Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

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Although music games are not popular, they always appear in the public eye from time to time, including popular styles such as "cat run", "Phigros" and "OSU!" "this kind of evergreen tree.

Recently, games such as "heavy metal: hell singer" and "Hi-Fi Rush", which integrate the elements of audio games, have gone viral, which seems to have ushered in a new turn for the better.

Next, we will analyze some PC and mobile phone end-to-end audio games according to the characteristics of audio games. At the same time, we will further disassemble the integrated audio tour category in order to explore the development direction of the track.

1. The characteristics of sound travel-- immersive simulation performance with high threshold.

Follow the music rhythm, make the interactive action with the rhythm (corresponding operation in the corresponding rhythm interaction point), and form a kind of "simulated performance" behavior, which is the main way of playing sound games.

From the player's point of view, audio games have two distinct characteristics. That is a strong sense of immersion (strong flow experience) and a high threshold for getting started.

Feature 1: strong sense of immersion although the interactive part takes on the main function of playing in the music tour, the music itself is still the main body, that is, "there is music first, then music surface". On the other hand, the interactive content in audio games is a way to further enhance the listener's sense of resonance.

This mainly depends on the characteristics of the music itself-"the art of expression" and "the art of emotion". However, this sense of immersion also varies from person to person, because different players have different preferences for different music styles, resulting in different music libraries of audio games have a great impact on the group of players.

In addition to the music itself, "listening" (sound effects), "seeing" (visual performance) and "doing" (interaction) also enhance the sense of immersion. Different sound games will make some differences in these aspects and enhance the immersion of "playing songs" in different ways.

By virtue of the characteristics of the music itself, making a certain design in the three dimensions of "listening", "seeing" and "doing" is the main reason why Yingyou has a strong sense of immersion.

Feature 2: higher access threshold in order to give players a certain sense of challenge when "playing simulation", there is usually the concept of "accuracy" in audio games-that is, the determination range with the interaction point as the center and the "time" as the scale. When the player interacts within the decision range, it is considered that the interaction of the interaction point is successful, but the interaction fails anyway (but usually the audio games do not use a single decision range, but there are different rating ranges, such as "prefect", "great", "good", "bad" and "miss").

Similarly, on the basis of the accuracy judgment, the tone swim introduces the "score" setting (the score is different under different accuracy) to materialize the "accuracy". After the whole performance, players can clearly feel whether the simulation performance is successful or not by comparing the actual score with the full score (the general audio tour will also give the corresponding rating according to the total score range).

On the other hand, the change of the difficulty of audio games will also focus on the two elements of "interaction point" and "accuracy":

1. The "interaction point" section is similar to the way that the level content changes the difficulty of the game. In addition to the basic interaction points of the main theme of the music, the rhythm interaction points of other tracks in the music are added to increase the difficulty in the way of improving the overall interaction density.

2. "accuracy" can increase the difficulty for players to get high scores by reducing the range of high scores (such as prefect), thus increasing the difficulty of tone games in disguise.

However, because most audio games increase the difficulty, it is only through the pure technical pressure of making players "fast and accurate", rather than the way that mainstream games adjust the difficulty together through elements such as "mechanism" and "numerical value". This also makes the difficulty curve of sound games very "hard", and there are no shortcuts. When players encounter bottlenecks, they often need to spend a lot of time and energy, keep practicing, it is possible to make a breakthrough. Or because of this, audio games usually give players a "high threshold" first impression.

Considering that player skills play a vital role in audio games, core players are usually more likely to train and challenge them spontaneously. Therefore, the author thinks that the high and difficult content of audio tour is indispensable.

Summing up the above two major audio features, it is not difficult to see that "to reduce the threshold and enhance the sense of immersion while ensuring the sense of challenge" is two very important directions in the product design of audio and video products.

2. A brief analysis of the characteristics of audio games on PC and mobile games.

Above we briefly explained the factors that affect the immersion of audio games, but with the rapid development of science and technology, the interactive changes based on different platforms have a greater impact on audio games.

Looking back over the past 20 years, the change in the way devices interact can always cause a wave of "audio games" craze, from the "strong dance band" and "o2jam" of MMO + audio games after the popularity of PC, the unique sliding "rhythm master" introduced when mobile games were just emerging, and the "rhythm lightsaber" of "star explosion therapy" after the emergence of VR.

