The first time I played Dance Dance Revolution, it was on Dreamcast. I didn't have a dance mat, so I used a controller. It wasn't quite the same experience, but it was still surprisingly fun. That's how it feels to play Step Evolution's first iOS release, ReRave [1.99]. It's like playing a dance game with your fingertips, and it doesn't lose much in translation.
Step Evolution comes from a dance game background, having worked on series that include In the Groove and StepMania. But this isn't a dance game crammed into an iPhone. They put a lot of care into ensuring ReRave makes sense on a touch screen.
Pulse: Volume One [$4.99] is a new iPad-exclusive game by Cipher Prime, the developers who created the award-winning Auditorium [Free]. Like Auditorium, Pulse is a simple and elegant music game. This time around, Cipher Prime has moved away from puzzles and into the rhythm game genre.
Pulse is an immersive experience right from the start. Even in the tutorial, the game provides no external feedback. You can learn by experimentation, noting what works and what doesn't with the game's visuals to guide you. You're presented with a series of concentric circles and a musical beat. Glowing rings pulse outwards from the center in time with the music, and dots appear with the beat. Tap the dots as they're hit by the pulse and you'll be rewarded with explosive visuals and the next musical note.
Cipher Prime, the Philadelphia-based developer of the award winning, multi-platform title Auditorium [Free], is getting set to release their newest rhythm-based music game exclusively (for now) on the iPad. Called Pulse, the gameplay will have you tapping and sometimes sliding a series of dots in time with a circle that pulses from the center of the screen in rhythm with the music. It’s certainly not easy to explain, so it might be best to check out this gameplay video from IndieGameMag:
Pulse is looking like an interesting new entry in the rhythm-based music game genre. I think one of the strong points will be that the gameplay seems to have been built around the included songs in the game, with a range of genres covered from electronica to heavy metal to chip-tunes. Cipher Prime has also stated that Pulse would only be possible on a device with a large multitouch screen, hence the game only currently coming to the iPad, but they haven’t entirely ruled out an Android version sometime in the future either. No word yet on if an iPhone or iPod touch version could be possible.
According to the Cipher Prime blog, Pulse is already approved by Apple and will be releasing this Thursday. We’ll take a closer look at the game then.
Last week at GDC 2011 I sat down with developer Booyah! to take a look at their new gameDJ Rivals [Free]. In the game you will create your own DJ and cruise around a city battling rival DJ’s using rhythm-based gameplay mechanics. You can choose any real city in the world which will use Google Maps information to populate it with real locations, and as you win DJ battles you’ll earn experience and money which can then be used to level up your character and buy a ton of different items to trick him or her out with.
I quite enjoyed DJ Rivals when I previewed it, and today the game has launched for free in the App Store. There is a story mode to play through with 4 different chapters and dozens of different kinds of quests to complete. You can also obtain “house DJ” status at the various locations by performing well, and then battle the ghost characters of other real life players to either defend your house DJ status or take theirs from them.
DJ Rivals is a freemium title, and as such there is an IAP component called “ice” in addition to the regular currency in the game. I’ve only spent a short time playing so far, but for the most part it appears that you get a good chunk of playtime without ever having to spend a dime if you don’t want to, but you’ll need to have a lot of patience.
Ice can be earned just through playing and so is not strictly IAP, but battling other DJ’s costs stamina points and you’ll either need to spend ice to instantly refill it or else wait for it to slowly refill over a cool down period of 10 minutes per stamina point. This can considerably slow down the pace of the game, but I can’t imagine playing so often that it would be a problem and I wouldn’t be opposed to spending a couple of dollars here and there if I was anxious to keep going.
DJ Rivals is free to download and try, and if a rhythm-based game with RPG-esque elements sounds interesting to you then it’s worth checking out. The rhythm battling is pretty fun, and there’s loads of things to collect and do in the game. And at the very least it’s a more fun and interesting freemium title than your average farming sim.
Late last month we took a look atRappin Granny [Free] by Nathan Hunley, who just so happens to be half of Igloo Games. If that doesn't ring a bell, they were responsible for some ancient App Store classics like Dizzy Bee [99¢] and Bed Bugs [99¢]. Both of these games might seem a little dated today, but when they were originally released they were very substantial games. In fact, I distinctly remember being fairly impressed that my phone was capable of playing a game like Dizzy Bee.
