Collab Game: Dubstep: concept

Posted by Alert Games on Jan. 29, 2012, 2:42 p.m.

So ive been posting comments on this for a while, but i figured id get some input before I start the development of it.

The Idea

A dubstep scrolling shooter! Similar to the dancedancerevolution type game, only with a ship and enemies! The enemies and graphics move with the music based on a timeline format. Dying lowers your score, and you can get highscores on each song. Like other games of this type, you have to earn a certain score to unlock new songs.

Just like many dubstep songs or light effects on stage performances, the graphics would represent an overhyped theme, with many flashy effects on text, enemies, backgrounds and everything.

While I'd like to call it DubShooter, it wouldnt have to be limited to all dubstep. I like dance-house, and drum-n-bass as well. The music would come from places like newgrounds, UKF, and our own artists! (with permission from the artists).

The Plan

I'd design some menu effects to start off things, and probably the saving mechanism to create timeline formats for new songs with their effects and enemy sequences. This way if you make new song packs and whatnot, you can distribute them, and maybe official packs will have prices and stuff.

Graphics for the menu and effects in the game would be needed. Definitely high quality, flashy, and busy :P These effects would be able to be called from the timeline format. The enemies would also need design and effects for them as well. Should be a good number so that the game wouldn't need to be updated for a while.

Programming would be needed mainly for the gameplay. The ship, powerups, multipliers, enmies, and maybe some effects that need programming. The menu would need programming as well, but the graphics would be the main concern.

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I know theres been a game done for mainly dubstep on XBLA, but it looked pretty crappy… so this would be a lot better, and more fun to play. Basically the overhyping would make it awesome lol.

I may plan on adding achievements and possibly a 2 player mode that could be played online with each other. It would work well with the API since it can return your friends to the game and make it easy to set up matches. This would be much later though.

Any thoughts on this? You guys like to be very skeptical, but it helps me to figure out whats best. Would you wanna participate in this collab?

EDIT: This will also probably be done in game maker so that it can be made faster and be a common platform. Unless everyone wants to use something else and has the resources to do it.

Comments

Cpsgames 12 years, 9 months ago

wubwubwubwub

Alert Games 12 years, 9 months ago

Thats one person in.

JuurianChi 12 years, 9 months ago

I like this idea.

We should do this after V4D.

Alert Games 12 years, 9 months ago

Thanks juurian :O

Taizen Chisou 12 years, 9 months ago

I love the idea, but I tried something like this years ago.

Like, the shooting was in time with the BGM and enemies would only register HP < 1 at every eighth note, so their explosions made the percussion.

The main problem would be adjusting for lag.

You'd have to set up some sort of delta-time structure, and crank out the FPS in GM.

Since it couldn't realistically run at 9999 FPS, it would take whatever frame it /did/ get and have all the enemies and junk move accordingly. You know what I mean?

Alert Games 12 years, 9 months ago

I know what you mean, but I wonder if it would work well going off of the songs progress? The project wouldnt be one to take any song and automatically do effects for it and whatever based on its treble and bass. Each song pack would have the backgrounds and textures for the enemies' design and different backgrounds for the song.

That way it would be based on the song position out of the length of the song. But youre right, it would have to consider if the fps was too slow and skip ahead a little.

Maybe if the fps drops too low the song could skip back though? As long as its fair to the majority of players that may be an option.

sirxemic 12 years, 9 months ago

You don't need a complicated delta-time structure, I think. You could 'query' the song position and calculate from that what should be happening, instead from the last delta-time.

Now, would the levels be generated like Audiosurf or 'handmade'?

Also, may be relevant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDlif8Km4S4

Astryl 12 years, 9 months ago

Generating the levels based on the music's waveform would provide the best content method for the game. I'll look into various methods for doing so (So I guess I'm in).

Alert Games 12 years, 9 months ago

I agree with you mega. music waveform would be a good idea if possible. It may be very difficult to do so though. If anything maybe the effects would go by waveform, but the enemies by sequence. That way every player has the same chance of getting a certain score, and can even have a percentage of completion.

@sir xemic: ah yes audiosurf was what i was thinking of in terms of games like it. Im thinking maybe an editor would be useful to make your own sequences. Also, yes that video is somewhat relevant cause it uses a lot of flashy effects to overhype the video. I think it would be fun to make those effects to the music.

Astryl 12 years, 9 months ago

Quote:
I agree with you mega. music waveform would be a good idea if possible. It may be very difficult to do so though. If anything maybe the effects would go by waveform, but the enemies by sequence. That way every player has the same chance of getting a certain score, and can even have a percentage of completion.

I was playing around last night with the FMOD EX API, and I found a few useful functions to pull the waveform, along with formulae to calculate either the DB or Frequency based on the currently playing samples.

What I'd suggest is pull the enemy data from a certain frequency line (Range 800hz > 1100hz, perhaps), use the global DB value for effects, and use the lower frequencies (Bass/Drums) for other stuff. I'm going to play around a bit with GMFMod and see what I can come up with in terms of concepts.