All my life, I have encountered a crucial block to fully enjoying rhythm games: I have no rhythm. But that didn’t stop me from trying. For years I suffered from poor performance on Guitar Hero and B rank ratings on Dance Dance Revolution. Here’s a game that mixes the hacking and slashing of a 3D action game with fast-paced combat. it’s fun no matter how tuned your inner metronome is. I sat down with director John Johanas to ask him: how do you make a rhythm game for people who don’t have rhythm?
Johanas told me that the team at Tango Gameworks always envisioned it as a rhythm game. In the game, you play as Chai, a brave young man who dreams of becoming a rock star. After a lab accident, an iPod is implanted in his chest and he tunes into the world around him. It’s up to Chai to navigate his way out of the surrounding world of Vandelay Technologies. As you hack and slash, battles unfold to rock songs by Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys and The Prodigy.
When I asked Johanas how the idea came about, he said, “Amazingly, it hasn’t changed much from the original approach. And even though a lot of team members liked it, they at least supported us to try it.”
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The challenge was to mix the two genres – rhythm game and action-adventure – and maintain the gameplay. “The first thing we did was create a system where whatever you did, everything would sync up to fall into the rhythm,” says Johanas. From there, the team implemented a system where you wouldn’t be penalized for not hitting everything perfectly – even if you didn’t time your attacks correctly, Chai would still perform the moves to the beat of the song – but hitting to the beat of the song song gave you an extra bonus.
“You’re not limited by the music, you know, you can do whatever you want. You can do whatever combos you want,” he said. “Enemies move like in a normal game. Only everything is synchronized like a video clip.”
The developers have been very careful when it comes to implementing the rhythm mechanic. The game contains a small screen that shows the beat very clearly if you are having trouble tuning in to a particular song. The game world is also filled with other visual cues, such as the steam blowing around Chai or the rhythm at which he snaps his fingers.
As development progressed, the team ended up reducing some features for simplicity and playability. In the game, you can summon companions who will enter the field and attack enemies for you. During development, the team tested a feature that allowed you to completely switch characters mid-battle and play at a different pace.
“Nobody could get it because it was so complicated to go from one character that had a certain rhythmic style to another, like on the fly with the chaos of battle. So we went as planned. So now , it’s literally a button you don’t have ‘You don’t have to worry about when to call your teammates, they’ll do it for you’.
it’s not just an accessible rhythm game. Tango Gameworks has also created a great entry point for those who want a taste of the 3D action genre. Once you get into a game like this, you have a relatively large repertoire of combos to practice. The game guides you step by step, button by button.
“The game was designed with accessibility in mind, with the idea that these are generally genres that people tend to stray from, because that’s not their kind of genre, and we wanted do something that’s accessible and fun, and that even people who struggle (with it) can probably play through to the end.”