Messages

Stupot: The incident you mention was a shout-out to Qwantz and Dinosaur Comics who gave the guy quite a bit of advertising.

Isotown!

http://www.isotown.net/index.php

It's awesome.

A webcomic, basically watching a town grow and grow. I highly recommend you go and read it from the beginning.

I completely forgot to mention that Vib Ribbon is one of my favourte rhythm games. It's awesome. The best thing to come from the playstation.

Do you know, I don't know. I have never played Guitar Hero. I live in Japan, where we play cute little rhythm games on tiny little pink machines. Guitar Hero seems to be what everyone is playing overseas.

I think I'd prefer to aim for something more like Rhythm Tengoku though.

I think some of you need to keep in mind that this is NOT a game idea! I'm not telling any of you what my actual plans for a game would be if I do indeed decide to do this. I'm simply trying to work out how to get: MUSIC -> GAME ENGINE programming wise.

Your comments are, however, -well- appreciated Nik ^_^ If there's anyone I want to ask about music, it's you and you make a lot of good points. Lumines is an exceptional game and I could only dream of emulating it in some way. The problem with Lumines is that it's such a beautifully designed game, there's no need really to try and remake it. It's pretty close to perfect. I adore that game. I'm more than happy to take lessons learnt from it though, and from yourself.

However, I do disagree with you that just 5 notes would be boring. I think there's a lot of potential in a simple concept to be turned into a fun game. It's not for everyone, of course. I've been getting more and more into various rhythm games lately and the top of my list goes without any shadow of a doubt to Lumines, Rhythm Tengoku (or Rhythm Heaven), Space Channel 5, Ouendan and Cool Cool Toon.

I'm not trying to make another one of those though, I'm simply playing with the concept for the time being and I want to know if it -can- be done. Even if all I do is make one little engine which is barely a "game" at all, perhaps others will be inspired to take it further, or myself.

Your points about synching are of course on the mark and that will be a problem. Depending on the methods used, I'm sure it'll be a lot of trial and error.

Still, what I'm trying to figure out more than anything right now is just the basics and the best way to make a bare-bones engine that connects music to programming.

Thankyou -so- much already everyone! This has been really interesting and helpful so far ^_^ I rather hope someone else is inspired to give this a shot too.

Yep, I've thought of that ^_^ Though I like your "fuck off".

I agree with your idea, Radiant, but surely the problem lies in the creation of the text file itself. If I want to have any kind of music more complicated than Three Blind Mice, this sort of thing would take me hours.

Gregjazz: I see! So I would essentially create the musical track, then 5 (or however many notes I wanted to play with) MIDI files corresponding to the notes to be hit by different keys, right?

That's actually a better idea than mine in many ways because it allows for personal flexibility in terms of which notes in any given musical track that I want to be 'playable'. I can have music as complicated as I like, theoretically.

Interesting, I see your basic idea but I'm a little lost on the details. How does PlaySilentMidi find a beat number fro a Midi?

I'm interested in having a discussion with both music and mostly programmer types about making a rhythm game with AGS (or any other software if it comes down to it).

This is not some secret project or anything, but I've been thinking of doing a rhythm game for awhile and I had a good, long think about it today. This is my thinking summed up:

As far as just a basic engine goes, let's imagine just a background with some kind of interactive music staff across it, with birds (representing the notes) flying across the screen. Different keys represent the 5 notes and when the notes hit a certain line in the middle of the screen, the player must hit the appropriate key.

Simple, simple, simple.

So, as far as the engine goes, we need those notes to match up with a music track being played, otherwise it's not much of a rhythm game. This is the tricky part and the bit where I need to get a little dialogue going.

In my imagination, ideally, I see it working like this.

You have a musical program with which you create a simple track of music, comprised of, for simplicity's sake, 5 notes. This software has the ability to produce a text document representing your music with, you know, letters and numbers and such which correspond to the notes and timing.

Then, you write your game engine to be able to read and intepret these text files and have the game mechanics correspond.

That's my imagination. That's the way I see it happening, but I don't have the knowledge of programming nor audio software to know if this can be done.

Is this possible OR is there another way? I'm really interested in YOUR thoughts on this.

I doubt all these theories about the head. Just how much smaller than it should be is it? Is it like 90% of the original size? 85? If it's somewhere like 50%, ... I don't know. Seems like a straight out mistake that people are reading too much into.

Jet, you rock! That was it! ^_^ Thaaaaaaankyou. You're amazing considering I got the dates way wrong and "diggity" barely has anything to do with tools.

Okay.

Song from perhaps 2000-2002-ish, I think. It was hip hop or some such. Black guys singing. I have a feeling the chorus was referencing hammering or jigsaws or wrenches... some kind of tool or tool like action. Maybe.

