Music game prototype

[Diffa]

Hi,
here's a gameplay video of a new game I'm working on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VF6A3AOeB8

[broozar]

nice! needs a little color and polish, but it already looks like it would be fun to play.
are the shootable blocks generated in sync with the music? because they look kinda random and out of rythm. i'd start working on that.

[Diffa]

The blocks look like they are "out of rythm", because you can't see when they are generated (because of the fog). Also the "beat detection algorithm" isn't perfect, so it might look a bit random. It's still a early prototype, so it's going to get better

[queryamit]

Looks grt nice work

[Fraser]

I like the 3D scrolling equaliser video layer, looks like the foundation of a nice game.

I'm curious: how are you sampling the audio out buffer for beat detection.

[Diffa]

Hi,
for the prototype I'm using fmod to play the songs + analyze the audio etc,
but on the final game I'm going to use custom mp3 player + KISSFFT or FFTW for the beat detection.
Why? Because fmod costs 500$ per platform, so I think I'm going to use something that doesn't cost so much.

[Fraser]

Hi,
for the prototype I'm using fmod to play the songs + analyze the audio etc,
but on the final game I'm going to use custom mp3 player + KISSFFT or FFTW for the beat detection.
Why? Because fmod costs 500$ per platform, so I think I'm going to use something that doesn't cost so much.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know fmod cost so much, it kind of pushes it out of the indie developers budget, it's a shame. I did some work with MikMod on windowsCE it ran real nice on 200MHz ARM with plenty to spare, I think it's since been ported to iOS, probably doesn't have FFT. but beat detecting a MOD track takes up little CPU, you just analyse the sequence data. And of course you could have hours of music content and change BPM when getting powerups etc. Just an idea.

A couple of questions:
Is the scrolling equaliser graphic a prerendered movie?
Do you plan on having it able to use any music files present on the device?

[Diffa]

"Do you plan on having it able to use any music files present on the device?"
- Yes, but for now the game is running only on pc. Not sure about other platforms.

"Is the scrolling equaliser graphic a prerendered movie? "
- Nope. It's done in realtime.

[Fraser]

"Do you plan on having it able to use any music files present on the device?"
- Yes, but for now the game is running only on pc. Not sure about other platforms.

I think it would go down well on mobiles, but it would be tricky, perhaps you could precompute a scenery "sequence" that plays alongside music.

"Is the scrolling equaliser graphic a prerendered movie? "
- Nope. It's done in realtime.

Very nice!

[Diffa]

Hi,
I you want you can test the prototype, you can download it from
https://www.box.com/s/59b1a8a93e0bba80ef6f

FYI it's really a prototype, so no game menus and I can't promise that it works.
For now it's mostly a mp3 player, but it's going to be a game
ESC will quit the game.
When you start the game it asks for a mp3 file, so select one and you're good to go.
Use mouse to move "the ship" and mouse left/right button to shoot.
If you want to select a different mp3 you have to start the game again.

Next up game menus and some gameplay.

[giggsy]

Nice work!

[Diffa]

Thanks