First, a little pretext: I'm the oldest of four brothers. All of us play games to varying degrees, and as with any family and any medium, our tastes vary. For whatever reason, the only game that's ever resonated with all four of us in equal measure is Rhythm Heaven on the DS. I couldn't tell you why, but every single one of us got completely obsessed with that game - so much so that when I first put it my brother Porter's hands two summers ago, he played it for four hours nonstop, determined to Superb each song before moving onto the next one. True story: the night I introduced it to him, we went on a trip to the grocery store, and he brought the DS with him and walked around the store playing it. Like, it hit our family that hard.
So late last year, I set out to get my brothers an import copy of the Wii's Rhythm Heaven installment - a game that, at the time, hadn't been announced for a North American release yet - as a Christmas gift. I won't get into the details, but suffice it to say it was a lot harder than I expected! Despite that, they were able to open a new Rhythm Heaven game to play on Christmas morning, and that surprise was totally worth it. I'm only a couple months away from college graduation, and after that, I'm not sure how many more chances I'll get to hang out with my literal bros for extended periods of time, so it was important to me that I make this happen, and I'm really glad it all came together!
All that stuff aside, though, I'm pretty much here to say one thing, and that thing is this: Rhythm Heaven is fucking awesome, you guys. Like, it's seriously the best! No kiddin'!
First of all, let's talk about how it's a Wii game with no motion controls. Like, none at all. As a first-party Wii game, the temptation to shoehorn motion controls into this game must've been strong, but they resisted, and I couldn't be more grateful. The decision to entirely forego waggle is a huge part of makes this game so brilliant. There are things that motion controls are perfect for, but precise, timing-based rhythm game mechanics are definitely not it. This seems like a lesson learned from Rhythm Heaven Gold on the DS, whose mildly controversial sliding/flicking mechanic rubbed (heh) some people the wrong way. While the touchscreen stuff was never enough to make me feel cheated, I can understand the frustration of futzing with analog movement in a game that requires digital precision. Rhythm Heaven can be pretty brutal and demanding, and the last thing you want is to feel like you lost a minigame for reasons other than your own nonrhythmic tendencies. Trying to incorporate the Wii remote's gyroscope and accelerometers in a Rhythm Heaven game would have made a small problem huge, but luckily, they opted not to do that.
Actually, they went just as far in the opposite direction as possible. A lof the minigames in this package exclusively make use of the A button. If it weren't for the occasional (judicious) use of the B button, Rhythm Heaven Fever would probably be the most brilliant one-switch ever conceived. Every minigame uses between 1 and 2 buttons, which is already crazy - what's crazier is that they manage to eek out over 50 unique ideas from the game.
Instead of getting increasingly more complex by stacking on more ideas like many sequels do, this game is the simplest, purest Rhythm Heaven yet. This is the barest input they've ever pared down to in a Nintendo SPD Group No.1 game (much less a Nintendo game), and the the game is better for it. I spent some time playing my copy of the original Rhythm Tengoku for the GBA earlier today, and while it's still totally amazing, it's also less elegant than Fever in a couple pretty crucial ways. The obvious way is that the GBA game used up to 6 inputs (all four D-pad directions, plus A and B), which seems pretty excessive compared to Fever's two-button approach. But the second difference is a lot more subtle and a lot more interesting.
In most games, the sound is an inessential bonus to what's going on visually. In Rhythm Heaven, the opposite is true. Unless I'm mistaken, every single minigame in Fever could be literally played blind, which is insane! The visuals are there as a bonus, but you could use just the audio cues and get through the entire game just fine. There are a few exceptions to this in Rhythm Heaven GBA (and, as SpunkyHePanda pointed out to me, at least one in Gold), but even most of those minigames hold up just fine to the eyes-closed test.
Actually, Fever plays a lot with obscuring your vision. It's an idea they touched on a little bit in the original GBA game and barely played with in Gold, but the later minigames in Fever often go out of their way to force you to rely more on what you hear and less on what you see. It really helps to hit home the fact that, again, every single one of these could be played without the use of your sight.
Actually, playing with your eyes shut makes a lot of the games easier. Rhythm Heaven minigames often ask you to accomplish impossibly precise feats of timing that would be impossible if they weren't aligned with music. Here's a great example from the GBA version:
Imagine trying to play a non-rhythm-game version of that. You couldn't do it! And I find that a lot of times, that psyches people out. Specifically, the Hole In One minigame that Fever opens with tends to frustrate people who are relying too much on their eyesight, but invariably, if I suggest they try it again without looking, they crush it. Weird how that works!