Anyway, back when the game was first released I explained the premise of Rappin Grannyin our review:
A rappin' granny struts down a hallway dishing out presents which you have to give to the correct recipient. In order to figure out who to give which present to, you have to listen to the rap which is filled with clues. These clues initially start out very simple, but get tricky later in the rap as you're forced to determine who someone's wife is, for instance.
The entire game is wrapped around a scoring system that awards more if you're able to deliver the presents to the beat. Also, you can score bonus points by flicking presents to their recipient instead of dragging them to their hands. The granny's rap is funny, the gameplay is silly, and the music of the game has a real PaRappa The Rapper feel to it.
Our major concern with the game was its complete lack of replay value once you memorized the rap, and the fact that it's a holiday themed game which doesn't give it much of a purpose outside of the holiday season. However, Rappin Granny is still a very cool concept for a game that you really should download while it's free. It likely won't stay on your device very long, but it will be fun while it lasts. I really hope Nathan Hunley evolves this concept further, as Rappin Granny really feels like the start of something that could be really rad.
One of the best things about the App Store is when a developer releases something completely out of the blue that's totally ridiculous, and likely never would have seen the light of day on any other platform. Rappin' Granny [99¢] is one such project, created by Nathan Hunley who also happens to be half of Igloo Games, the guys behind Dizzy Bee [99¢].
The premise of the game is simple. A rappin' granny struts down a hallway dishing out presents which you have to give to the correct recipient. In order to figure out who to give which present to, you have to listen to the rap which is filled with clues. These clues initially start out very simple, but get tricky later in the rap as you're forced to determine who someone's wife is, for instance.
The entire game is wrapped around a scoring system that awards more if you're able to deliver the presents to the beat. Also, you can score bonus points by flicking presents to their recipient instead of dragging them to their hands. The granny's rap is funny, the gameplay is silly, and the music of the game has a real PaRappa The Rapper feel to it.
Unfortunately, the down side of the game is that the rap stays the same. Once you memorize the game, all that's really left to do is play through it again and again to beat your high score. I would have loved to see some kind of variation either from randomization of the different verses, or something that prevents you from just memorizing everything. Regardless, this is an extremely cute game that will be easily enjoyed by anyone who likes the quirky side of the App Store.
Zach Gage, who earlier brought us Unify and Bit Pilot, has recently released an iPad-specific musical action puzzler called Halcyon [App Store], a game with a lovely aesthetic and a powerful dose of addictiveness.
In Halcyon, the playfield consists of a number of parallel strings. Along these strings numerous, triangular "currents" of varying color travel towards each other, entering from both sides of the screen. Uninterrupted, these currents will shortly collide with one another. A collision of two like-colored currents will cause them to eliminate each other, while a collision between currents of differing colors means Game Over. The task at hand is to draw a line from one string to another, in such a way as to bridge a current to another of like color, causing an elimination. The play mechanic is somewhat reminiscent of Voxel Agents' Train Conductor.
Accompanying the gameplay is an ethereal, generative soundtrack that you are a part of, thanks to the "strums" you perform while bridging one current to another. It's a scenario that brings to mind Rez and the various musical action titles that have come since.
The game starts off easy enough, but in short order the difficulty really ramps up. But then so, too, does your understanding of the gameplay. The brief tutorial shows you the very basics, but after a bit of time with the game, you'll come to realize that there's more flexibility to the how's and where's of what you can do than you likely assumed initially, allowing for more complex strategies to be employed. I enjoyed the process of discovery, there.
The core playmode features 36 levels of play through four different environments (basically, differing color schemes, audio tracks, and string arrangements). There are two additional, endless playmodes -- Aggression and Harmony -- that add some variation to the formula. Game Center and OpenFeint integration drive your competition.
Halcyon is one of those games that's something of a Zen experience to play, but is also downright maddening, both due to the difficulty in the latter levels as well as the "Ok, just one more time!" spell it casts upon you. I've spent a fair amount of time with Halcyon so far, and I haven't yet made it all the way through. But I can promise you I won't stop playing until I do.
Big box games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero (or their App Store equivalents) aren't so different. At the end of the day, they have you strumming or drumming along with the beat of a song. Recent App Store rhythm game release WINta [Free] is different. It has you pounding out beats to the vocals of a given track, meaning the beat isn't all that critical to your success. Freedom from the norm!
