GuitarHero/RockBand fans... side project anyone?

[Manu]

On 12 December 2013 21:37, Meta <jared771 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 10:43:24 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> So, I'm a massive fan of music games. I'll shamefully admit that I was
>> tragically addicted to Dance Dance Revolution about 10 years ago.
>> Recently,
>> it's Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
>>
>
> You're 6 years behind the curve =). My brother got Guitar hero 2 for
> Christmas one year and I was instantly hooked. Guitar Hero 3 still remains
> my most played game besides maybe Civilization IV.


I wouldn't say I'm 6 years behind... I just haven't gotten over it yet. I'm
like that.
I still break out my Amiga from time to time when I feel nostalgic (I was
stuck on that wagon waaaaay too long aswell).

I was on to Guitar Hero from day one. I imported it from the US shortly
after launch, so I had it 6 months before everyone else in Australia (we
always get stuff a year late!).
During GH1, 2, 3 (world tour), there was a big custom-song community, with
loads of torrents of the bootleg PS2 game, re-fitted with custom songs
floating around on the internets.
I was involved in the birth of the GH custom song movement, initially
reverse engineering the PS2 song formats so I could import the songs off
the PS2 disc's into my custom engine (I wanted to play on other platforms
initially).
Others got involved, people started working on tools. My GH engine
transformed into an editor which was the go-to tool for creating custom
guitar hero songs, and I even heard word that some preferred it to the
in-house tools at Harmonix and Neversoft, apparently they had staff who
preferred to use my editor at work ;)
I met with some of the guys at GDC and asked them where my credit was at
the end of the game... and maybe a cheque would be nice (that game was
worth billions!). They become uncomfortable ;)

 The problem is though, that Neversoft and Harmonix completely fucked up the
>> GH and RB franchises. Licensing problems, fragmented tracklists. It's
>> annoying that all the songs you want to play are spread across literally
>> 10
>> or so different games, and you need to constantly change disc's if you
>> want
>> to play the songs you like.
>>
>
> Did they ever... It's really Activision's fault for running Guitar Hero
> into the ground. I remember them releasing a statement around 2009 saying
> that they planned to release 6 new Guitar Hero games within that year
> alone. It was then that I knew it was over.


Indeed. So the first goal of my resurrected project, is to collate the
entire back-catalog into one unified experience.

I was involved in a similar project called StepMania back when, which
solved the same problem with Dance Dance Revolution. Guitar Hero/Rock Band
needs the same treatment.
It also needs a proper editor and a webstore allowing any indy musicians to
create songs and sell them for a dollar each. Nothing gets you into a bands
songs more than physically playing them over and over again with friends.


 I've been meaning to kick off a guitar hero clone since GH2 came out. I
>> started one years ago as a fork of my Guitar Hero song editor for PS2, and
>> I added support for drums before GH4 or RB were conceived, but then when
>> they announced those games they stole my thunder and it went into
>> hibernation.
>>
>
> Have you heard of Frets on Fire? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Frets_on_Fire
> I remember trying this out several years ago, though it didn't really have
> that smoothe Guitar Hero feel.


Yes, it's fucking terrible. It's also written in Java, which might partly
explain the first bit...
Fortunately, I'm a professional, and I'm certain I can accurately reproduce
the feel of the proper games. My editor already does. It just needs to be
fleshed out with lots of presentation work.
I also expect it to run on my consoles. Obviously console ports are
important! :)


 I'm very keen to resurrect the project (well, start a new one, with clean
>> code, in D).
>> Are there any music game nerds hanging around here who would be interested
>> in joining a side project like this? It's a lot more motivating, and much
>> more fun to work in a small team.
>>
>
> I wish I had the time.
>

I don't really have time either, but some things just have to be done! :)
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