The soul of rhythm games is to let players 'play' music.
When I first heard the game "Rhythm Doctor", my first feeling was curiosity and a little doubt: OK This is a pan-rhythm game, only one button? Also hitched a ride on a medical theme?
But obviously I'm not the only one who's drawn to this very high-concept theme, "Rhythm Doctor" has been online for less than two weeks, has received 4,600+ player reviews on Steam, a 98% positive rating, and has successfully broken the circle and been widely disseminated. This is a surprise for this spring, both for a relatively niche rhythm game and for an indie title.
Why does Doctor Rhythm give people a different experience than the traditional rhythm game? This is not only thanks to the most straightforward seduction of the curiosity of players and viewers by its one-click gameplay, but also the game's own very hardcore difficulty and the surprise story of real life, which is enough to make it stand out. A closer look at its seemingly extremely simple mechanics reveals that in the deep design concept, "Rhythm Doctor" is a challenge and flip to the traditional rhythm game in all aspects.
Ten years of development, ten years ago, how did a seed grow into a dense forest ten years later? We talked to the creator and composer of the one-button rhythm game, Hafiz Azman, about what he saw as "Rhythm Doctor" and Rhythm Game.
"Doctor Rhythm" creator Hafiz Azman
The first level: one-button mechanism, alternative rhythm
In the face of the game's current excellent results, Azman laughed and said: "To be honest, we are still a bit shocked, we did not expect players to like this work so much. He told us that China, published by INDIENOVA, is the largest market for Doctor Rhythm, accounting for about half of the total sales, and that the game as a whole is performing well in Asia and has a large audience in Europe and the United States.
And these players from all over the world, whether new or old, talk the most about "Rhythm Doctor" is its one-click gameplay. As its studio name, 7th Beat Games, shows, the core gameplay of "Rhythm Doctor" is to press the space bar when the beat counts to seven. Of course, there are other number beat mechanisms such as swinging two beats in the game, but everything is not far from its origin, and pressing the space bar at the right time is all about the gameplay.
Why is this mechanism, which is too simple to be simple, so sought after, and where does this idea come from?
That puts you back in time to 2011, when Azman traveled from Malaysia to england to study engineering, and in his free time he was both a player, enjoying playing games and musicians, playing the piano and composing music, but he was never a hardcore rhythm gamer. The only thing he likes to play is the rhythm game "Rhythm Heaven" produced by Nintendo.
"I think there are two kinds of rhythm games in general, the traditional is that you watch the notes move on the screen, press the button when you reach the point, even if you are not listening to the music, you can play according to the prompts; the other is the "rhythm of heaven", there is no moving notes on the screen, you have to feel the rhythm of the music to judge." 」 Azman said.
Rhythm Heaven
Perhaps as a musician, he had a different entry point to the rhythm game, and he thought of a game that he thought was fun: the player needed to count multiple beats with inconsistent speeds at the same time, just pressing the button at the seventh beat. Rhythm Heaven has proven that even one button can make fun rhythm games, which he believes can also teach players real music theory.
"Basically, I wanted to make a rhythm game that players can play with their eyes closed," Azman says. ”
On this basis, he learned to make a prototype of the game himself and sent it to a few friends around him, but most of them didn't find it funny. In addition to Winston Lee, Azman's college friend decided to join in doing art design for the game after trying it out.
The original prototype of "Doctor Rhythm"
So the two Malaysian students studying in the UK, using their vacation time to make games amateurs, released Demo on the indie game site TIGSource two years later, in 2013, which received an unexpectedly enthusiastic response.
But at this time, Azman did not have a precise plan to make games for a long time, and the definition of "Rhythm Doctor" was still a hobby work.
Level 2: Music comes first, story heals
Although it was a demo with only simple levels, now we experience the core differences in "Rhythm Doctor", which were already in the form of a prototype at that time.
The first is the music section, which is not overly described as "10,000 blood letters for OST" in the Steam comment section of "Doctor Rhythm". The game's music style is varied, ranging from lyrical R&B, passionate electronic music, and brainwashing pop songs, and the style of each level is very obvious, which is crucial for such an indie game with a small overall volume.
Azman himself completed about 80% of the arrangement of the entire game, which is also a big challenge for him who has only done simple songs. "Some of the music in the game is relatively simple to make, such as a guitar-based song in the middle that I only spent a day playing because I played the guitar a lot. But like an EDM tune I spent 200 hours because I was going to learn how to make this type of music. Azman told us, "And we also have to find singers to write lyrics and study how to combine with vocals to have better results." ”
So basically, Azman is seriously learning how to make music while learning how to make games.
Increased interference for boss levels
In addition to the one-button gameplay and unique music, another thing that makes "Rhythm Doctor" fresh and impressive is its hospital theme and story setting.
Unlike many rhythm games, which simply let the player hit the button to pass the level, the game story of "Rhythm Doctor" takes place in a special hospital, where the doctor defibrillates the patient's heart rate through the beat of music that matches the heartbeat. Unlike his predecessor, Rhythm Heaven, which was composed of multiple mini-game levels, Azman wanted Doctor Rhythm to have a more complete view of the story and connectivity between the levels.
Part of the hospital theme stems from Azman's own dream of becoming a doctor, and partly because he found that the seven beats beat somewhat similar to the heartbeat, so they decided on a simple hospital theme at a considerable stage, but there was no real story line. It wasn't until they did more levels later that they gradually added character and lines to the doctors and patients in the middle, forming a complete set of stories.