Still, given the option, it's not a game you'd want to play blind, as it's pleasant as hell to look at. Rhythm Heaven has made the transition to HD ED really well. In lieu of the previous portable entries' pixel art, they've opted this time for a clean-looking, thickly-bordered, minimally animated look. It's resembles a somehow-even-more-colorful take on the Panty & Stocking art style, and all it fits the gameplay perfectly. The extra screen real estate is used to fantastic effect, too - there is a lot more panning and zooming going on here, and it's always in ways that wouldnt've worked especially well within the portable entries' rigid pixel art. Basically: the visuals are yet another category where they hit it out of the park. I think you see where I'm going with this.
There's a lot of other stuff I could talk about: the fact that the first week we had Rhythm Heaven Fever, I woke up most days with its music playing in my head; the fact that this is the first entry with multiplayer, and that they somehow nailed that, too; the fact that there's a remarkable consistency to the Rhythm Heaven universe, ranging from minigames evocative of previous ones to straight-up cameos; and the fact that the pacing is better than its ever been, with practice sections that have cute little visual differences, not to mention killer chiptune versions of the upcoming song... and, yeah, just a million other things. I could talk about that, but I'm not gonna. I'm just gonna be like "Buy this game when it comes out here, you idiot," and leave it at that.
Like, it'd be an easy enough game to recommend importing if they hadn't chosen to bring it here (the language barrier is pretty much a non-issue), but they totally did!And it's only thirty dollars! Whether you've already played it or not (and I have it on good authority that most of you haven't), I think it'd be great if we all, like, just did our part and bought an English copy or two. Can we do that? Let's do that.
Patrick put up a great article this morning sharing the reactions of a few indie developers to the news that they are main competition finalists for the 2012 IGF. Which reminded me: I did the exact same thing last January! I published a series of articles on now-defunct indie games site Bytejacker chronicling the reactions of (damn near) every 2011 IGF nominee. Let's revisit those responses!
Some of these games have already come out, and others have yet to be released. Others still have changed the name of their game or dropped the project entirely. But that mix of incredulity and excitement that indie developers tend to react with is still marvelously fun to read. When folks work their asses off to make something good and receive commendation for it, it's something we can all feel good about.
Oh, also: keep in mind that a year is a long time, so try not to be freaked out when you read Greg Kasavin talking about Bastion in the future tense or Notch telegraphing his excitement for Cobalt.
Anyways, yeah! I've compiled all those micro-interviews into one mega-article. Enjoy!
Game: Minecraft
Nominated for: Technical Excellence, Excellence In Design, Seumas McNally Grand Prize
“Getting these nominations means a lot to me, and it’s a great to see so many Swedes getting nominated with awesome games like Amnesia and Cobalt! Go Sweden!”
Game: Bastion
Nominated for: Excellence In Visual Art, Excellence in Audio
“It’s an honor to be nominated both for Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio in the 2011 Independent Games Festival, especially considering the many outstanding games we were up against in those categories. One of our goals with Bastion is to create a deep and original gameworld that players can lose themselves in, so we take care to use narration, artwork, music, and sound effects to create a rich and specific atmosphere. We’re very happy to be recognized for what we’ve managed to accomplish so far.”
Game: Retro City Rampage
Nominated for: Excellence in Audio
“It’s a great honor to see Retro City Rampage nominated for the IGF. The composers (Freaky DNA, Virt, Norrin Radd) have done an amazing job, I can’t say enough great things about them and their work. I especially hope that the exposure will lead to many opportunities for Matt ‘Norrin Radd’ Creamer. RCR is his first gig in the industry, but you wouldn’t know it from his incredible talent. Hopefully this will mark the start of a long and successful career in the industry for him with contracts shooting at him left and right when he’s not busy at work on future projects with us.”
Game: Loop Raccord
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“What the nomination means to me? Well, taking in account that I am not a game developer, that it’s not even my goal to be one, and that ‘Loop Raccord’ is just my second game, I feel a bit like an intruder. At the same time, I am deeply interested in video games as a way of expression and I think it’s a vastly unexplored medium, so the nomination somehow proves me that I’m right, and encourages me to keep exploring!”