Therefore, in the following, we take the operation interaction of PC and Mobile platform as the classification to analyze some domestic popular audio games products on each platform.

2.1PC end-- change direction after running out of tricks

Before the emergence of mobile games, PC was the main platform for audio games, including "strong dance band", "strong band", "QQ speed of sound" and many other popular audio games that integrate social elements.

And after the impact of the mobile game market, PC end-tone games declined rapidly. At present, most popular PC audio games have basically taken two different paths: one is to strengthen the visual "experience orientation", and the other is to explore the UCG community.

In the era of 2.1.1MMO audio travel, each has its own style.

In the MMO era, with the tag of "leisure" and "social", which is different from the game mode of "hacking and killing" and "fighting monster upgrade", the category of MMO audio games has gained a large audience. Among them, nothing is more dazzling than online games such as "strong Dance Group", "strong Orchestra", "QQ Sonic" and so on.

Strong dance troupe-- low threshold to get out of the siege quickly

The "singing" way of "strong Dance Troupe" is distinguished by the beat, and before each beat, players are required to enter "direction keys" in the specified order. Finally, press "space" on the beat at the end of the beat to determine the accuracy, and give the score according to the final accuracy judgment, in which the continuous "prefect" decision can trigger "combo" to add additional scores.

Compared with other types of products at the same time, this kind of audio tour, which uses the final "right beat" way, has a lower threshold to use. At the same time, in the arrangement of keys, the former also has a certain regularity, and players can be greatly improved after relatively short-term training. Therefore, the "strong Dance Troupe" broke out in a large number of music online games and became one of the most popular online games at that time.

The "strong Dance Troupe" has not only optimized the threshold, but also made certain designs on "vision" and "sound effects". Visually, the game introduces the element of "dance". With the judgment of the players, the dance movements of the game will change to a certain extent; on the sound effect, the game will enhance the recognition of the sound effect by "prefect" and increase the refreshing experience brought by the chain attack.

Golden Orchestra-gathering place of hardcore players

Compared with the friendly design of the strong Dance Company to the newcomers, the Golden Orchestra takes a completely opposite route. The game adopted the "falling" mode of "beatmania", which had a high threshold and high cost of technical growth, which made the game a gathering place for hard-core players at that time.

Although the "falling style" has a variety of disadvantages, but after a long period of market verification, this mode of play is still standing. Because its interactive way is closer to the simulated performance like "playing the piano", it makes this playing sound tour more "immersive". At the same time, based on the characteristics of the presentation mode, "falling" is more suitable for carrying difficult songs, and it is easier to meet the pursuit of challenge for hardcore players. Therefore, players who like this kind of play usually have a high degree of loyalty.

Today, this kind of "falling" play is active in all kinds of music games after continuous variation.

QQ Sonic Speed-- A unique method of playing Sound Games

The most important feature of "QQ Sonic" is the integration of "parkour" elements, so that the sound you painting style into a "racing" scene. The game adds "obstacles" and "stars" interactive elements, players need to avoid obstacles, while eating stars to accumulate "energy" to start acceleration.

Although it has changed to "speed racing", this product has not lowered the threshold for getting started too much. The interactive "avoiding obstacles" and "eating stars" of the game are arranged according to the rhythm and melody of the music, so the actual experience of the game should be closer to the "falling style".

The era of dazzling Dance-- the last social audio tour in the era of PC

If it is said that the first three have their own characteristics, then the "dazzling dance era" can be said to take the length of a hundred families. The game not only introduces the characteristics of "Jin Dance Troupe" and "Jin Band", but also adds other play modes such as "fighting Dance", "fighting Monsters", "poking Bubbles" and so on.

In addition, the work deepens the design of internal social elements, introducing a variety of social functions (cabin with a certain custom space, marriage tree to deepen social interaction, development of regional leisure community, etc.).

"Dance era" is the "legacy" of today's MMO + audio games. Although the game has the strength of a hundred families, it can not resist the torrent of the times and gradually decline.

2.1.2 the era of independent games-- fantastic ideas and wild ideas

When Yingyou enters the field of independent games, it seems to be another style of painting, which is expressed in a variety of forms. From "Thumper" to "rhythm doctor", "experience to" has gradually become the main tone of this kind of audio games.

