Comments on: Thoughts on Elite Beat Agents

By: Craig Perko

Craig Perko — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:17:00 +0000

I disagree completely. When I see music, it isn’t linear. Many people feel the same way.

By: A

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:52:00 +0000

On the other hand, I'd argue that music is a primarily linear experience, so the best medium for interacting with it should be mostly linear. The only way to get meaningful multi-dimensionality out of a rhythm game, it seems to me, would be to shift tracks (which Amplitude does) or actually be shifting songs as well as tracks. But that would undoubtedly be too jarring an experience to get past the interesting gameplay.

It's the same experience I've found when taking any linear medium and trying to make it nonlinear: to make it work you have to either dumb it down to the point where it's so simple it's no longer interesting, or so radically mutilate it that it's difficult to enjoy.

By: Craig Perko

Craig Perko — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:19:00 +0000

I should have been clearer about why I wanted you to play it: I didn't want you to play it because it was an awesome game or broke new ground. I wanted you to try it out because it approaches from a different direction:

Where Frequency is functionally a few groups of one-dimensional tracks, Ouendan is a true two-dimensional situation. It maps the song's rhythms onto a much "deeper" space than Frequency does, even though the interaction is much reduced.

It produces, in my mind, a much more refined melding of space and rhythm than Frequency, which focuses entirely on rhythm. Space is very important to me, because it's how I think. To me, Ouendan is a better game because the play more directly taps into my brain.

I won't claim it's better or worse overall, but it does have some cards up its sleeve that Frequency wasn't dealt. And that's stuff I can learn from!