[SA Game Jam 2018] Cubic Rhythms

edited in Online Competitions & Jams
image

You play as a crunking, twerking, hip-poppin cube who dances their way around, with only a single purpose in mind, to best as many raving cubes as possible. To what heights will your journey take you?

Keep the beat while avoiding bumping into others. Collect juice from surrendered foes. Build up a flow and soar to new heights!

Windows (48hr)

Windows (72hrs) (MADE FOR 1920x1080)

Windows (Includes graphics config for slower pcs)

We didn't produce the audio, this is the creator https://hitrecord.org/records/1378967

SA Game Jam 2018
Cubic Rhythms
Professional
48hr entry (Maybe 72hr if we survive)
Team size: 3 (@Ross, Ridho and @Kelm)

Comments

  • Such a cool track you guys used. Are there still snakes?
    Thanked by 2Ross silentdude
  • The art work looks so pretty! I can't wait to play this :D
    Thanked by 2Kelm silentdude
  • We have a Home Screen! image
    HomeScreen.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 980K
  • edited
    SO Looks like we are going to do the 72hr and make an Angel and Boss level! =] Yayy for second wind!image
    Wings.png
    1264 x 814 - 1M
  • Jwho303 said:
    Such a cool track you guys used. Are there still snakes?
    Lol depends on how you look at a cube

  • Looking dope guys! Every image pleases my eyes
    Thanked by 2Ross silentdude
  • oh and the dancing trees!!!
    Thanked by 2Ross silentdude
  • Ok...ok...so this is insane.
    Wow...can't wait to get a link!
    Thanked by 2Ross silentdude
  • Here is what we have done in 48hrs so long. Any Feedback would be appreciated =]

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xfHcDRRnQ7P2q_ax_GwOE9yVAXdZD3Ha
  • For 72 hours we're hoping to tap into the theme a bit more. Only really got the systems up and running in the last day, so there is some room for exploration/expansion :)
  • Hey guys! Just gave it a try. I LOVE the audio and art. The bounce on everything is just great. I did get stuck in some places, I think because the terrain is a bit uneven. Also I think the number of enemies is too great because they were overcrowding me a lot and I couldn't shoot them quick enough so maybe a slight decrease in the amount of enemies would help. Awesome work so far! Keen to see what the boss level will be like!
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • This looks so good.
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • Great game !, just needs something that helps the Theme be more apparent.
    I just seem to get stuck in some places and go only go in one direction ? Can I not move if my timing is off ?
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • This is really dope... Dig the way movement works and feels in the game, especially being able to dash twice in the air. I think the shooting visual and the feedback that you have shot could use some attention. Also the swirling of the juice is rad but being the same colour as the enemies as well as having everything that is moving on screen is quite misleading to the eye and enemies end up blending into the environment. I dont know if thats what you were going for but it could be interesting to play with the same enemy type but have one the same colour as the juice or the platforms

    After a while i figured out that enemies have spawn zones, and i would end up in situations with no escape or just losing my progress because a dude just appeared next to me. Im thinking a fix might be having spawn zones spawn enemies based on proximity to the player and then have the player be more active in hunting down these enemies.

    we only get a glimpse of the angel form but its super interesting seeing as you can now fly. Im wondering would you have to fly up to the next level to fight the boss you have planned, or how the next levels of juice improve my character.

    Overall your game is really cool and im excited that this turned into a 72hour project. All the best and cant wait peeps.
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • This is great, can't add anything more that hasn't already been mentioned. ;) Glad you're prioritising the theme at this point, I imagine it'll bring with it more of the game progression even if you don't manage to fit in a conclusion.
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • edited
    One thing I'd like to say is just a thank you for the visual indicators of the beat. Not only did you manage to cater to those who have a hearing impairment, but also to people like me who just have general audio issues on my PC. Something about Unity games breaks my sound, so congrats! you made a rhythm game work even without audio! and that's quite something.
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • I played this earlier this morning. Really enjoyed the music and rhythm to it. Too late to implement the feedback but I wasn't sure what the shooting was meant to do.
    Thanked by 3Kelm Ross silentdude
  • I just want to thank everyone for all the helpful feedback. Ross has been working hard to try to get as much of it in as possible.
    Hey guys! Just gave it a try. I LOVE the audio and art. The bounce on everything is just great. I did get stuck in some places, I think because the terrain is a bit uneven. Also I think the number of enemies is too great because they were overcrowding me a lot and I couldn't shoot them quick enough so maybe a slight decrease in the amount of enemies would help. Awesome work so far! Keen to see what the boss level will be like!
    Thank you so much! We have made the level slitghly easier to navigate and enemies more manageble!
    sumisukyo said:
    Great game !, just needs something that helps the Theme be more apparent.
    I just seem to get stuck in some places and go only go in one direction ? Can I not move if my timing is off ?
    Thank you, yes you can only move to the beat.
  • This is really dope... Dig the way movement works and feels in the game, especially being able to dash twice in the air. I think the shooting visual and the feedback that you have shot could use some attention. Also the swirling of the juice is rad but being the same colour as the enemies as well as having everything that is moving on screen is quite misleading to the eye and enemies end up blending into the environment. I dont know if thats what you were going for but it could be interesting to play with the same enemy type but have one the same colour as the juice or the platforms