Thumper-- visual feast

The reason why "Thumper" is first mentioned in this small section is that the audio game design idea of "emphasizing experience rather than skill" has been put into practice, and some results have been achieved.

In the game, the player will play a space beetle, speeding in the endless cosmic track, avoiding obstacles and rushing to the end of chaos.

This kind of play is somewhat similar to the parkour mode of "QQ sonic" to avoid obstacles, except that the operation density in "Thumper" has been greatly reduced. At the same time, the participation of music is not very high, which makes "Thumper" more inclined to action games.

But in terms of originality, this work shows players for the first time how many "flowers" can be produced by a combination of cool light and shadow and dynamic background sound. This provides a new idea for the follow-up independent sound tour.

The Dance of Ice and Fire-- BGA of Spectral plane

If it is said that "Thumper" has created a precedent for vision to sound travel, then "Dance of Ice and Fire" has achieved a balance between the rhythm of sound games and visual performance. It makes the game not only have good visual effects, but also have the fun of simulated performance.

Specific to the game, players need to control the hovering double stars through a button and keep moving forward on a winding road that follows the rhythm of the music.

Dance of Ice and Fire skillfully combines the sound travel BGA (background animation) with the spectral surface, allowing the sound travel BGA to be presented in the trajectory of a double star. In addition, with the visual elements such as lens transformation and environmental special effects, the Dance of Ice and Fire has a good viewing, while retaining a considerable degree of rhythmic experience.

It should be noted that as the game interaction is simplified (only one button is operated), the difficulty curve becomes more "hard". As the difficulty increases, the interaction density of the game changes terribly, so playing "Dance of Ice and Fire" does not seem to be as easy as it seems.

Rhythm doctor-- grasp both sides of rhythm vision

"rhythm doctor" can be said to explore another combination of vision and rhythm on the basis of "experience orientation". That is, vision no longer serves the rhythm, but becomes a factor that interferes with the rhythm of the player.

The main way to play the game is that, on a line, as the beat crest continues to advance, the player needs to press the interaction when the crest reaches the 7th beat. This kind of play seems very simple, but because of the influence of visual factors (including the game window following the rhythm, flipping, etc.), players are often unable to rely on vision to match the beat in some levels.

Therefore, the game encourages players to keep the beat in mind, no longer test the player's "dynamic vision", and enhance the immersion of "simulated performance" from another dimension.

When the player adapts to this kind of play, the narrative element in the visual interference will give the player another experience.

2.1.3 PC audio tour of retro play-UGC + communalization

Speaking of which. "OSU!" has to be mentioned. The game introduces a full-featured editor (UCG) and hard-core ACC evaluation (the dual effect of accuracy on scores), making the game a communication community for hard-core players.

The game mode includes "falling" OSU! MANIA, OSUBRAIKO of Taigu, OSUBCATCH of fruit, and OSU! (similar to poking bubbles).

In the game, you can not only view global rankings, make or download spectrum, but also exist player organizations. This adds an officially recognized "third-party" technical evaluation method to the game, and players who have completed the assessment will officially issue relevant titles.

Through the way of UCG + community, "OSU!" changes the retro play mode that is no longer attractive to new players. Rich music library and difficult challenges, so that "OSU! It has gradually become the "hometown" of hard core players.

And there is no shortage of followers in this model, including "Quaver" on steam.

2.2 Mobile games-a hundred flowers blossom and prosper with each passing day

In the era of mobile Internet, the interactive mode of audio games is even more varied. Thanks to the advent of touch screen phones, the game interaction appeared "point", "press", "slide" and other operations, the position of the interaction point has changed, and since then the sound game is no longer limited to the PC side.

Today, the mobile game is still the main race track for Yinyou.

2.2.1 founder of the era of mobile games and audio games

Rhythm master

Although "Rhythm Master" has long been at the bottom of the chain of disdain for audio players, it is undeniable that "Rhythm Master" is the enlightenment of most post-90s players.

On the basis of the traditional "falling" play, the game adds a "sliding" interactive mode, including "track change keys" and "sliding in a specified direction". This makes Yinyou get rid of the two thin interactive ways of "point" and "press" in the traditional "falling style".

