Happy New Year everyone! Today, I have some good news, and some bad news.
Let's start with the good one: Bongo Machine is available in open beta!
(click to access)
This beta includes the first level, with 3 difficulty modes. I've even been able to put some music for the title screen and menu! Right on time for the end of 2016! However, you won't be able to save your score. If you find any bug (actually you're likely to), please report them to me.
Now for the bad news… Well, it appears that Windows version has some latency! A very little one, but for a rhythm game, it's enough to make it less enjoyable. I've tried several things to fix it with Unity, messing with audio settings and the sound assets properties, but to no avail.
So, unless I succeed to work around this huge performance issue… I think I will simply cancel that project. After a few bug fix, and an implementation of the save system and some bonus content, I will just let it in this beta. I have other projects in mind, I feel they would be more interesting than struggling with a flawed game (that was supposed to be little).
Of course, there is the eventuality that this is just bound to my machine, or that I'm the only one bothered by this latency. Although I seriously doubt it, tell me if you have the same issue.
Last but not least, I would like to talk about the game's timing again. Especially, if you are trying out the game, you can help even further in that aspect if you are motivated! I will explain.
Lastly, I said that 0.056 seconds was an optimal delay. Actually, I was wrong again. During a test, I've been stuck on the same measure for at least two minutes, and trust me it's frustrating! This made me think about the purpose of the game. How it defines rhythm, and why I chose in the first place to repeat each part until the player does the right pattern. And I've come to the conclusion that rhythm is less a matter of precision than it is about understanding patterns. Or at least, in this game. I want to be close to the feeling of a jazz jam: musicians might be slightly off for individuals notes, but that's okay, because the music their play is more about the pattern, and their global understanding of "the flow". Each note don't need to be strictly on the correct micro-seconds, as long as the rhythm is respected on a global scale.
That's why I decided to make the game less difficult! It isn't about being super precise, it's about understanding a rhythm in a song. Thus, I set the delay to 0.07.
However, since there is this latency with Windows… Well, I have to increase that value again. So it is now up to 0.1 seconds. That's right, it's pretty tolerant! But it's the only solution for now.
That's where you can play! On the game's first launch, a configuration file will be created (which path can be found in README). It contains only the mentioned delay. You can try to twitch the value to find the one you feel comfortable with. My preference is 0.07, but maybe this would be too easy for you, and you would like to try 0.06 or lower? Or this is still too punitive, and you want 0.08? You can try different values, and tell me your favorite one! I suggest though that, between each try, you listen to something else, and try a different activity. This way you will come fresh each time, not like me who have done test while I had still the rhythm in mind and, unable to detect the difficulty, concluded that “0.055 is too hard but 0.056 is okay!”.
Anyway, have fun with the game!