    After a while i figured out that enemies have spawn zones, and i would end up in situations with no escape or just losing my progress because a dude just appeared next to me. Im thinking a fix might be having spawn zones spawn enemies based on proximity to the player and then have the player be more active in hunting down these enemies.

    we only get a glimpse of the angel form but its super interesting seeing as you can now fly. Im wondering would you have to fly up to the next level to fight the boss you have planned, or how the next levels of juice improve my character.

    Overall your game is really cool and im excited that this turned into a 72hour project. All the best and cant wait peeps.
    I must just thank you for putting in so much time into giving us such helpful advice! =D We have tried to fix and impliement as much of this as possible. I really hope we blow your socks off :]
  • edited
    OKKKAY, here is the 72hr link: comes with 2 extra stages; more challenging enemies, and a boss fight!
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h2VJQzw0x6TczqYO2ovPXL-cCwgSjMIV/view?usp=sharing
    image
    Screen1.png
    1595 x 899 - 1M
  • I played the game and evaluated it as best I could.
    Sadly, My Laptop seemed to struggle in terms of resources and performance.
    The Unity settings dialogue doesn't appear either, so I couldn't scale it down.

    The rhythm mechanic seems to be tied to frame rate?
    I'm guessing you do a lot of your timing checks during the Update method then?
    In such cases it is more important to make sure that you never exceed hardware limitations.

    The environment looked fun and adventurous. and the motion throughout the scenery made the experience VERY lively and fun. the juice is over all nice.
    The projectiles were a bit underwhelming though. They also distract from the rythm game. Perhaps it would be more fun to add a projectile mechanic that ties in with the rythm?

    Overall it was very entertaining with a nice splash of color, motion and music.
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
  • Hey @Pierre. Sorry to hear the performance was an issue. I'll re-upload a build tonight with the settings dialog active.
    The beat is indeed calculated in Update so I suppose that could lead to some unpredictable results at a low frame rate. What would you recommend (aside from a general performance improvement) Do the calculation in FixedUpdate? A custom audio filter?
    The projectiles were a bit underwhelming though. They also distract from the rhythm game. Perhaps it would be more fun to add a projectile mechanic that ties in with the rhythm?
    Agreed. Lots of systems that don't work too well and that's one of them. Hopefully, there is enough worth here to iterate on the game a bit further.

    Thanks for the feedback! Lots of good points. Glad you found it entertaining :D
  • Hang on. I just need to check my facts about Fixedupdate...
    Okay. So, a truly reliable system that assumes a certain framerate isn't possible.
    Fixedupdate is for physics and it is called iteratively to make sure it calculates an x amount of time per second. So, if your framerate is larger than two fixed updates, then unity calls FixedUpdate twice. But it doesn't mean than fixedupdate happens every 0.x seconds.

    My solution to your rythm problem would take a different approach.
    Instead of checking that the key is pressed at a specific point in time...
    Rather wait for a key to be pressed and record the time.
    Then, compare it to the beat before and after to see which one is closest (in terms of time)
    Then see if the difference is small enough to allow action to be taken. Call this allowed amount the "allowance"
    Also
    Whatever you specify as an allowance, build in a check, so that every update, if the deltatime is bigger than your allowance, then increase your allowance amount for this fame to deltatime instead.

    During all of this, the most important thing is to maintain a fast framerate.
    For this, look into how you can make some of the content optional or scalable to the player. Perhaps there is a lot of object instantiation going on and this can be replaced by pre-instantiated object pool that sit (disabled) in the background, waiting to be used.
    Perhaps there is a lot of excess geometry in the scene. I am not sure what it is that causes the slowed performance. I was able to create a game with large object count and movement, similar in scale to yours... but i used object pooling which is why i recommend it, (if you guys aren't using it already)
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
  • The art on this game is one of my favorites! Great job on the overall aesthetic.

    Game-play wise I really liked the moving to the beat, even though I completely forgot about it and got stuck when panicking between many enemies.

    Something that really bothered me, was that my projectiles seem to fire from a short distance away from the character. This means that if an enemy is right next to you, he is effectively unkillable. On the ground this is not as much of an issue, but for the flying part, I found quite often an enemy would be about half a centimeter away from me, and I had to keep moving in the same direction to avoid him, since I could not actually shoot him at that point.

    Another minor thing, was that I couldn't manage to even almost fill the power bar fully. Not sure if I was missing something or just very bad at the game. Also I never managed to defeat the boss, is that possible at the moment?

