Eurythmos is a 2.5D rhythym-based beat-em-up game prototype. The idea was simple: take classic arcade style side-scrolling action and set it to a pervasive and driving soundtrack. Players move through the level attacking alien invaders, and are given extra power and special moves if they attack on beat. Performing poorly results in weaker attacks, and in the case of spamming the attack button, loss of power. The concept was intended to give the beat-em-up style a heavy sense of rhythym, something I think is important when typical genre entries are simple button mashers. Instead of just attacking until the goal is reached, I really wanted to make sure that each level had a unique ebb and flow.
The project started as I describe above: I wanted to take the beat-em-up genre and embrace it's style while changing its flow. The team looked to Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for that particular beat-em-up feel. Rhythym games we looked to included Rhythym Tengoku, Rez, Gitaroo Man, and Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Initially, the game was really slow and prodding, which is what I thought I wanted... but it wasn't working. When the dash move was implemented, it propelled the character faster than intended and we went in to fix it. But with a little more testing, we found that the new sense of speed added a lot to the experience, keeping the measure of having to obey the beat, but all the while speeding up the action. In the end, our game might look like it channels some Sonic the Hedgehog...
In terms of design, this game was to strike a path between Rez and Gitaroo Man. On the one hand, there's Rez: game play consists of a loose adherence to input based on the music- instead of tapping out a set pattern, the player affects the song by interacting how they choose. There is no penalty for improvising. On the other hand, there's Gitaroo Man: the player "fights" successively more difficult enemies by completing a rhythm-based challenge. Each song has set patterns, and the user is penalized for missing notes (but not improvisation), eventually failing for continued poor play. In both the game play is an active participation in the soundtrack- the user plays along with the song.
With Eurythmos, the ideal was to combine these two perspectives- adherence to the song and freedom to play along with it. This meant several difficult design decisions: How is a player to be rewarded or punished? Should they be punished for attacking off beat? The key is in finding a way to emphasize the desired play style while not removing options from the user completely. Our answer to this challenge was to only restrict actions that removed all reason to stick to playing on beat (spamming the dash button removes health from the character), but didn't make it overly demanding (attacking off beat is possible but yields decreased damage). What we hope this accomplishes is inspire "elevated" play styles (Allowing more complex and effective play when users voluntarily subject themselves to expanded rules) while still accommodating simple, casual game play.
Our team was five men strong for this project. There was Nam Nguyen, Philip Vuong, Joe Pawlowski, Tommy Vo and myself. We spent ten weeks getting the game from a single sheet of paper to a prototype. Nam had prior experience messing around with games, and worked on much of the engine. Joe was our man for OGRE and all sorts of graphics, including the camera and most of the special effects. Phil nailed down the interface design, helped with modeling and animation, and created a level to use. Tommy was our music man, and he did all the music and sound effects. I worked on animation, gameplay, design, and integrating audio with the gameplay. We all worked hard on this thing, we all helped each other out, and we should all be extremely proud of how it turned out. Thanks guys!