Game: Hazard: The Journey Of Life (now known as Antichamber)
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“Getting into the IGF is like finding out that you’ve won a million dollars. You have to check the results a couple of times, walk away, come back, and learn how to breathe again. At least, I THINK that’s what winning a million dollars would be like. Ask Notch… he’d know.
On a more serious note, this nomination is quite important to me. When you’re creating something radically different, there’s a very high risk that it doesn’t work and you’ve wasted your time. Many times I’ve questioned whether what I was doing was working, but now I know for sure.”
Game: A House in California
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“I’m totally thrilled to have the game next to some other awesome finalists like The Cat and the Coup, Dinner Date, Nidhogg & some others new to me that I can’t wait to play. I also feel very honored to know that the game was played & appreciated by the Nuovo Award jury, whose roster reads like an art games syllabus.”
Game: BIT.TRIP RUNNER / BIT.TRIP BEAT
Nominated for: Excellence In Visual Art / Excellence in Audio
“Gaijin is very excited to have reached the finalist list for the IGF. It’s almost hard to believe; when you work on something so closely, you start to become unaware of its quality, and to be validated like this by the community in which one rolls is such a joy. All of the other finalists are such talented groups of people that we are honored to be considered their peers. I wish every one of us the best of luck!”
Game: Confetti Carnival (now known as The Splatters)
Nominated for: Technical Excellence
“For us – being just 2 guys working on a game out of Israel, this is just phenomenal! We’re thrilled at the opportunity to have so many people come by and play Confetti Carnival with us.
It’s still really early to say what kind of effect it will have (but we’re very optimistic) – for us, it’s always been about putting the best we can out there and we’ll keep doing just that. See you at GDC!”
Game: Bohm
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“It’s not everyday that you get recognition for such a strange and personal piece of work. We made Bohm as a sort of experimental homage to themes and feelings we love. It’s was more about expressing ourselves than about making ‘the best new game.™’
We get energized by strange new experiments. So to get recognition from other like-minded artists is equally humbling and honouring. Together with Cannibal and Claynote we got the chance to realize an idea that’s very close to our hearts.So this nomination doesn’t necessarily mean we succeeded, but it does mean that other people ‘get’ the idea. And that’s just insanely good news, because it means we are not crazy.”
Game: Super Crate Box
Nominated for: Excellence In Design
“Rami from Vlambeer says: ‘Holy poop!’ Jan Willem from Vlambeer says: ‘I hope we get a free phone this year!’
We’re really honored the IGF jury was able to appreciate a small game like Super Crate Box, though. That’d be all.”
Game: The Dream Machine
Nominated for: Excellence In Visual Art
“I called my Father yesterday to tell him that we’d been nominated for the IGF. I was so happy. Ecstatic almost. But he just calmly replied: “Well son, tomorrow’s another day and you should still be looking for a proper job.” Thanks dad. At the age of 35 my parents are still waiting for me to get a proper job. But I know they are happy for me somewhere deep, deep inside of their hearts. I love my parents and thank them! Also, a big thanks to the jury who nominated us! We’ve been working hard on this game for two years now, and boosts like this really help! See you all at GDC hopefully! For anyone attending, please drop by to play our game if you can spare the time. We are friendly people and smell real nice. I’m the tall blonde guy who talks a lot and Anders is the short, shifty looking fellow. Buy him a drink and he’ll tell you all his secrets.”
Game: Neverdaunt:8Bit
Nominated for: Technical Excellence
“Having the game that I poured my life into(no dev was harmed in the making of this game) get nominated for the Technical Excelence Award really gave me this overall “Woot” feeling. It’s suddenly not just me that thinks my game is awesome anymore, and it has really validated all of the deep thought, effort, and struggle (and copious amounts of coffee).-Calvin Goble, That guy that made that game all by himself and stuff.”
Game: B.U.T.T.O.N.
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be at IGF this year! We showed an earlier iteration of B.U.T.T.O.N. at Kokoromi’s GAMMA IV party last year, so it feels both strange and rewarding to be returning to GDC one year later with the same game.
In late 2009, after months of concept work and prototyping, we received a grant to develop a wizard dueling game for the Nintendo Wii. A larger team from the Copenhagen Game Collective – which includes most of the B.U.T.T.O.N. team – spent the first six months of 2010 refining the idea and developing a vertical slice. However, that isn’t the game that was selected for IGF 2011. Instead, the game that we’re showcasing, B.U.T.T.O.N., is a silly “wouldn’t-it-be-funny-if…” side project, initially prototyped in just a weekend or two.
