Epic Rhythm RPG (good game)

Stay on your toes as you strum, slam, and play your way through a turn based arena style fight. Choose your attack and use rhythm to do damage, be prepared to dodge when your enemies strikes!

Your damage scales proportionally to your score on the minigame!

Controls:

Guitar: space bar

Piano: 1,2,3,4

Drums: arrowkeys

Developer Reflections

Ian

I'd say this prototype is representative of our core loop, but it would be a stronger representation if our rhythm element were better balanced and easier to get synced on new devices. I also regret that we weren't able to get varying difficulties and status effects working, as that would have strengthened the RPG element. That said, we did accomplish enough that the player is able to make the decisions we wanted (choosing games based on their difficulty and damage output). I do wish that we had allocated more time for this balancing, as I set up systems for status effects, healing, and very detailed damage ranges, but wasn't able to fully capitalize on them.

I would say it got close to answering the main question, as when properly synced the rhythm games function very well and the RPG element is at very least functional to the point of being able to play out a complete battle. With our experience with the game and our play-testers excitement about the then-unfinished RPG element, I think the answer is that yes, these two mechanics do work together in a satisfying way. It would take fleshing this prototype out more with polish and balancing to find out exactly how well, though. I also personally was curious about how our layered music system would feel in the context of a game like this, and thanks to Ethan's music I'd say we got a very conclusive answer to that. By far my favorite thing when playing the game is hearing how each game adds to the base track, I think that turned out very well.  

If I could change how we went about this prototype, I would do my best to integrate all of our work as fast as possible, even at incomplete stages. One of my biggest mistakes was leaving simple but still time-consuming code for the last minute, leading to our game loop not fully working by presentations. My rationale behind this was that it would be easier to conceptualize the full system when I had a functioning UI to integrate with, and while that was true, it would have been worth the time to hard-code a few button inputs for each game, so that I could implement and test a full battle before integration. Given more time, I'd of course want to fix any existing bugs and add art for the greyboxed assets, but beyond that I think a little bit of polish and juice could go a long way for a game like this. Things like a stick-click intro to allow you to prepare for each minigame, and a damage animation that happens after each minigame in time with the end of a measure would improve the musicality, and particles or other feedback based on timing would improve the game feel.

Ethan Baedke

I believe our game was representative of the core loop we wanted. The core loop was to make a decision about which attack to choose, select that attack and play the rhythm minigame, and repeat. While this loop was not as balanced or fleshed out as we would have liked, the loop was functional and continuous.

I believe that half our question was answered. Despite some kinks, the rhythm section of our game was functional, and the player could still make a strategic decision as to which minigame to play based on their skill level at each. However, I believe the RPG section of our game was not complete enough to answer the second half of our question. Without moves having different effects on the state of the game, the only decision the player had to make was based on their own skill level at each rhythm game, which is what a regular rhythm game offers anyways.

If I were to make additional changes, I would want to expand upon the RPG part of the game in order to better answer the question of the prototype.

If I were to take this idea further than a prototype, I would enhance the rhythm section of the game to better entrance the player and make them feel more connected to what they are doing. I would do this by adding better note feedback to make sure the player understands how they are performing.