This week, we put our prototype to the test to see if the core rhythm mechanics were working as intended. Unfortunately, we ran into some bugs, so the results weren’t as exiting as we’d hoped. However, every bug we find now is one we can fix before it becomes a bigger problem down the line, so in a way, it’s still progress!
On a brighter note, our prototype got the green light, so we’re now moving forward with the vertical slice. Our programmers started laying down the foundations for the gameplay while the art and sound team worked on forming the project's artistic identity. Slowly but surely, task by task, our idea is starting to become tangible!

🔥 What We’ve Been Up To 🔥

🎨 Art team (Ieva Sucila, Kwinten Hermans, Missy May Cooper)

On the art side, we focused on reworking our general layout and note lanes, as play testing brought up some unfortunate attention issues. The previous layout brought the players' attention to the notes while cutting of the rest of the screen. The boss, player characters and UI went unnoticed, so a major rework was in order. 

We ended up trying a few different compositions, but settled on one that 
would make the most our 3D space. Now the note lanes lead the eye from 
the boss directly to the players and all of the necessary UI, 
making this composition both visually appealing and practical.  

The scene has been blocked out with cubes and splines, ready to be replaced by our final meshes. 
As a proof of concept, we created a character with all the necessary animation so we could see how long animating a set of 4 characters would take.  Meet our animation guinea pig, Larry! He idles, he attacks he dies... All things a funky sprite should do.  As a little note, the ultimate animation will get spammed during a button mash event. A ghost sprite will hover over a dead player, as they will be able to continue playing with a few limitations until revival!

Larry wasn't the only character who's design was finalised. 

Our boss, George, also received a clean design and sprite that has yet to be animated. 

To round off the art department's progress, our tech artist created a series of hit rfx that will play on each button press, indicating the players' note grade. He also finished up the players' attack rfx, breathing a bit of life and colour into our drab blockout. 

🔊 Sound team (Matthias Peerne)

On the audio side, we’ve built a system that makes it super easy to add and vary sounds dynamically. With that in place, we’ve already implemented key sound effects, like the hit confirmation when you land on the beat and an attack sound. We wanted the attacks to feel Impactful—like they rip through the mix and demand attention. To achieve that, I designed the attack sound to literally crush the music. When a player attacks, the game briefly reduces the music’s bitrate and volume, making it sound like the attack is distorting and breaking the soundtrack itself. Sadly, I can’t quite capture this effect in a GIF, so you’ll just have to take my word for it… or experience it for yourself when the game comes out! c:

🎮 Programming Team (Bouke Weel, Gonçalo Guilherme)

This week, the programmers were hard at work creating important parts of the game, such as the notes being able to spawn with the music. The notes now move over the newly designed 3D paths, and we have also created hold notes for the music. Additionally, we have implemented the boss's health system, making it easy to integrate boss damage mechanics.

We encountered some issues that were haunting us, but we were able to identify the problems and correctly fix them, ensuring they won't return in the future.

🎯 What goals did we meet?

✅ Created the blockout

✅ Finished a full sprite sheet

✅ Designed the boss

✅ Created note hit and player attack rfx

✅ Designed the notes

✅ Note Spawning on music

✅ Notes movement

✅ Hold notes

🎯 What’s Next?

✅ Animate the boss

✅ Light up the scene

✅Replace the blockout with finished meshes

✅ Animate more characters

✅  Input for the players so that we can start playing our game.

✅ The boss being damaged on note hits.

✅ Boss death, what is the win condition for in the game.

All in all, there were quite a few ups and downs this week, but we're all very excited and motivated to continue tinkering away on this project.
Keep an eye out for future updates if you're curious about the other characters, gameplay features and music that are on their way.

Until next week! 

Team Members:

Bouke Weel, Gonçalo Guilherme, Missy Cooper, Ieva Sučilaitė, Kwinten Hermans, Matthias Peene