if the user gets feedback within half a second, it's worlds better than having to jump through hoops like pausing the game and clicking some button or whatever.

How long do your current rating algorithms take to run, typically?

[increpare]

When you say interface, what exactly do you mean?

I'm not sure, now that I say it.  Given that the thing is pretty minimalist to begin with, I'm not sure what definite improvements I was thinking of.  I was speaking in general of things along the lines of buttons, menus, placements of objects, 'backgrounds', layouts of objects, blah blah blah?

[agj]

Then instead of telling me how to improve it, could you tell me what strikes you as 'improvable'? What seems off? Even if it's a nebulous feeling.

You don't have to do it all in one frame. Spread it out over a couple of frames; even if the user gets feedback within half a second, it's worlds better than having to jump through hoops like pausing the game and clicking some button or whatever.

How long do your current rating algorithms take to run, typically?

Not sure, I haven't measured it, but my computer is still rather fast, and it's a noticeable pause. Flash performs pretty terribly in slower computers, and I don't want it to bring the framerate down. It'd probably become unplayable on very old computers.

Regarding spreading the calculations, I'm not sure how I would go about doing that, other than an algorithm a frame, but my guess is that it would still be noticeable.

[agj]

How long do your current rating algorithms take to run, typically?

Not sure, I haven't measured it, but my computer is still rather fast, and it's a noticeable pause.

Measured it now and it was 33 ms, which included drawing the bars. I guess it took longer when I had my code riddled with traces. I'll check on a slower computer to see if it remains feasible.

[increpare]

Then instead of telling me how to improve it, could you tell me what strikes you as 'improvable'? What seems off? Even if it's a nebulous feeling.

I don't think I have too much more to say, in that you've now said that you have plans that should deal with most of them. 

[agj]

The rightmost triad is for presence/lack of 'accent' (or 'point of interest'). It's the weakest of the bunch, in my opinion, especially 'lack of accent', which is pretty much nothing at all (it's supposed to represent homogeneity, but...). Rhythm was already confused for 'harmony' once, which is, at least, not that far off the mark. A drum could be a good way to represent rhythm, but I'd have no idea what to do about its opposite if I used it.

Anyway, yeah, gonna use these for the next version. I'm going to attempt what muku suggested (thanks for the idea), so I have a lot of reworking to do.

[Chris B]

I really like your pictograms, they're quite fitting and self-explanatory, if you know a bit about visual composition.

I think it might help to only use notes of the same pitch in your rhythm pictogram, to really concentrate on duration only (like what  a single drum would produce).

Maybe something like this for an arhythmic tone sequence (couldn't find a better example):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Dotted_notes.svg

[agj]

Hey there, Mr. Manbaby! Make sure you make your seconda post in the Mancrib forum, it's a fun thing to do. Cool that you registered in the end.

I think it might help to only use notes of the same pitch in your rhythm pictogram, to really concentrate on duration only (like what  a single drum would produce).

Thank you, that's a very good idea! Good timing too, since tomorrow I'll be talking to my teacher and discussing these things.

Anyway, here's the game's current state. I, uh, took a break for a few weeks (meaning I got very little coding done during that time), but the past few days I've been hard at work. I haven't touched the parameter algorithms, but I've worked on pretty much everything else.



Added plenty of visual flourishes. Removed texts and numbers. Incorporated the pictograms I posted before. Parameters are updated in real time now; let me know if there are noticeable pauses after dropping a color shape on the canvas (I still haven't even optimized that). All in all, I'm getting closer to the experience I was looking for. The main feature that's missing still is an indication of the symmetry axis, the rhythm frequence, etc., but I'll work on that next.

[increpare]

Ah: cool   keep the features a'comin' agj

[agj]

I updated the first post of this thread; it was starting to look a bit depressing compared to what the game has evolved into.

Also relevant to this thread is that I've made a couple of posts in my blog on what has driven me to make this game, and what I want to achieve with it.

[agj]

I've been thinking about the game's sound design for a while now. Though I don't know much about sound design, I want to give this a shot. But I'll need some help!

What my idea boils down to is something very simple. In the background, there will be some very ambient and low-key music. Every action that the player performs, however, will emit a (melodic) sound. What I'm thinking of is piano keys, ringing for a long time, like when the appropriate pedal is pressed. This is because player actions are spaced between, so it's meant to keep the tension from one action to the next, and also to generate harmonies. Sounds will hopefully also be 'snapped' to a beat, like in Lumines or other Mizoguchi games, to make them seem like they're part of the background music. Unlike Lumines, though, these (two-note?) melodic sounds will, or I'd like them to, be generated by the game.

So here's where I'd really appreciate your input, increpare and muku, since you both have been working on pretty much exactly this (though to a much more complex level). Anyone else willing to lend me some advice is, of course, welcome as well. I'm considering selecting a few harmonic notes upon game start, based on the random colors selected, and then basing each action's melody on them. I'm not really sure if Flash is up to the task here, but at the worst I could to use, say, one sound file per note, for two octaves, or something like that, instead of pitch-shifting. So I want to cook-up a very simple melody generating 'engine' for my game, but since I don't know the next thing about music theory, I don't really know where to start.