At the same time, the game has done some thinking on the "music library" and "difficulty". At that time, the game introduced a large number of popular music, and based on this to create a less difficult score surface, so that the game has a strong attraction to new players. However, the game also introduces some difficult music to meet the challenging needs of advanced players.

In addition, the game also introduces "Rank" settings, such as "pass-through play" for QQ friends to check their progress, and similar guild "band" functions, which more or less enhance the game's PVP and social attributes.

It should be pointed out that, perhaps because most of the music in the game is not difficult (there are also powerful characters such as "Captain Nuomi" that crazily mend leaks for players), some players who pursue challenges have also moved to "Sleeping", a post bar that can share their own scores. Through the "rhythm master" bottom play, combined with the UCG attribute of "sleep" bar, they have cultivated a considerable number of domestic "sound tour big touch".

2.2.2 the explorer of mobile audio games

But although the "rhythm master" is dazzling, there are always diligent explorers on the market. For example, "Cytus" and "Deeom" with narrative elements, "Dynimix", "Arcaea" and "Lankong Voze" with emphasis on interactive diversity, and "synchronized Meow Sike" with emphasis on visual presentation are all outstanding among them.

Cytus, Deeom (melody of Old trees)-- explorers who integrate narrative elements

The brightest thing about "Cytus" and "Deeom" is that it introduces the mode of "chapter narrative + audio tour".

Under the framework of an elevated worldview, "Cytus" has created music with its own style for each chapter (including "Saika", "Halcyon", "The Sacred Story" and so on), which tells a series of unique experiences and brings rich emotional experiences to players.

At the same time, "Cytus" has also made some explorations on interaction, such as "Scanline" play. Players need to "click" or "long press" the interaction points that the scan line passes through according to the corresponding rhythm in the scan line swinging up and down.

If "Cytus" is an experiment of Rhea, then "Deeom" is the product of the experiment. While ensuring the high-quality music library, the latter gives up exploring the interactive mode and focuses on the complete narrative presentation to make the narrative experience more smooth and natural.

The game is played in the more traditional "trackless falling style". The piano element is added to the "note" note and playing background, which also makes the singing experience closer to "piano playing". It can be said that "Deeom" is a masterpiece of music art and narrative art.

Explorers of interaction among Dynimix, Lankong Voze and Arcaea--

Compared with "Cytus" and "Deeom", "Dynimix", "Lankong Voze" and "Arcaea" focus on exploring new ways of playing audio games according to the interactive properties of mobile phones.

On the basis of "trackless falling" play, "Dynimix" boldly adopts left, bottom and right "note" direction judgment. As the melody of the music changes, the "note" note will also appear in three directions.

"Lankong Voze" has added the "changing track" design on the basis of "rail falling style". With the rhythm of the music rhythm, the position and number of the game track are constantly changing.

On the other hand, "Arcaea" combines the "height" space elements on the "falling type" of the traditional orbit, and changes the "note" type of the falling type into two different interaction modes: "ground key" and "air key".

These interactive innovations expand a new dimension of difficulty (multithreading) on the basis of interaction density and accuracy, making players feel "busy" for the first time and inspire subsequent mobile audio games that pay attention to interaction.

Synchronized Meow Sike-- the Explorer of Visual presentation

"synchronized Meow Sike" is an innovation in the visual presentation of the singing interface, but it is different from the pure visual dazzling skills of "Thumper". This work is to create different visual styles according to different musical styles on the basis of "trackless falling style".

At the same time, the game selected a large number of domestic animation two-dimensional music (for example: "9981", etc.), with a simple playing surface. In the domestic market with the rise of the two-dimensional trend, a considerable number of new players have been reaped.

With the improvement of the level of audio players, the game gradually changed its thinking and began to move forward in the direction of "hard core", and introduced a new difficulty-inferno difficulty, which brings new challenges to players.

But under the difficulty of inferno, the overly gaudy singing interface has also become the main visual burden for players to "read music".

2.2.3 the heir to a new era

After years of exploration of mobile phone audio games, the follow-up mobile phone audio games have also inherited the distinct characteristics of "predecessors". From "Lanota", which focuses on narrative and unique audio games, to "cat run", which changes the form of "falling" play, and then to "Phigros", which integrates BGA elements, audio games gradually come into public view.

