Thanks for checking out my game, I'm glad you had enjoyed it! Also I'd be happy to share some of the experience I got making this project;
I love playing rhythm games (Project Diva, Unbeatable and Osu! are some favorites :D) so I wanted to make a game that I could see myself playing. Without getting too engine-specific, I think one of the hardest unforseen challenges was learning what makes a good rhythm game chart (the sequence of notes/commands the player has to press representing the song).
Rhythmically speaking, pop music typically isn't very dynamic. If we chart it so the player is literally "tapping to the beat", all the player would be doing is tapping out 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 which would be quite boring haha. To make it more interesting to play we can have the player jump between different parts of the song. At first they could be tapping along to the drumbeats, then when the vocals kick in they can switch to the vocal melody, then on the instrumental break they can switch to the backing melody. As a game designer there are a lot decisions you can make about how you want to represent the song you are charting. The way I've come to understand it, a good chart tows a line of keeping the player on their toes, but also stays predictable enough that a skilled player should be able to score decently on their first try. It took a good bit of trial and error for me to find what I wanted the player to be doing at each section of the song, and even then there's still a lot I want to tweak in the current version.
Hopefully this is helpful for you, and if you have any more questions feel free to dm me on discord @andysakano, I'd be happy to answer!
Dude - thank you so much for the elaborate explanation. I honestly never thought about the fact that a lot of songs would really just be tapping the same (1-2-3-4) beat over and over.
One last Q - what was your workflow (if you don't mind sharing!) for implementing the Lady Gaga song? It's really cool that you were able to bring that into your game, and I'd love to know how you went about doing it!
Thanks again!
Sure thing! As a quick disclaimer, Godot has a plugin that allows midi files to be read in as game data (made by arlez80), and this made the process of charting so much easier. I started out by making the music in my DAW (I use Cakewalk which is 100% free, but you could also use Ableton, Garage Band, FL Studio, etc.). All the instruments I used in the song are samples played using midi, which has a few advantages I'll talk about later.
Once I had the song covered, I created a new midi track for the game's song chart. In this track, each note on the piano roll would be interpreted by the game as an "input" for the player. This is where the trial and error begins, and you can move around the notes and expirement with what buttons you want to represent the different parts of your song. What I like about doing it this way is that you edit the game data in the same software as you edit the music, meaning you can reference the actual notes being played when you determine how you want to chart each section. This method also ensures that when you move the files into your game, your game data will be in sync with your music.
Once I had the game's chart where I wanted it, I did one last listen to the audio. Here I wanted to make sure that if the player would be switching to a different track in the song, that part would be audible/highlighted so that they don't get lost.
Once again I hope that this helps! Good luck on your journey as a game designer and future projects!
