To begin research for my game I had to look at the history of rhythm games that had made an impact on the industry and came across some pretty popular ones such as Just Dance, Rock Band and Dance Central. I have actually referenced all of these games in my Research Plan post. (http://ault.immtcnj.com/thesis_fall_18/2018/10/11/research-plan-2/) However I didn’t know about one of the games that probably paved the way for more games of rhythm games of it’s caliber, Rez . So that was the first piece of researching I did after I was informed by Professor Ault about the game.
The game developed by United Game Artists, is a 3rd person rail shooter in which the player shoots at objects that appear around them. However the hook is, every time the player destroys a target a sound is made that adds to the music in the background therefore making the player the composer of the song. This is a quality that is very rare and which I thought was an amazing idea and still can’t seem to figure out how it worked so flawlessly. It also has a beautiful color quality that feels like a form of synesthesia when you are playing it. The game was such a huge success after it’s release in 2001 on the Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2 that it was rereleased multiple times in the future for Xbox live and later for Playstation VR. Rez Infinite, the PS VR version, is currently one of the most acclaimed rhythm games in the world. My next step would be to speak to professor Fishburne about his experience playing the game and how I could incorporate that into my game.
I also got a chance to talk to Brett Taylor through email which was actually very helpful because he had done a project that included the use of the Kinect and Unity and actually has designed a couple of his own rhythm games. His advice was to Prioritize and Identify what exactly it was I wanted to accomplish with the game and be aware that as I progress through the making of the game, my priorities might be changed a little. So I came up with a list of priorities:
Designing and Animating the environment
Design how the music interacts with the environment
In researching the use of Kinect and Unity and actually came across a few examples. The problem was that this would be my first experience using the engine and animating and designing my own game so although the watching other people play their games was a pretty cool experience, I found it better to start looking up how to videos on using the unity engine and actually ended up finding quite a few. I also found how to videos on how to add music to the games made in unity as well.
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/xr/getting-started-vr-development
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/virtual-reality/movement-vr
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/audio/adding-music-your-game