Lanota-- narrative + "trackless drop" variant (washing dishes)

"Lannota" uses the "Deemo" narrative style to build a fantastic overhead world-the world is black and white and silent due to disasters, and players will play leading actors and actresses to explore maps and "tune" with music games to bring places back to life. The plots of different locations are based on story picture books of different locations. In the process of plot evolution, players can collect all kinds of props and music.

The game inserts high-quality scene animation before the final song "Devil King" in each chapter, which further enhances the atmosphere of the game and strengthens the sense of immersion.

In addition, the game has also made some innovations in the playing of audio games. Based on the "trackless falling style" play, this work incorporates the "rubbing plate" setting-the falling decision line becomes a disc, and the "note" note will appear from the center of the disc. Players need to interact in different directions according to the type of notes that "note" appears.

Generally speaking, "Lannota" is integrated into the narrative elements and attracts some light players. However, because the mode of playing audio games is more difficult and has a certain threshold for playing, the popularity of the game is not very high.

Meuss, run-"track falling style" + parkour

"Meow Fast run" follows the idea of "QQ speed of sound", combining audio games with parkour. The ingenuity of this work is that the game uses a horizontal version of parkour + playing strange, which makes it easier for non-audio players to intuitively use the game (although the nature of the game is a two-track fall).

In the music library, the game also adopts a strategy similar to that of "synchronized Meow Secret", that is, the combination of "Quadratic Yuanqu" and "Yinyou qu". At the same time, with the excellent dynamic performance of the characters in the game and some elements of "flattering the house", it became the best choice for players to enter the pit music tour at that time.

Phigros-- integrates visual presentation into interactive mode

The uniqueness of Phigros lies in its interactive mode and visual presentation. The game is still based on "trackless falling" play, but through the changeable track, the smart "note" appears and changes the rate of falling, so that the music surface not only undertakes the "simulation playing" play function, but also plays a similar BGA viewing function (a bit similar to the song of ice and fire), and the player's sense of immersion in playing songs is enhanced.

Although this play mode is very ornamental, but the unpredictable appearance of the spectrum also has a certain "backplane" requirements for players. In addition, most of the music libraries of the game are pure "music games", and this work is mainly aimed at groups of players who have a certain level of sound games.

Endless notes-- the successor of the master of rhythm

Although "endless notes" is close to "rhythm master" in play, the game pays more attention to competition.

First of all, the game removes the setting of "characters", making the confrontation of "player skills" a key factor in determining success or failure. At the same time, the game deepens the play of "qualifying" and links the ranking level to the "reward" (the higher the Rank, the more reward you get).

Secondly, the game added the "room" function, so that the "rhythm master" has been criticized "experience stand-alone" has been alleviated.

Through the above analysis of the development path of audio games on PC and Mobile platforms, we will find that sound games are gradually moving in the direction of "interactive diversification", "strengthening the sense of experience", "music library diversification" and so on.

As for the arcade, mainframe series of audio games, based on the characteristics of hardware equipment, mainly take the core play design as the core. Different devices have differences in the way they interact with each other, and there are plenty of ways to play them (for example, "Taigu Talent", "Guitar Hero" and "Dance in full swing"). This part is also one of the directions that audio games products on PC and Mobile platforms can refer to.

And the addition of the VR platform also seems to open the way to explore a new type of audio games. I believe that Rhythm Lightsaber is the beginning, not the end, of the audio game on VR platform.

3. In addition to the above-mentioned light sound games, there are also light sound games with low threshold, simple operation but different characteristics in the market. These include "Don't step on the White Block", which greatly simplifies the "falling" game, the "dancing line" that changes the form, and the "Rolling Sky 2" that pays attention to the experience.

This type is indispensable in audio games and undertakes the function of transforming audio games players.

Don't step on the white box-- the extremely concise "falling style" game.

Do not step on the white block seems simple, but in fact in the "drop style" game has done a lot of simplified design. Among them, there are "visual intuition", "reducing interaction density", "gradually increasing difficulty" and other designs:

Visual intuition: the game distinguishes interactive points and non-interactive points with contrasting "black and white" color blocks, and players can obtain "spectrum surface" information intuitively, which greatly reduces the player's "spectrum reading pressure".

