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A jam submission

Road2JoyView game page

1-2 player Beethoven Music Challenge for the 2023 VIM GameJam
Submitted by baylight — 23 hours, 8 minutes before the deadline
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Road2Joy's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Technical Implementation#403.4173.417
Fun/Design#453.4173.417
Music/Sound#463.3333.333
Theme/Limitation#533.4173.417
Overall#543.2923.292
Graphics/Animation#673.1673.167
X Factor (overall enjoyment)#733.0003.000

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you credit all assets in-game (including your own) as required by the rules?

Yes

Team Size

Solo (1)

Will you continue work on the game after the jam?

Yes - fun side project

Which diversifiers did you use, if any? (optional)

In a Song
Two Button

What tools did your team use to construct the game? (optional)
Unity C#

Which art and audio did you / your team NOT create? (optional)
Listed in the about/credits. Used note sound from Pixabay, https://www.mfiles.co.uk/scores/beethoven-symphony9-4-ode-to-joy-piano-solo.htm music, and paper background from www.freepik.com/ Other art from self and Midjourney

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Comments

Submitted

Hey, this one is a nice one... I can totally see this turning on to full on music teaching coop game, where you have to stay on the correct chords paths. Will be looking forward a more in depth release in the future! Good job!

Developer

Thank you for playing and the feedback. I appreciate and also could see how it could become a music teaching coop. Will think about how to sequence this and appreciate you trying it out and commenting.

Submitted

Great work on this! Nice interpretation of the paths theme.

I am unfamiliar with reading music, so I appreciated your inclusion of AI, so I could try to follow in parallel :D

Amazing for just your first game jam! Congratulations overall for such a quality and original game!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much! Appreciate you trying it out and going through the game. Next variation I would make it more of an intro to notes that could build up. Really appreciate your playthrough and comment!

Submitted

Very cool, very original. The harmony part was needed for the theme, but it made the game harder (first I was reading or listening to the harmony). If you continue to work on this, I would suggest that the other harmonies are played a lot softer, and won't be shown in the score. So you would only have to focus on the main melody.

Developer(+1)

Thanks very much for playing. Agree the harmony may have been forcing. Or at least start with melody to get familiar. Great point about other harmonies being softer and the focus on the main melody. This is a case where I lost the original simple playability I had wanted to in the beginning by layering into too many concepts at once and then got caught up in the programming challenges and needed to break and playtest. Thank you again for trying out and the helpful feedback.

Submitted(+1)

This was a really cool take on the jam. I think highlighting the not the player should be aiming for would help a lot with accessibility. Also found what I think may be a bug, where if I just let the AI player do its thing and dodge all the notes it lets me breeze through the song. Cool take, and good execution

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and the feedback. Great idea about highlighting the note. That would help give a goal and teach rather than the player having to stumble to learn. And yes, bug dodging notes and letting AI play by itself. Ran out of time to address skipping notes. Thank you again and really like the highlight as way to introduce. 

Submitted

For sure, had fun playing it!

Submitted(+1)

This game requires people to know the piece and how to read sheet music, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just aimed a more niche audience. When using two player mode, I was interested in trying out some more unconventional harmonies, but the game categorized them as wrong notes. One suggestion for a future version (though significantly harder to make) would be to allow the second player multiple correct notes so that they can try different variations of a song. Quite a unique interpretation of the theme, for a solo project it's pretty well done. Nice job.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for trying out and exploring in detail. Great points about nice for sheet music. Given more time, it could actually introduce slowly the note paths, so people could learn to read. You are absolutely right that marking other harmonies "wrong" is not appropriate. As you point out, there are many ways to harmonize. Even the ones I chose were a bit arbitrary. I like the idea of different variations, even allowing the player to designate what they want to play and then that can be used or marking multiple correct. I really appreciate you taking the time and the constructive feedback. Very helpful.

Submitted(+1)

This game relies quite a bit on the previous music knowledge of the player. Even though I am a musician, I can't read sheet music all that fast so this was quite difficult for me. Luckily I found a way to cheese, by just going in the empty spots between the notes. I think this could be turned into an awesome tool to teach people how to read sheet music fast.

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much for playing and the constructive feedback. Agree I need to make it an easier transition, show the player how to play first, and then give them the opportunity to try. This is tricky dropping into it. And yes, the empty spots are not yet handled. Appreciate the feedback and will consider how to make this more teachable. Thanks!