Unfinished: Sentris

Wow, those puzzles got difficult quick. The first puzzle was a joke, and this just didn't seem like a game to me. But after that, if you don't have the correct notes with the correct length in your queue, you've got to place 'em elsewhere, but in a place where they won't soon screw you up. Really tricky, I don't blame them for taking forever to finish them.

I like drews mouthing of War Pigs on the higher tempo board

This looks like the Mass Effect hacking game on PC.

This needs an ex

I know people who can't play an alpha game correctly is absolutely not the best indication of the final product, so I'm still holding out hope, but that was pretty disappointing.

It just seemed like the puzzle part was getting in the way of music creation, and vice versa. And I get that musical experimentation and surprises ideally spawn from completing the puzzles, and it's more about discovery, but at that point you may as well be just inserting random sounds with no guidelines at all to see what happens.

Certainly it's an alpha, so a lot more could (hopefully) be added, but I'd love to see a more structured puzzle framework with much more strict "right answers". The game could actually delve a bit into conveying music theory by implying why certain things sound good or sound a certain way when they lead into other things.

Still interested, just a bit less so.

Side note: when can I just fucking get Reactable... the game?!?

I'd be interested to see the finished product; this doesn't look like that fun of a game yet and there is much better music software out there.

I want to be interested in this, but it's just not really doing anything for me. This seems like it's too far from a game to really feel like there's a point behind framing it as such, but too mysterious and clunky as a music program that I'd rather just use an actual one to produce stuff. If they're trying to bridge a gap between the two, they probably need to adjust it a good bit.

I can't help but feel like this game wouldn't be covered on the site without their friendship with the developer, as it seems like a mess of a project even when just considering it as music software.

"I'm gonna just spam a bunch of stuff" did not help showcase this game.

Interesting "game" thing.

It's still pretty rough though; understandably so since it's in Alpha.

Well, this game is not for me.

I really want to like Sentris, but I haven't heard anything pleasant come out of it; even the dev videos Samantha put up always sounded off. It's a difficult balance to walk of wanting anyone to be able to make 'nice' sounding music, and making it complex enough that people who are serious about it can make some complex stuff, all whilst not just making every song sound the same. I'm really hopeful for Sentris, but I don't think it's there on any of those points yet. People are immediately confused by it and end up with the Brad approach of "I'll just spam some stuff", I haven't seen anyone who's made anything enjoyable to listen to, and all the songs do end up sounding really similar.

as a music teacher, brad and drew trying to remember music theory hurts and makes me want to give them free lessons. I CAN HELP YOU!

I just got this game and really like it. But I'm also a musician who writes music. The parts I like the most is arranging the music with the tools available and seeing what sounds I create. But I'm not sure I would say that if I knew nothing or little about music creation. I could see this game teaching rhythm and basic arrangement but I'm just curious if there's a baseline level of knowledge and rhythm required before the game becomes fun for people.

lots of people are talking about it outside of this site too, so no. i've heard some musical games people say they've really enjoyed it

I played this at PAX East, it's awesome!

This looks alright! Those puzzles don't seem too too complicated, so long as you're not spamming pieces willy nilly, Braaaad.

Me too. It also made me feel anxious and very uncomfortable to watch the video. I have no idea why, though. It's unfortunate because it seems like an interesting game.

I think I will have to try this game myself to get it, because only paying half attention has rendered this video unintelligent to me.

This looks more obnoxious than actually sampling, and I thought nothing would ever top that. Also doesn't help that the only available keys are all major but it is still EA. Oh well, expecting anything from non-professional music software is always a fool's errand.

Baffling. Also, my head is spinning after watching this in fullscreen.

This looks completely impenetrable to people who don't know a significant amount about music already.

I don't know if it's just lack of sleep but the spinning or colors or something about this game is really giving me motion sickness. To be fair the five cookies I just ate probably aren't helping with that either..

Whoa those menus are straight up Unity 3D GUIs

Not at all, I know very little about music. It's hard to explain or show this game but once you have a controller in your hand you get it pretty quickly. Also since the puzzles aren't required (the harder and different content isn't gated behind the puzzles) you can just play around and make something that sounds nice.

Came here looking for the obligatory, "THIS is Frog Fractions 2," comment. Was disappointed.

I hope Jeff has the opportunity to screw around with this game in site content at some point, it'd be nice to see what these tools can do in the hands of someone who has some experience writing music.

This is hilarious. The guys in the office(s) who know anything about music are colorblind.

'ccentrix

Interesting tool to make soundscapes from but it's quite frustrating to watch Brad try and play it like a game. This isn't a game that I can see from this QL.

I tell you who would love this. Thom Yorke.

Uhhhhhhh...

This doesn't look fun. I understand how it's supposed to be played and I don't think it's unapproachably complex -for me- but I have zero interest in playing it. Because this surely isn't my kinda fun.

Yeah I watched this and couldn't understand a thing.

Then I went to the Twitch Plays Sentris channel that Samantha linked and played it and understood it in a few minutes. It's not complicated at all! And it's pretty fun.

I don't get this. The "puzzles" are just "hit a button and win", and having them there defeats the purpose of having a music synthesizer because, like Brad said, if you just complete the objectives then you aren't really making any music. But if you just want to make music, this thing is so weird and visually confusing that you'd be much better off in nearly any other program.

@generaldas: To further refine this: some orchestras (particularly those in Europe) tune a little higher than the orchestras here in the U.S. The standard in our country is 440 Hz for the tuning A, and many ensembles in other countries tune anywhere from 442-445 Hz. I just recently visited Germany for a music course, and was told there to tune to A=443 Hz. And, speaking from experience, the strings in an orchestra often play sharper as the concert goes on! I remember playing a concert with Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in d minor, and I had trouble playing in tune near the end--the strings had migrated north to about 446 Hz by the end of the work.

Also, to clarify something that Brad and Drew talked about, the central note in a scale or chord is the tonic; in C major, the tonic is C, in g minor, the tonic is g, and so on. The next most important tone in standard tonal music is the dominant, which is a perfect fifth above the tonic note; in C major, the dominant is G, and the dominant in g minor is D. These two notes anchor the tonality of a scale or chord in standard tonal music.

It seems like one of the things that messed up Brad is how the size of the bars change as you go from the outer ring to the inner playing area. He kept putting too short notes into the spaces, even though they first appeared to have the same size, until he eventually gave up. I suggest Samantha makes a point to help the player match the correct lengths of bars in the final product, because right now it's practically an optical illusion that you have to train yourself to not see.

Happened to me, too. I think it's the combination of the spinning with the sort of cacophonous sound.

I hope that this game eventually has a slick tutorial to help one throw together some decent-sounding tunes, right now it seems kind of impenetrable.

Anyone else bothered by how terrible he is at this game?

Wow I'm ridiculously excited for this game. Basically my ambition to bang at some keys to see what happens along a looped tempo to keep me motivated. Thanks for the look, guys. P.S. Do the blocks only stack from the outermost circle toward the innermost layer, or can you choose to move it around?

I have got no idea whats going on.

This looks so basic that it's hard to define what it is. It's a tech demo at best. I don't understand what's going on at all.

No one's mentioning the nuggets in the desktop background? Or I guess I should've expected that from giant bomb?

I think this looks great. Aesthetically, it reminds me of Rotolla (an iOS game that came out a couple years ago with music by Akira Yamaoka).

Hmm, I was hoping this would be something good

I thought this was supposed to simplify music creation. Seems more like it just adds its own color coordinated convolution.