The takeaway lesson here is that the design ideas that look sexiest on paper don’t always translate (at least not immediately) to the games that are catchiest in practice. The corollary lesson is, sometimes the stupidest games are the most memorable ones.
Our experience with B.U.T.T.O.N. shows us that it can be productively refreshing to blow off steam on small side projects while working on a larger production. You never know – a silly side project might unexpectedly turn out to be the real gem.”
Game: Hohokum
Nominated for: Excellence In Visual Art
“At last year’s GDC in San Francisco, after the Gamma party which was easily the conference highlight, Dick Hogg and I spent three days on the show floor, manning the Gamma stand where our One Button Game, “Poto & Cabenga” was on display. We had a great time at GDC, and met a bunch of people in the indie games scene who have since become good friends of ours.
The setup in 2010 was that the IGF area was over on one side of the conference hall, and almost all the way over at the other side was the Gamma stand: two small islands of indie, adrift in a sea of mainstream industry stands: physics middleware, QA Databases and abrasive publisher booths pushing their latest AAA title or recruiting staff with offers of free beer (well okay, the free beer wasn’t so bad).
It was an honour to be picked for Gamma, and we had loads of fun hanging out at the stand, watching people stray into our orbit and play the games, but it was hard to escape the level of buzz over at the IGF stand, with crowds of people gathered around what turned out to be some of the games of the year. We spent the last few hours before the Pavillion shut on the final day over there, playing and chatting, and afterwards Dick said to me – in a joking kind of way – “next year we’re gonna be over here”. At the time I would never have imagined we would be, but last year turned out to be a good one for Hohokum – although we’ve been working on the game intermittently for 3 years, 2010 was the year we finally figured out what the game actually is, and we’re now really glad that we persevered, and delighted to be selected for the IGF of course!
It’s especially cool that a bunch of our fellow Gammapals from ’09 have made it to the finals with us this year – the Copenhagen Game Collective with BUTTON, Mikengreg with Solipskier and Steph Thirion with Faraway. Gonna be a fun week!”
Game: Solipskier
Nominated for: Best Mobile Game
“It’s just nuts. In past years I would stay up and refresh web pages to read the nominations ASAP, but this year I had pretty much decided there was no chance we’d make it in. I woke up Monday to twitter beeping at me about it and my heart hasn’t stopped pumping since. It’s likely I’m still dreaming.”
Game: Miegakure
Nominated for: Technical Excellence
“I think the jury system the IGF implemented this year was a very good thing. I was especially looking forward to the nominees in the Technical Excellence category as it is difficult for non-programmers to judge the technical merits of a game.”
Game: Dinner Date
Nominated for: Nuovo Award
“It is a very promising thing to find Dinner Date nominated for the IGF. I am acutely aware of how Dinner Date takes quite a different angle compared to most games and it is after the time I spent developing it very heart-warming to see it is finding such an audience! Knowing that the Nuovo Award is specifically for the advancement of the medium it is quite an exhilarating thing to realize one is part of such advancements. I look forward to presenting it at the GDC tremendously and have equal anticipation for meeting interesting people there. It will be rather dashing, I am sure.”
Game: Halcyon
Nominated for: Best Mobile Game
Zach: “I’ve been making niche artistic apps and games for a few years now and although they have all been critically acclaimed, I’ve never had anything close to mainstream success. Getting a nomination for Halcyon is incredibly exciting for me because it means that the audience of gamers who enjoy abstract artistic and experimental games is growing. And its not just Halcyon, each of the games that was nominated for Best Mobile Game are innovative, unique, and beautiful.”
Kurt: “Working with Zach was a really fantastic opportunity. Halcyon was a chance to really try some new ideas and try to mesh sounds and music with a simple and elegant mechanic. Looking back, it was really a lot of fun developing. Being nominated really came as a surprise and I am super honored to be nominated along side the best mobile indie games of 2010.”
Game: Nidhogg
Nominated for: Seumas McNally Grand Prize
“i cannot wait to beat everyone mercilessly at nidhogg.”
Game: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Nominated for: Seumas McNally Grand Prize
“IGF? We cannot seem to remember applying for that…”
Man, it was fun reading through these again. Particularly Erik's story about his dad's reaction to his nomination. Bittersweet, I guess!
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