Phew. Here at Harmonix, we’re tantalizingly close to finishing up The Beatles game. Lots of new info and a trailer of the game was released today at E3 (check out the link in the previous post).
With The Beatles wrapping up, I should have lots more time/energy to focus on Super Bongo Fury this summer. I’m thinking of a stay-cation this month to really push things forward.
Returned from last week’s GDC, highlights for me included the Noby Noby Talk and, of course, the Experimental Gameplay Sessions.
It’s been a long time since my last Super Bongo Fury update. It’s so tempting for an introverted obsessive type like me to hold things back until they’re polished and finished. But this blog is supposed to document my design/development process and I should be delivering the goods, even if they currently look and sound like shit.
So here’s a movie of some very early prototype-level gameplay. It does an OK job of showing how the simplest mechanics work. Right now, I’m pursuing a few new directions that take advantage of the unique multiplayer environment, beyond the simple beat matching you see here.
(click the image above to watch the movie)
I just resuscitated an old website about an old project: Space Rock 20XX. It was a pretty weird idea and pretty much a failure. But a fun an interesting failure. It’s strange to read the “artist statement” I wrote back in 2004 and find myself up against many of the same problems, now with Super Bongo Fury.
I’ve been cranking on SBF for the past two weeks and an update is coming soon. I also submitted a proposal to show SBF at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop (at the Game Developers Conference in March). I would be extremely honored if the proposal gets accepted, but I’m not at all confident it will be. The good/humbling thing about applying to the EGW is that it forced me to try and close the loop, forced me to see the loose threads and half-baked ideas. I’m confident there’s a interesting core within SBF, but much is still inchoate.
So, it’s onward, with renewed vigor.
Last weekend at the Global Game Jam, my team produced “The Beat,” a puzzle game with some rhythmic elements.
The Jam was intense and stressful, nearly 48 hours of rapid game design and development with people I’ve never met before! But the enjoyment our game brought to fellow game jammers and my friends made it worthwhile. Working with such extreme time constraints is a great way to blow aside mental blocks and summon great productivity. I’d like to try applying this model to my own projects!
You can download version 1.1 and check it out (requires Java and Windows). This version contains a few improvements/fixes my teammate Jesper made after the Jam.
GGJ is this weekend. I’m participating in the Boston jam, hosted at MIT. Hopefully I’ll have some good stuff to report by Sunday night. Also, I’ll post more SBF news soon.
aka Microsoft Excel.
One of the nice things about being a one-man team is that I can make my tools as lo-fi as I want. Each “song” in the game is authored in a spreadsheet, like the one above. I use a simple Ruby script to convert the Excel files into comma-separated files, which are then directly parsed by the game (this conversion is automatically done as needed when each file is loaded, using timestamp checks).
As you can see, it’s super minimal. It just supports quarter notes for each hand, and one set of spoken “lyrics” for each player. I’ll extend it to support sixteenth notes, tempo changes, etc. eventually, but this simple format allows me to flush out all my tech and write new songs really fast.
My current project at Harmonix was announced today. My role is “lead programmer” on our new Beatles game and it’s nice to finally lift the veil of secrecy.
Here’s a down-rez’d screenshot of SBF in action. Hopefully it helps illustrate the basic gameplay. Each player sits around the edges of the projected image, orientated so they face the center. The UI is similar to many rhythm/action games. The “notes” scroll from the center of the display towards each player. When a note crosses the player’s bongo circle, they pound their respective bongo to “play” the note.
This is my very rough first pass on the UI and I’ll be posting revisions periodically.
I used DISQUS to add a commenting feature. Thanks to Tien-Ann for the tip.
