Guitar Hero / Rock Band Imitator (Untitled): The Development Plan

Posted by admin | Filed under games, programming

[NOTE] This is a work in progress, and in its very early stages right now. This is only a place to describe the features, goals, etc.

What I am about to describe here is the prototype for a guitar hero/rock band like game. I will be developing this as an on going project to improve my programming, and game designing skills. The estimated production length is unknown, as I don’t really think I fully understand the amount of time and effort that this will create. Any ways, the plan is after the jump!

What is the short-term goal of this project?

The goal, to begin with, is to get the basics of a game like guitar hero. So what does that entail. Well the wikipedia page describing Guitar Hero explains the main thing I’m focusing on right now. It says:

The series is notable for its use of a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of music, represented on-screen by colored notes that correspond to fret buttons on the controller.

So, that is what I will begin with. A simple game that will allow for the playing of liscenced songs, with either a pc-compatible usb guitar, or the computer keyboard, including a set list. [NOTE] These songs won’t be big names. When I say liscensed, I mean as in music that has an open source or creative commons liscence, that allows me to use the songs in the game.

What are some future features that will be added later?

Obviously things like multiplayer(maybe online), other instruments (e.g. drums), and things like that. One thing that I would really be interested in doing would be a free-play type mode, where you could use the instrument to play notes that would be synthesized. I have already created a very simple prototyoe of this in Blender3d, and I could implement something like this in the game. Then I could add a feature to record songs and then save them to be played in the game or exported to an audio file for further use.

Special power ups or other innovated features could also be added, maybe with something similar to Star Power or Overdrive.Of course all of this is stipulation, as this is the long term goal, I have to take care of the short term one first.

What will the game be released for?

Right now, that is undecided. I won’t know until I have looked into some of the features of some of my options. The one big thing is sound. What ever platform I choose, I have to be able to play multiple tracks, and mute certain notes, when they are not being strummed. Another big thing is file I/O, and finding the easiest possible way to store song information (like notes, meta data, difficulties, etc.). Right now, the two engines I am looking at are either Blender’s Game Engine, so that it will be playable on all platforms that can run Blender (which is most of them). The other is XNA Game Studio, which is for Windows operating systems, the Xbox 360, and the Zune. Lets look at some pro’s and cons of each.

Blender Game Engine

Pros:

  • Simple programming with Python, and logic bricks.
  • No exporting of 3D models, animations or assets, all of that is created in Blender
  • Easy to set up things visually in 3D space
  • Available on almost every operating system
  • Lastly, I am very comfortable using Blender

Cons:

  • Sound is very unstable on some platforms
  • Only support for wav files
  • An external library would have to used to accomplish the sound correctly
  • The game engine isn’t very optimized, so it can run with very low framerates

XNA Game Studio (2.0)

Pros:

  • Easily integrate sound, with mp3 files, and multiple tracks
  • Simple I/O libraries from .Net (2/3.5) Framework
  • Code runs fast, as it is all compiled to binary code
  • Fast DirectX support
  • Could develop for special platforms like the Xbox 360, and the Zune
  • Easy to add game controller input

Cons:

  • Must be fully programmed (nothing visual)
  • Isn’t fully cross-platform (e.g. Mac and Linux would not be supported)
  • Dependency on Microsoft software
  • Harder to get 3D models, animations and things imported into the engine correctly
  • No visual layout of game elements

What type of liscense will the game have?

At the moment I have not choose a specific liscense yet, but I can assure you it will be open as soon as I have a good base. At the beginning, there won’t be a liscense, becuase it will only be on my local computer. Then I will choose a liscense when I choose to release it.

Updates

All updates regarding this project will be posted to this blog. There will be updates on my progress, and I will also add documentation. As I decide on how I will accomplish a certain feature, I will outline it on here. That will be mostly for me to use as a reference, and to keep me focused and on track. It also can be a good resource for others trying to make something similar. So stay tuned!

Permalink | July 19th, 2008

2 Responses to “Guitar Hero / Rock Band Imitator (Untitled): The Development Plan”

  1. Daniel Craig Says:
    July 21st, 2008 at 8:02 pm

    Hi, Cool post on Guitar Hero / Rock Band Imitator (Untitled): The Development Plan, I’m looking forward to reading more of your site.

  2. admin Says:
    July 21st, 2008 at 8:36 pm

    hey, thanks for the reply. Hopefully this project can work out okay for me.

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