History

Rhythm games were first popularized in Japan in the early 1970s with the first one being an electro-mechanical arcade game created by Kenzou Furukawa. The idea for the game was essentially for the player to lift up girls skirts in time to a rhythm that was being played and was inspired by Oh! Mouretsu commercials which were popular in Japan back then. Later another major release within Rhythm Gaming would be Simon, which was created by Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison. The game allowed players to take turns repeating patterns of button presses that got harder and harder as they progressed through. Soon more games using rhythm such as Dance Aerobics , Dance Dance Revolution, BeatMania and Guitar Hero would be created within the decade before the 2000s hereby making the genre even more popular. The rhythm games would get even better with the introduction of ps3’s Playstation move and Xbox Kinect in 2010 and 2011, introducing games such as Just Dance and Dance Central using motion sensing technology. In 2018, Beat Saber which brings the rhythm gaming industry into virtual reality became the top selling and highest rated virtual reality game on Steam.

Current State of the Field

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Beat Saber currently is the top selling rhythm game in the industry. The game released on Steam and Oculus by Hyperbolic Magnetism was created in the Unity engine and soon made its way to Playstation VR. The game features a player slashing objects moving towards them in time to a rhythm. The player wields two virtual lightsabers that are basically extensions of the Playstation VR motion controllers. Within each level there are different songs and different obstacles such as mines not to be hit and pink transparent walls that the player must avoid. Hyperbolic Magnetism is a small indie gaming studio based in the Czech Republic founded by Lokiman and Split. The two decided to work together in High School in the late 90’s after working on a few collaborative projects and discovering their love for making their own video games. Once Apple launched the app store, the two young men quit their jobs and began making games for mobile phones, tablets and other devices and eventually ended up in VR with the hit game Beat Saber.