First Blog, Rhythm Game Called "Pulse"

Hi,

Well, first off, I should probably mention that this is my first blog.

Good... Now that thats done, I'd like to talk about the game I'm developing right now.

PULSE

Pulse is a rhythm/racing game. In the game, the player is a flying ship, hurtling across a cylindrical track at really fast speeds. Think certian levels in F-Zero-X for the N64. There are four positions on the track that the user can be on: Top, Left, Right, and Bottom. A spawn ship is sent in front of the player, consistantly 4 to 5 seconds ahead of the player. The spawn ship spawns holograms which remain stationary on the track. As the ship runs over a hologram, the user presses a button corresponding to the hologram. (Blue hologram -> push D, Green hologram -> push F, etc.) There are four types of holograms.

Sounds pretty simple and a lot like other rhythm games out there, but I've tossed in an extra feature. The user has to change positions on the tube to hit all the holograms. there might be four on the top, then four on the right side, then one on the bottom, etc. and the player has to hit these holograms in order to gain points.



Now, for the racing element.

The ship is on a long looping track. The higher "Combo"(correct hits without missing any holograms) the user has, the faster he goes. The object is to beat the computer, or other player, by completing more laps than him, or progressing farther on the track.

As the user goes faster and faster with the higher combo, the screen will start to shake with the beat, and a motion blur will be implimented. This is to make it harder for the user to continue with his combo.

This is a game of insane speeds and fast reflexes.

Screenshots

Well, if you're anything like me, you will probably have skipped reading everything above this point, and started to look at my screenshots. They won't make much sence if you skipped the reading above.

I've implimented a few features already. I've implimented a metrinome which is syncronized with an mp3 or ogg track, and I've created geometry around a path. I've created my cylindrical track most recently, so thats the major focus here.

You can see my track above, but it probably didn't seem like much. Here's a better view.



The track is actually created around a path. If I change the path, the track changes as well, I can also change the radius of the path too to make it larger or smaller.



I'm thinking about creating a resource for it.

Also, heres a shot of my metrinome. It takes a BPM (Beats per minute) and keeps up with a music track. You can see it in all the above screenies, but here's a cropped image. (Because everybody likes cropped images)



I'm planning on mainly techno for the game, and I'm going to make addon song packs once the game is released. Maybe those song packs could contain other genres of music like rock, classical, dance, or maybe even rap (I really don't like rap).

The art in the screenies is just placeholder art until I hire an artist. I'm going to wait until I have a working prototype for that though.

I plan on contacting indie music labels/indie bands for music. I'm thinking the game will give them some exposure, so maybe they'll let me use their existing tracks for a little less money than a big label.

I hate to think about how long I've spent getting up to this point. I've just been so busy with school and other things that I've been working on this game at a turtle's pace. I've spent about a year to get here. I originally started coding this in the torque 1.3 stock. When I started though, I was only in algebra, and I knew nothing about 3d math. Now I do know what to do, and things have been going faster.

-Griff

I doubt many of you read all of the above. I probably wouldn't. Future blogs will be shorter!