Reduce the interaction density: the whole game spectrum is mainly based on a single button, which can be easily played with two fingers, without the need for multi-finger control like the traditional audio games.

Gradually increase the difficulty: because the game is not based on music, but using the way of gradually accelerating the score, constantly giving players pressure.

The line of dancing-- the backplane audio swim of single-point interaction

"Dancing Line" is somewhat similar to "Dance of Ice and Fire". It all uses a line as the carrier of the spectral surface. On the route that changes with the rhythm, the player clicks the interaction to change the direction of the "line".

With the change of the play process, the map hidden outside the paper gradually unfolds. Although the map scene changes will increase the player's "spectrum reading" pressure, but after a certain "backplane" training, and interact according to the beat, players can still more easily complete the challenge (similar to "rhythm doctor").

The Sky of the Roll-narrative RPG Voice Tour

"Rolling Sky 2" is very simple to play, players only need to swipe the screen to change the track of the character running forward, avoid obstacles, and finally reach the finish line.

However, compared with the original "Rolling Sky", the second generation pays more attention to the narrative and experience of the game. Each level of the game has its own theme, and there is an adventure story under each theme (the story of "the Little Prince" chasing his dream in a fantasy land, and the story of "fate" breaking free from the shackles of fate).

Therefore, "Rolling Sky 2" is more like an agile parkour game with rich plot, showing the plot with melodious music and delicate color pictures, in order to avoid a variety of non-dynamic and dynamic obstacles as parkour carrier. Bring players one moving story chapter after another.

Although the initial look and feel of the game is excellent, but due to the high cost of level design, the number of levels is not large. This also makes Rolling Sky 2 not very playable.

4. Will the integrated road be the future of Yingyou? In the face of the high threshold of pure tone swimming, manufacturers try to integrate sound swimming elements into other types of play, which may also be a good solution.

In fact, the category of integrated audio games has been available for a long time. "Jin Dance Troupe" and "Jin Band" are based on the integration of MMO elements, and besides "playing songs", they also provide a social platform for players.

However, with the decline in the popularity of the MMO category, a new combination has emerged in the audio-video fusion category-- the fusion card to develop a "BanG Dream!".

This kind of way to influence the score of playing songs through the cultivation and skills, to a certain extent, balances the problem that the difficulty curve of traditional tone swimming is too "hard". But like traditional music games, it is free to choose difficult songs and is restricted by nurturance factors (scoring difficult songs requires not only skill, but also character training).

In addition to the above-mentioned fusion categories based on audio games, in recent years, there have also been many types of games that integrate real-time action and audio games. For example, "rhythmic dungeon", "fast beat", "heavy metal: hell singer", "Hi-Fi Rush" and so on.

The audio game presentation of this kind of game is realized by letting the player operate the card on the corresponding time of BGM. This real-time operation of immersing in the rhythm makes the game feel good.

For example, "Rhythm Quick strike" uses the battle mode of horizontal action + audio game command; "heavy metal: hell singer" is action FPS + sound game command; and "Hi-Fi Rush" is instant action + sound game command. On the other hand, the combat play of "rhythmic dungeon" is slightly different, with a "synchronous turn system" similar to the card beat.

At the same time, the game also ensures the interest of other play attributes (Roguelike, shooting, etc.), making the experience of the game both refreshing and interesting.

However, this kind of games usually have some problems, mainly because they can not perfectly coordinate the two opposing behaviors of "rhythm instruction" and "instant operation":

1. When the player character brings into the music rhythm, facing the enemy whose action does not bring the rhythm, it will seriously damage the immersion of the rhythm experience.

two。 If the enemy also enters the player's rhythm, the too dull enemy greatly discounts the action elements of the game.

But in spite of this, these games have shown the possibility of audio games + action, especially in improving the sense of immersion, which has certain implications for audio games products. At the same time, their success more or less shows that there is great potential for play-fusion audio games.

The author believes that it is still a core problem to find a popular way of playing with sound games with "high commonness". If this problem is solved, it is really possible to make audio games popular and give rise to brand-new popular styles.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:Coreesports, author: he Yutang

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