I have to say that such a setting gives "Rhythm Doctor" a stronger sense of psychological resonance with the player, in the game you will meet boys who are heartbroken for love, musicians who are difficult to find creative inspiration, and café waiters who are breathless due to work pressure... This adds a lot of temperature to the game in addition to the simple "passing".
So what is the level design process for a rhythm game with a story?
"Doctor Rhythm has always been a music and gameplay leader," Azman says, "And after we've decided on the music and gameplay, we'll design the story, as well as some of the fun and visuals that are unique to the levels."
He added: "It's not easy to match the music perfectly with the key play, and a poorly designed level gameplay wastes good songs, and if the songs are too monotonous, it is difficult to design the gameplay." The design of the composition and the gameplay must also be carried out at the same time, and there is no priority relationship between the two, so if two people are responsible for it separately, it may be difficult to cooperate. ”
Perhaps it is Azman's own multi-line learning and creation of music production, rhythm control, and game programming that makes the final presentation of "Rhythm Doctor" have a high degree of unity. His knowledge of music theory also makes the game more complex and delicate in the setting of the beat, and the player can directly appreciate the difference in professional music production.
The third level: multinational teams, fans gathering
The birth of a good independent game, in addition to having good ideas, is also indispensable to the soil that promotes the growth of ideas.
The first time Azman had a new understanding of the potential of Doctor Rhythm was in 2014, when they signed up for the IGF (Independent Game Festival) Student Works section without the slightest expectation, and "Doctor Rhythm" was selected as one of the best works among more than 300 entries.
"Doctor Rhythm" was judged
From then on, he and Winston Lee flew around the world with Doctor Rhythm to participate in various game shows, including GDC (Game Developer Conference), and the increasing recognition of all parties made them decide to devote themselves to the development of the game after the end of their studies.
In terms of funding sources, they first obtained funding from the Malaysian government, and members of the team from Peru also enlisted the help of the local government for the game. After that, they took the time to make a small one-button rhythm game "Dances of Ice and Fire", which landed on PC and mobile platforms, and had more than 11,000 reviews on Steam, with an overall rating of 94%. The game sold well enough to support the team's development, after all, according to Azman, "Most of us work online and don't need much overhead." ”
Dance of Ice and Fire
In the continuous appearance offline and offline, the team of 7th Beat Games has also begun to grow gradually, Giacomo Preciado from Peru met them on the IGF, and later joined the game's main program and UI designer; Kyle Labriola from the United States was a fan of the "Rhythm Doctor" Demo at first, and later became the marketing of the game; the team also included members from Romania, South Korea, China and other places... Most of the members have never met in reality.
When talking about the obstacles that such a multi-cultural, online team will encounter when working, Azman's answer is unexpected:
"I don't think there's a big obstacle. First of all, everyone speaks English in language, and then everyone joins the team because they love "Rhythm Doctor", and they are all players, so everyone already has a 'common language'. On the contrary, the transnational background gives us a lot of advantages, such as the difference in time differences, so that we can take over the development work in turn without worrying about duplication, and people from all over the world will tell us the preferences of local players and the market, or help us do some localization work. ”
This community of core fans is one of the important factors supporting the late development of "Rhythm Doctor", not only the full-time team members converted from fans to contribute to the game, but also the level editor they launched in 2017 has activated the creativity of many fans, and even some ideas have been applied to the official game. These ongoing player-made levels will be a key part of maintaining the long-term vitality of Doctor Rhythm.
The "Philharmonic City" version of "Rhythm Doctor" produced by player Fartilliumstation brilliantly recreates the scenes of the movie
Epilogue: Inheritance and Innovation
What is the soul of a rhythm game?
Azman modestly believes: "I think the most important thing is the connection between music and gameplay. Players should feel like they're "playing" music, not playing games with it. Ordinary rhythm games may just put a song and generate some notes to follow, but this does not have the soul of a rhythm game. I think it's the most important and the hardest thing to do in a rhythm game that has a strong connection between music and gameplay. ”
Never a loyal rhythm gamer, Azman, who prefers to play instruments more than rhythm games, the only thing Azman likes is "Rhythm Heaven". The producer of this game, Chun Jun, is a full-fledged musician, who thought that the rhythm games on the market were all made by people who did not understand music, and did not capture the essence of rhythm, so he joined hands with Nintendo to create a unique "rhythm heaven".
Rhythm Heaven, which has no news of a sequel and has never landed on pCs and this generation of console platforms, is still a strange existence for many people, and this market vacancy is one of the reasons for the birth of "Rhythm Doctor" and has contributed to the success of the latter. "A lot of PC gamers haven't touched a one-button rhythm game, and this freshness may be one reason why many players love our game." Azman said, "And in the decade since we developed, no one has launched a one-button rhythm game, which shows that there is still a lot of potential space in this category that has been overlooked." ”
The unorthodox successor of rhythm heaven, "Rhythm Doctor", made his own innovation after capturing the soul of "rhythm", and both producers preferred to apply realistic music theory knowledge to make their games clearly different from most rhythm games on the market.
Today, when we generally believe that the development of the rhythm game category is limited and the market audience is small, "Rhythm Doctor" uses a no longer simple mechanism - a button - to send us a rhythm game that does not rely on eye-hand coordination QTE, but needs a truly indescribable sense of rhythm to play. And we deserve to have more of these works, so that the rhythm of the body can be truly released in the repeated pedaling.