The filmclip was set in a bar and then, I think, on a street at night. There were female dancers doin' their thangs and DEFINITELY there was a wooden puppet doll like sorta singing these one liners.

Does -anyone- know the song I mean? It's driving me nuts.

P.S. Oh, and it definitely featured some sortof honky tonk saloon-esque piano

[laughable]

Angus and Robertson is one of the big leading book store chains in Australia. I'd say that for at least a time, they were the biggest but that may just have been my own perception. I used to shop there a lot as a kid and since then, they've been going downhill. Their stores are irritating and poorly stocked. Prices high.

Now this.

In short, A&R has sent a letter to many small publishers invoicing them for between $2,500 to $100,000 just to maintain a business relationship, stating these publishers' books are not bringing in an acceptable level of profit.

Of course, many people are very pissed off.

I for one can scarcely imagine a worse decision for A&R to make. It's laughable.

One such publisher, Tower records, has written a letter of reply that is just stunningly beautiful to read. It is, as someone commented, practically a literary work in itself.

I encourage you all to read it here, even if you don't have much of an interest in the story: http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/archives/undercover/014948.html

Here's some of it:


I have to say that my initial response on reading your letter as to how you propose to "manage" your business in the future was one of voluble hilarity, I literally burst out laughing aloud. My second response was to note the unmitigated arrogance of your communication, I could not actually believe I was reading an official letter from Angus & Robertson on an Angus & Robertson letterhead.

My reply to you will perforce be a lengthy one. I hope you will take the trouble to read it, you may learn something. Then again, when I look at the level of real response we have had from Angus & Robertson over the past six or so years, I somehow doubt it.

The first thing I would say to you is that arrogance of the kind penned by you in your letter of 30 July is an unenviable trait in any officer of any company, no matter how important that individual thinks himself or his company, no matter how dominant that company may be in its market sector. Business has a strange habit of moving in cycles: today's villain may be tomorrow's hero. It is quite possible to part from a business relationship in a pleasant way leaving the door open for future engagement. Sadly, in this case, you have slammed and bolted it.

More to the point, however, we have watched our business with Angus & Robertson dwindle year upon year since 2000. We had to wear the cost of sub-economic ordering from you through ownership changes, SAP installation, new management, and stock overhang. In summary our business with you has dropped from over $1.2 million at the end of 2000 to less than $600,000 in 2007.

You would be quite correct to question whether our offering to the market had changed in any way. The answer can be derived from the fact that during the same period our business with Dymocks, Book City, QBD and Borders continued to grow in double digits, our business with your own franchise stores has grown healthily, and our overall business during the same period has grown by more than 50%.


Go on. Read the rest. You'll enjoy it.

Yep. Yyyyyyyyyeeeppppp. Lesbian parties. That's a thing I get to do.

Still, we'll see. Might be boring as bat shit.

I live in Shizuoka. I'm headed to Tokyo on the weekend but I'll be going to gay pride shit and lesbian parties ^_^

Took me a week or so to do it but I finally took some photos of my little baby.

FA-NTASTIC!

Thanks SO much, Nik! And everyone else for the advice. It's perhaps a -tad- cleaner than I'd like but not much. I'm honestly amazed you got rid of those pops so thoroughly.

Nik - you are a genius with the medium of sound.

Of course you will be fully credited when the game is finally out ^_^

I'm using an old piece of public domain music in a game and I need to get some rather nasty pops and clicks out of it.

The song is "Nashville Nightingale" by the Charleston 7, and I can only point you here: http://www.archive.org/details/Charleston7 because my FTP isn't working.

I'd really appreciate if any of you could help out.

I posted about this at the end of last year and largopredator helped me with the problem, but I've recently started looking at my music again and I'd like to see if I can get it improved even more.

Here's the old thread with largo's version: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=29467.0

I appreciate the advice but my mandolin has markings for where the bridge goes ^_^ Still, it's useful information to know!

Flipping the bridge (sounds like something dirty) is easy peasy on a mandolin, at least the style of mine. The bridge isn't attached to the body and is only held in place with the strings themselves.

I'm thinking I will just learn it right handed because it seems to me that handling the frets will take more dexterity than just strumming. I'll give it a go... if I really don't think I can do it, I'll look at ... I don't know, some other option.

Yeah, I realise that the strings have probably been made a little more likely to break. I was gonna go buy some new strings sometime this week anyway, just to start from scratch with the thing. I have no idea how old the current strings on it are. I bet it'll sound better with some new ones.

The other problem is that I'm in Japan and so having to figure out how to do all this in my non-native language makes getting anything done for me at a music shop a bit more daunting.

Anyway, thanks! I appreciate all the advice! I want to develop good habits now before I learn bad ones.