The vocal-first mentality of WINta won't strike you as much of a surprise when you take the time to consider who made the game. This is a product of visionary game creator Masaya Matsuura's imagination. Matsuura-san is responsible for the creation of the Parappa the Rapper series, as well as Major Minor's Majestic Marchfor the Wii.
It doesn't take long to master WINta. Its UI is cold and efficient. During each vocal segment of a song, a pattern of psychedelic squares are presented. Whenever the singing starts, you simply press a corresponding square that begins filling up with his or her words.
Sadly, you won't be able to do much with WINta unless you're willing to put down some cash. The game comes with a light, yet informative tutorial and just one song. Other songs can be added at a price, of course, making this a freemium title of sorts.
Interested? Give it a try. While WINta is not my cup of tea, I can see a fair few music game fans having a good time with this. Plus, it's free. Download it already, silly head. What have you got to lose?
UPDATE: We've received a very important detail about this WINta -- it's a OneBigGame published App. That's notable because OBG is a non-profit publisher who brings developers together in order to create games that benefit charity. Specifically for WINta, a portion of each additional music track sold will go to Save the Children and the Starlight Children's Foundation. Neat!
Rock Band fans have got another installment to keep them tapping -- or perhaps, in this case, singing -- to the beat with EA's recent release of Rock Band Reloaded in two versions, one for the iPhone [link] and one for the iPad [link]. This latest release is the first iOS Rock Band that features the (rather forgiving) new vocal recognition mode where gameplay consists of singing right along with the available tracks.
And, speaking of available tracks, there are 27 free tracks (some of which must be downloaded) along with four pay tracks that can be purchased at $.99 for a bundle of two. The complete list follows.
Free songs:
A Jagged Gorgeous Winter by The Main Drag *
A-Punk by Vampire Weekend
Am I Crazy by Little Fish *
Blood Doll by Anarchy Club *
Bodies by Drowning Pool
Call Me When Your're Sober by Evanessence
Can't Let Go by Death of the Cool *
Day Late, Dollar Short by The Acro-brats *
Dearest (I'm So Sorry) by Picture Me Broken
Entangled by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives *
Get Clean by Anarchy Club *
Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar
Hella Good by No Doubt
Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran
I Get By by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives *
In Bloom by Nirvana
Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down
Night Lies by Bang Camaro *
Pleasure (Pleasure) by Bang Camaro *
Peace Sells by Megadeth
Remedy by Seether
Rock'n Me by Steve Miller Band
Seven by Tijuana Sweetheart *
So What'cha Want by Beastie Boys
The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails
White Wedding (Part 1) by Billy Idol
Your Decision by Alice in Chains
Pay songs:
Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly *
Mean Woman Blues by Roy Orbison *
Requiem for a Dying Song by Flogging Molly *
You Got It by Roy Orbison *
( * denotes DLC tracks )
Rock Band Reloaded features Facebook integration, local (WiFi and Bluetooth) multiplayer, and a new Expert Mode for those wanting more of a challenge. The iPhone version supports the Retina display where available.
Ever wanted to dive into an interactive instrument game featuring the fiddle and an eight-chapter campaign? No? You might want to check yourself. Smule, the studio behind Magic Piano [$.99], Ocarina [$.99], and Glee Karaoke [$.99] have released such a game for the iPad. It's call Magic Fiddle [$2.99], and if the video below doesn't convince you that it's not as boring as it sounds, well, you've got a cold, shriveled, and straight-nasty heart.
Smule is no slouch, by the way. Its games are mad popular among enthusiasts and common folk alike and their smooth-looking apps are commonly put on Apple Store devices as a way to show off what an iPad or iPhone can do.
Of course, Magic Fiddle is more than a convenient way to play the Super Mario Bros. theme song on an iPad. The game has 20 songs in its "Songbook," which features other video game themes, as well as classical junk like Ave Maria. The game also has leaderboards support and a neat social twist: you can, according to a press release, broadcast your mad fiddle work via the "Smule Globe" and let friends and family know who wears the fiddle pants.
Here are a couple other videos Smule has released this afternoon in which famous people act famous and play the fiddle on an iPad. The first video features the St. Lawrence String Quartet, while the other stars Paul Dateh:
Magic Fiddle is available now for $2.99. At the moment, Smule is saying this is an iPad only, so no iPhone owners need apply. Sorry, folks; it's an exclusive thing, our little fiddle club.
