New Music-Based PC Game - Raycatcher
polycounter lvl 18
[size=+2] WOO HOO!![/size]
http://www.impulsedriven.com/raycatcher
http://www.impulsedriven.com/raycatcher
Hey folks! For the past 5 months or so, I've been making a casual game with a partner of mine called "Raycatcher".. It's a really simple, easy to pick up casual game that syncs up it's gameplay to music that you can load off your comp.
anyway. I could talk about it at length, but I'll not do that, as our website and videos are more interesting.
We're getting some distribution deals happening now.. so things are starting to look up, but we could use any publicity at all, so if you're interested and you like what you see.. send it to your friends and co-workers, will ya!?
our website is:
http://www.thinkingstudios.com
we think the full version should be out... march 17 or so?
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT8cGkwk-8E[/ame][ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZMzaKYgXmA[/ame]You can download a demo here: http://www.thinkingstudios.com/RaycatcherDemo.exe
it's certianly not perfect, but as a first try.. what the hell eh? i'm pretty proud of it. hopefully i get rich! rich!
(here's a dig article... just.. thought i'd leave that here. )
http://digg.com/pc_games/Raycatcher_An_innovative_music_based_PC_game#
Replies
will there be a demo?
rooster -- (sleezy salesman voice) Funny you should say that, sir!
there's a demo on our website! you can get it right here:
http://www.thinkingstudios.com/RaycatcherDemo.exe
(I'll add that to the first post. thanks for pointing that out)
looks neat, good job
thanks man.
However, i don't feel the connection between music and gameplay. I know it is related and rays arrive depending on current tune but it is just not really visible.
It is a yearly event dedicated to indie games with unusual concepts.
For example two years or so ago participants had to develop a game based on incoming music. I palyed them at the event, that was pretty cool:
http://www.kokoromi.org/gamma01/01/
my only crit is that I had no idea when I was about to die, no flashing stuff or wonky noises etc- it just ended. I did eventually notice my awesomeness meter was subtly glowing a bit, but I don't think its enough when you're focusing intently on the center of the screen. i think the same goes for those bars to the left, I couldnt pay attention to them, your eyes are glued to the center. could you use that center atom for some kind of feedback since it's redundant? or some background visualiser elements?
just my 2c, well done
man i should have done this a long time ago. talk about having my head up my ass.
Matroskin -- thanks very much.. that's fantastic. lemme take a good look here..
MoP -- thanks man! hopefully it's interesting enough to sell
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/Entertainment/2009/02/25/8520531-sun.html
thanks a lot keg!
I scanned the paper, wouldn't cha know...
It's probably a bit late for crits when you're this close to release, but I am inclined to agree with Rooster. There's a bit of a lack of obvious feedback. A sound effect or pitch bend or something when you miss a note along with some kind of really obvious visual indication that you're about to die would add quite a bit to the game, I think. Never the less, what you've got here is great and I look forward to playing the full version.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/02/26/no-ray-is-safe-tonight-raycatcher/
because i'm getting the feeling the music only controlls the speed of those rays
Veko -- nope! there's practically no visual use for the music. the speed of the gameplay is more or less determined by the difficulty setting you chose. the music tech syncs up with the rays pretty damn well, but it's not driving the gameplay. we played with it for a while, but even audiosurf didn't manage to get it right, if you ask me.
it's a cool feature. it does interesting things... but it's not flawless.
oh, and thanks much for the replies, guys!
holy shit on a stick that's awesome. i'm going to look into that.
Looks cool, congrats on the exposure!
as if its not enough that no matter what i come up with has already been done by popcap
looks fun to play. would be really sweet on an iphone.
warby, dont you know? popcap has rooms full of oompa loompas working 24/7 on game ideas.
bounchfx - thanks man. it's pretty exciting actually... enough to make you wanna keep doing this stuff.
SupRore - those are good ideas. we actually got that feedback towards the end of the project, but at that point we were so fed up with working on it that we wanted to call it a wrap. at that point, my programmer was i think at the end of his rope.. so we decided to call it quits and not add any complex visualization stuff. it probably would have added a ton of work, because of the way we set things up. having more visualization stuff would be cool though... and is something i'd like to see. perhaps we'll add it soon for a future itteration/sequel or something.
warby -- haha i hear you man. and yes, 00Zero, popcap.. man.. they've got their shit together...
Good job!
but that sounds like an excuse.
yeah, we're pretty much done for the time being. we might release stuff in the future, but we'll see how that goes... i do very much appreciate the crits...
thanks!
Must be crazy exciting man, really excited to see what spawns from this.
You da man John!
We got picked up by Stardock's Impulse store! it's on there now.
http://www.impulsedriven.com/raycatcher
Jason- thank you. you can stroke my fur any time. yeah, it's equal parts exciting and stressful. this release hit me out of the blue so I've got to do a huge marketing push.. and we're at crunch time at work.. so I'm writing emails and modeling at the same goddamn time.
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/03/review_raycatcher_thinking_stu.html
might be too much money.. AH! maybe he's right! maybe we should drop that sucker down.