    I also agree with pierre's statement that the projectiles possible detract from the experience. I mostly enjoyed the rhythmic movement, and felt myself just holding mouse click and having it fire whenever. A possible idea could be "combo moves", where you don't fire projectiles but rather your movement executes various attack moves. For example a downward dash into the ground kills enemies in an AoE around you. A chain of four sideways dashes fires projectiles in that direction. A zig-zag pattern could be a different move etc etc.

    All in all though I really enjoyed the game and think it is quite well executed given the jam's time frame.
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
  • Pierre said:

    Perhaps there is a lot of excess geometry in the scene. I am not sure what it is that causes the slowed performance. I was able to create a game with large object count and movement, similar in scale to yours... but i used object pooling which is why i recommend it, (if you guys aren't using it already)
    Hahahaha I suspect it was that damn artist again! She might have opted for ALL the pretty things instead of being performance inclusive. I might have gone overboard with post-processing =D Object pooling is a great idea seeing as thou there are plenty of objects being murdered, only to have suspiciously similar ones reappear.
  • edited
    Pierre said:
    The projectiles were a bit underwhelming though. They also distract from the rythm game. Perhaps it would be more fun to add a projectile mechanic that ties in with the rythm?
    vince said:
    I also agree with pierre's statement that the projectiles possible detract from the experience. I mostly enjoyed the rhythmic movement, and felt myself just holding mouse click and having it fire whenever. A possible idea could be "combo moves", where you don't fire projectiles but rather your movement executes various attack moves. For example a downward dash into the ground kills enemies in an AoE around you. A chain of four sideways dashes fires projectiles in that direction. A zig-zag pattern could be a different move etc etc.
    These are very good suggestions, thank you! We plan to keep working on the game and maybe take it to SuperFriendship. We love the idea of keeping the focus on the beat and one area of input rather than trying to multitask.
    vince said:
    Another minor thing, was that I couldn't manage to even almost fill the power bar fully. Not sure if I was missing something or just very bad at the game. Also I never managed to defeat the boss, is that possible at the moment?
    Yip, you can actually complete the game but it is super tricky. The trick is quite meta as you have to keep moving in a square ;) to avoid the enemies.
  • oh man, this is awesome!!! love everything about it!!! the circular level design is revolutionary!!

    My only suggestion is the snakes........... you have this amazing retro level artwork done............and then the snakes.
    Fully undertand the time limitation.

    I think if you can work on a consolidated art style then you can take this to the next level!!
    however amazing work for 72h!!!

    well done
    Thanked by 2Ross silentdude
  • You're playing a rhythm game without me and I demand a mac build :P
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
  • edited
    Ok, there should be a new link with minor tweaks and performance improvements. Haven't got around to all the fixes suggested, but its a start.
    Pooled the major offender (floaty cubes) so there should be fewer GC spikes, Its easier to shoot enemies that are close to you, you can fill up your bar with less hassle, and shooting still sucks. Performance overall still has a way to go.
    Whatever you specify as an allowance, build in a check, so that every update, if the deltatime is bigger than your allowance, then increase your allowance amount for this fame to deltatime instead.
    Yes! we actually calculate the movement based on an allowance but failed to think about this edge case. Awesome idea.
    A possible idea could be "combo moves", where you don't fire projectiles but rather your movement executes various attack moves.
    Awesome idea. I think this is the direction we will go.
  • This was cool, the song choice was really tasty. I'm notoriously bad at rhythm, so would have been nice to see an indicator of sorts to time myself against. Movement around the cylindrical stage is pretty novel, but didn't like enjoy the overlapping graphics caused by the depth which made it a bit 'noisy' in the game plane, might consider separating the field of play with color/fog/focal shift to make that a bit clearer.
    I could get my first bar filled pretty easily but couldn't get any others, is that possible? I really wanted to fill the bars....
    I played until I got the the huge cube with wings, but wasn't sure how to beat it, so after another few mins of flying around the top just killing winglet cubes I quit, didn't have the patience to figure out the boss kill method.
    It's overall a great jam effort that I enjoyed playing.
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
  • edited
    Really enjoyed playing this. Particularly because I had a friend on mouse while I drove the the controls (I joined in a game my friend was already playing, they were having a difficult time as the rhythm and enemies are fairly unforgiving).

    It moves fantastically! Nice squash and stretch on the characters and environment bringing the cubes to life (and emphasizing the rhythmic nature of the game brilliantly).

    And the moment when you first reach level 2 is brilliant. It took us a while to get to that point, and then it came as a really awesome surprise.

    Really appreciate that you managed to get in a climax and end to your jam entry. It felt good progressing through the game. I would have loved some further twists, but what you've got here is very solid.
    Thanked by 3Ross Kelm silentdude
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