Earlier this month Xeis Studio released Mariachi Giro [$2.99], a universal rhythm game that abandons the predictable set list of terrible covers of hits from the 80's and 90's in exchange for mariachi music. To say the game is a little rough around the edges would be an understatement, but the novelty factor of feverishly tapping notes and switching between the various instruments of your mariachi band to nine Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan traditional folk songs is just insane.
In the game, you take your mariachi band on the road performing at various Mexican locations that surely someone more culturally aware than myself will recognize. Once you unlock some songs, the true fun begins. A second game mode opens up where your mariachi band serenades a señorita from her window, and you're able to customize your band quite a bit. Everything from renaming them to changing their basic appearance or even upgrading their instruments. Check out this video put together by the developers:
There's a lot that is weird about Mariachi Giro, the polygon count of your band members is seriously low, and the crowd that comes to your concerts look like bouncing cardboard stand-ups. Also, there isn't really much feedback when you're hitting or missing notes, making learning the timing of the game to score well a little more difficult than it should be. Regardless, rocking out to some mariachi music is oddly amusing.
If you treasure the oddities of the App Store such as Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢], BieberHair [99¢], Hi, How Are You [$1.99 / Free], and others... Mariachi Giro is something you need in your collection.
TUAW's Mike Schramm is all over GDC Online this week, and managed to snag a preview of WINtA, an up and coming rhythm game from Masaya Matsuura. While that name might not be immediately recognizable, his creations surely will. Matsuura designed PaRappa the Rapper, a PlayStation game which was among the first rhythm games and featured gameplay that involved tapping various buttons along to the beat of songs. In fact, PaRappa was so catchy that I can still bust out most of the raps from the game in their entirety. (And I doubt I'm alone in that.)
WINtA is an abstract rhythm game which will be released on the App Store for free later this year. Unlike most (all?) rhythm games on the App Store, WINtA has gameplay that matches up with the lyrics of the song rather than just the beat itself. Each syllable requires its own tap, and playing the game is comparable to Elite Beat Agents in that you tap various areas of the screen at the right time.
The following video from the presentation at GDC shows a bit of gameplay:
The game will be monetized via DLC packs of songs with 100% of the profits going to charity. It all sounds pretty great to me, especially with the man who essentially created the genre developing for the iOS with all the proceeds going to a good cause. I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Back in July we brought word that Gaijin Games had teamed up with Namco Bandai to develop an iOS adaptation of Gaijin's Wiiware rhythm action title BIT.TRIP BEAT. We're happy to report that the fruits of their labors have just made their App Store debut, with a version for both the iPhone / iPod touch [link] and the iPad [link].
One of a series of four Bit.Trip titles by Gaijin (published through the Wii Shop by Aksys Games), Bit.Trip Beat is something like a cross between Pong and Rez as an accelerometer-equipped Atari 2600 might play them. The game puts you in tilt or touch control of an on-screen paddle with the goal of bouncing waves of oncoming blocks whence they came. The impact timings of the aforementioned blocks are synched with the excellent chiptune audio track while abstract / futuristic animations float in the backdrop, both of which give the game its sort of Rez dynamic. And, it's all done up in brilliant colors and oh-so-lovely jaggy, chunky pixels, with a chiptune soundtrack appropriately accompanying the on-screen action.
The further you progress through the game, successfully returning oncoming blocks, the more complex and evolved the visual presentation becomes. Miss too many blocks, and the visuals slowly regress to a simple, black and white state, in another apparent nod to Rez.
Says Gaijin founder Alex Neuse,
“We're very excited for the BIT.TRIP series to join in the fight against digital boredom alongside the rank and file of legendary Namco franchises, such as PAC-MAN, Katamari Damacy and Mr. Driller. When considering a publishing partner for our series on mobile devices, Namco was among our top choices. After playing the final iPhone version, we positively freaked out. Namco has brought an absolutely pure BIT.TRIP experience to the mobile market and we look forward to continuing the series with them."
And I'd have to agree with Neuse as regards the "pure" nature of this game on the iOS platform, if "pure" speaks to a faithful, well-implemented conversion. I've spent significant time with the Wiiware original, and the game plays wonderfully on the iPhone and iPad. In fact, I find that the game offers more precise controls on the iOS devices than it does using the Wiimote -- in touch-control mode in particular (though tilt is also an option). In my opinion, it's more enjoyable on the iPhone or iPad than on the Wii.
