A. PROJECT TITLE: Rhythm Master
B. PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Genre: Music.
We searched for some projects about rhythm games (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_game). For example, arcade rhythm games: Dance Revolution, and mobile rhythm games: osu! Combining what have researched, we decided to make a rhythm game that not only requires the player to catch the pace of the music but also the player needs quick react and make movements accordingly (press the button and blow the whistle with the prop). The challenge for us is to figure out how to write and calculate the range of judgment (the input from the player can only be recognized in the range of judgment time) because we should leave some time for players to react. And we also should consider the player’s game experience, like how to make the instruction more obvious, and we need to figure out how much time should the indicator light flash in advance.
C. PROJECT PROPOSAL PLAN
During the first week, we are going to finish the external device connected to the Arduino. We need to set four small buttons on a large cardboard, install an LED board in the middle, and put 4 Neopixel Strips around it. We will select a piece of music with lyrics, and select and record part of the rhythm because it is very difficult to get the computer to analyze the music directly. We would then artificially program these rhythms into the computer, and four different Neopixel Strips would light up with the rhythm. When a specific Neopixel lights up, the player needs to press the corresponding button. We will pick a specific lyric in the song, and when the word is sung, the middle LED will light up, at this time, the player needs to blow the whistle with the prop.
In the second week, we will finish the code for Processing. When a specific light band is lit up, the computer screen will have a small ball in the corresponding direction smashing into the stickman in the middle. When the player presses the button, he will make the ball bounce, and if the player does not react in time, then a big red cross will appear on the whole screen, and then all the light strips will turn red together.
At last, to make the game more interactive, we hope to add a sound sensor again, when a specific word appears, there will be small balls in all four directions to smash people, so players need to whistle, at this time the sound sensor will receive the signal, and the stickman will be safe.
D. CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The preparatory research of rhythm games shows a great combination of the music and the movements of the players and inspired us. So we decided to put this feature of rhythm game into our project, but change its form of expression and add some interactive elements like blowing the whisper into the game. The different instructions (press buttons and blow whistle) require players to think and react quickly, and the different inputs from players will create various outputs. If pressing the button correctly, the stickman will be safe, if miss the opportunity to press the button or whistle, the stickman will be hit by the ball. The Player will adjust his pace according to the output (the flash of LEDs). So the game aligns with my definition of interactive. In the processing part, the game was presented in the form of a mini-game to the audience, to make the player’s action visualized to the audience, and make the game more interesting.