A very basic idea I just thought of is selecting four notes at game start time, with some correspondence to the colors (not sure which, will research). These notes I could be 1, 2, 3 and 4. Then, each action would have a predetermined melody, such as 2-4 or 4-3-1. This would make sounds different for each play-through, though probably recognizably similar; then again, it may be boring to have the same sound play through whenever you drop a shape on the canvas, so it would seem like a good idea to change the sounds depending on the color of the shape that was grabbed, but then I guess I'd somehow have to make different melodies correspond to different colors in the spectrum. Ah, this sounds way more complicated than what I thought of at first.

Anyway, I still think that this is manageable. Would you agree with me, or is this whole deal way over my head?

[muku]

I like the idea, and I think it's definitely manageable. Using samples per note would also work, the only issue I can think of is file size... does Flash support mp3 samples? I'd guess so.

I don't know if snapping the notes to a beat is a good idea, it would mean that aural feedback would not be immediate. If the entire soundscape is reasonably ambient, beat and rhythm should not play a large role anyway.

As for choosing your four or so notes, you could take them from a chord, or more generally from any scale. I don't know what you know about music theory, so I'll try to lay out some essentials very briefly here.

Notes are organized in steps of semitones; there are twelve semitones in an octave. For simplicity, I'll list them in the key of C and number them:

C  C#  D  D#  E  F  F#  G  G#  A   A#  B  (C)
1  2   3  4   5  6  7   8  9   10  11  12

You can go to any other key by shifting the root note (C) accordingly.

You construct chords by choosing three or four of these notes. Some of the most important ones:

three note chords:
C major: 1 5 8 or C E G
C minor: 1 4 8 or C Eb G

four note chords:
Cmaj7 : 1 5 8 12 or C E G B
C7 : 1 5 8 11 or C E G Bb   (Bb = A#)
Cm7: 1 4 8 11 or C Eb G Bb   (Eb = D#)
Cmmaj7: 1 4 8 12 or C Eb G B

I recommend using the four note chords since they sound more interesting.

Note that 1 and 8 (C and G) are present in all these chords; these are called the root note and the fifth, respectively. They have a very stable sound to them, so you could use these notes to construct your background music by having a sort of "drone" on root and fifth.

The numerical patterns stay the same across all keys, so you can construct chords with other root notes in a similar fashion.

Once you have chosen your four notes, the approach you have outlined with having fixed 1-2-3-4 patterns per "event" should definitely work for a first prototype. I suggest you implement something like that and go on from that. And ask if you need more help on the theory, I realize this is very brief.

[agj]

does Flash support mp3 samples? I'd guess so.

Yup, of course.

If the entire soundscape is reasonably ambient, beat and rhythm should not play a large role anyway.

Yeah, actually, you're right, I'm going for pretty much the opposite of dancey music anyway, no point in it.

I don't know what you know about music theory

Nothing at all. Don't worry, you won't offend me or anything.

All that you explained there was awfully helpful, you have no idea. I do believe that a 4 note chord is best. I might even make a sound play (single note?) when the player hovers over a shape in the carousel. So maybe what I'll go for, at first, is: one note for hover, two for grabbing a shape, two for droping outside of canvas, three for dropping inside. Since gameplay actions are kind of repetitive, I also want to make variations per color, but I'm not sure how to go about that; maybe what will change is the octave.

Thanks a bunch for that; I'll let you know if I have any other specific questions. If you have anything else that feels like it might be helpful, do share it with me, though.

It might take a while until I upload the next version, because I have a lot to do for that one...

[agj]

I can't find a decent (free for me to use) piano sample out there. :/ Where does one go to get these things? Freesound had nothing...

[increpare]

I can't find a decent (free for me to use) piano sample out there. :/ Where does one go to get these things? Freesound had nothing...

you could check out samples used by tracks on modarchive (open them with a module editor, and you should be able to export any/all of the samples used in a particular track as wav files).  Should probably ask for permission from people before using samples that they as likely as not nicked off someone else to begin with though.

[agj]

Forgot to thank you for that tip, sorry.

Anyway, I was going to browse the ModArchive, but I've been spending my time doing other things (like adding all those other elements I talked about before, other than the audio), but just now I asked a friend, and he's supposed to give me some samples; so, cool!

I'm currently fixing the algorithms. Adding visual representations of the values really helped me see just how broken they were. :/

[eeenmachine]

This looks really interesting, I'm liking all the recent abstract music related games that have been popping up lately.

[agj]

Why, thank you. I'm not going to make the sound a very integral element of the gameplay, but I still hope you're not disappointed by the end result.

I just made a post pledging for help getting a name for my game, so, you guys reading this thread, help me too!

[agj]

New build! I am inching toward something actually playable. This time I added a bunch of little features I've been wanting to add for a while now, mostly visual touches. I added the accent parameter, which is working OK, though the algorithm is pretty basic and could do with some improving. I also added extra results screen information, as per increpare's suggestion (the screenshot below illustrates this feature). Both symmetry and rhythm have been toyed with, but none is at their optimal yet--in fact, they're pretty crap. Brightness and temperature are as good as they're going to get, is my guess--but I will probably take brightness out in the future, and perhaps replace it with something more interesting.



I'd like to know how you people feel about the overall aesthetic. What kind of things it reminds you of, if it's pleasant, too plain, or whatever comes to mind. And, in general, any sort of criticism is always welcome, of course.

Oh, the audio has not yet been added, chiefly because the date for me to turn in the written document on this project is getting near--and for that I need screenshots, not audio samples. So after that is done, I'll work on the sound aspect.

(I'm wondering why in that screenshot the white rays appear behind the colored circles on the canvas, but in the actual game they go in front...)