BIT.TRIP BEAT features local and online multiplayer (through Game Center), but at the moment it's only two-player head-to-head -- four-player is coming in a future update. What's more, three additional levels (for now) are available as in-game, downloadable content. (One of the complaints about the original is the somewhat limited gameplay content.)
See the developer's short trailer featuring a bit of gameplay, or have a look at the Wii video we posted earlier, featuring nearly identical game content.
BIT.TRIP BEAT is one of those games that draws you in and sends you to a sort of 'zone' where much of the mundane meatspace world just kind of falls away. Anyone who enjoys rhythm gaming or retro-styling in general should have a really good time with this one.
BIT.TRIP BEAT for the iPhone and iPad are currently on a limited time, 50% off sale at the time of this writing.
In May of last year we first took a look at DifferentCloth'sLilt Line [$2.99], a well received rhythm game with a great soundtrack. Lilt Line was a little on the simple side, but the overall experience of the game was really cool as the tilt and tap based gameplay was paired really well with the music. Earlier today Helicoid was announced, which looks to be a somewhat similar music-based game only this time it's based on tilting your phone around to advance through a spiral.
It's hard to make out how much fun the game will be from the video alone, but I expect it to be a bit like Lilt Line in that it won't really make sense until you've got the game in your hands. Helicoid was submitted to the App Store yesterday, and DifferentCloth expects it to be released sometime next week. For more details, check out the thread in our forums or the Helicoid web site.
Ever since a slew of new APIs found their way into the latest version of Apple's iOS, the one that we've been waiting for somebody to really take advantage of is the ability for applications to finally be able to tap into the music library of the device itself. We even dreamed of the classic Audiosurf making its way to iPhone in a post from early last month. With the success of rhythm games in the past few years, and especially the Tap Tap Revenge series on iPhone, gamers have been clamoring for a similar game that they can play using their own music. Enter Tapic [99¢], the first game (that I know of) that creates a tapping chart directly from a song in your music library for you to play with. Tapic attains various levels of success in what it sets out to do, but it's far from perfect. Still, it's a novel use of the new API and is pretty fun in its own right.
The interface used in Tapic is simple to use. Choosing Play from the main menu brings up all the songs from your music library. After selecting a song Tapic will create a note chart for it, which takes about 10-20 seconds, and next you'll choose which difficulty to play it on. The harder the difficulty, the faster the notes come barreling towards you down the lanes. Choosing More Songs from the menu allows you to select a bunch of songs at once and have them prepared in advance for playing. Depending on how many songs you choose this can take a quite a few minutes, but allows you to play from songs in your playlist in succession without waiting for each one to create a chart in between.
The game can be played in portrait or landscape mode, although landscape must be purchased and unlocked using collected in-game coins (or by buying them with real money as IAP). Portrait uses three lanes of notes to tap along with, and landscape uses five. The game is at its best in landscape mode, and it's annoying that this must be unlocked rather than available from the start. Portrait is still ok, and it's a good way to get acclimated with playing Tapic, but landscape is where I spend most of the time playing. Different themes can also be bought using the game currency for both portrait and landscape mode, adding some graphical variety to the backgrounds.
The presentation and functionality of tapping the notes all work extremely well in Tapic, but it's the actual chart generation that fails to really impress. It doesn't ever feel like the notes jive with the song in a meaningful way as they rarely sync up properly, and when they do it mostly just feels like a coincidence. Some songs fared better than others while testing out the game, but overall you really feel like you're just playing an unrelated tapping game while listening to your favorite tunes. In my experience, and the general consensus of gamers in our forums, is that hip-hop and techno music gives the best results, while rock and metal generally don't.
The funny thing about the chart generator is that even though it's somewhat lacking, Tapic is still can be fun. I found myself continually wanting to keep playing, even though it didn't really feel like my performance had any impact on the song that was being used. I just can't help but feel like if the developer can improve this aspect of the game, which they have stated they are working on, then Tapic could really be something special. My other biggest point of contention is having to play for an extensive period of time (or spend real life money) before being able to unlock the landscape mode. It just feels like a cheap aspect to an otherwise excellently presented game.
The first time I played Dance Dance Revolution, it was on Dreamcast. I didn't have a dance mat, so I used a controller. It wasn't quite the same experience, but it was still surprisingly fun. That's how it feels to play Step Evolution's first iOS release, ReRave [1.99]. It's like playing a dance game with your fingertips, and it doesn't lose much in translation. 
