Blog Archives

Divercast Ep.6 : Halloween!

10/20/2014

In this episode of Diver-cast Shimmy, Andrew and Danny talk about the horror movies and games they played as kids. They talk about nightmares, fears and everything in between. So kick back relax and light a jack-o-lantern, it is time for Divercast!

Spoilers!: Cabin in The Woods (2012), Shutter (2004/2008), Frankenweenie (2012)

Divercast Ep.6: Halloween by Divercast on Mixcloud

If you are a big fan of Horror movies I recommend checking out Monster Madness by James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd.

Do you have questions, comment or concerns? Email us at [email protected]
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- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

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Indie Arcade: Rhythm Doctor

10/1/2014

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Rhythm Prescription

This month's Indie Arcade game is Rhythm Doctor. Rhythm Doctor is an interesting indie music game that wants you to keep the beat.

Premise

   As the Rhythm Doctor you are tasked with helping your patients get their groove back.

   By following along to the Rhythm of the song and matching your button press to the beat of the song. With each successful tap you revitalize your patient. The better you do, the better the ranking you will receive.

   Getting a good ranking will allow you to see more patients (unlocking more songs) and unlock a higher difficulty setting.

Art and Design

Rhythm Doctor is a pixel art game, and don't let that turn you away. Some of the backgrounds during the songs you play are put together very well. They come to life, following along to the beat of the song. The art is crisp and clear, and goes along great with the very visual musical segments.

Character collapse in pain when your miss notes, or gain energy and glow when you are keeping the beat alive. The animations are expressive, and that helps communicate just how well you are doing.

Design wise the game is really easy to understand. You need to follow along to the music, which is visually translated as an green ECG spike traveling down a line. Once the beat reaches the yellow part of the line, you must hit the space bar to match the beat.

The game is a little tricky at first, it takes some getting used to and unlike games like Rock Band/Guitar Hero you have to use your inner sense of rhythm and timing.

Cons

I am happy to report that Rhythm Doctor has very few cons to report. I would just say that one issue some people might have is that you can't see the beat you need to hit. It is done by following your own sense of rhythm. This can be frustrating for some player,but I feel that it was a conscious design decision and I wouldn't fault the devs for it.

The only real drawback to the game is the visuals, now I know I said they were crisp but the issue I am talking about is communicating how good you are doing. There is no score/points and there is no crowd that boos you. As I mentioned, a lot of that information is being told to you through the body language of your patients(Animated as happy or feeling ill etc). Which can easily be missed with all of the background animations and effects.

For example, when I first played the samurai stage, I thought I was doing awesome! The background was going crazy, the ECG line was glowing and the music was pumping. After the song ended I came out with a D rank. What I didn't notice is that there were also words that popped up on the top left of the screen with the usual "Too Early" and "Perfect". They got kind of lost with all the things going on. This is the only real con, but once I knew what was going on I could deal, and this is not a game breaker.

Beats Per Minute

Rhythm Doctor is a challenging game and enjoyable game. You need to give the developers a lot of credit here, they simplified the music game genre into what it is at it's core, rhythm. Where a plastic guitar controller can give you the illusion of being in control of the music, there is a disconnect. This is where Rhythm Doctor is successful, it makes you become aware of the music and therefore more engaged.