Music Monsters

Concept: Imbue a prototype creature (Zyk) with characteristics and abilities based upon thirty seconds of MIDI data, then release the creature into a level and control his newfound abilities to reach checkpoints ranked by difficulty.

Two modes:

1. Normal: Restricted to one key (user chosen), quantizing notes (to the 1/16), chord hotkeys. User may be able to turn these off if we get those controls in.

2. Expert: Full “virtual piano”, no restrictions. Should be able to handle a MIDI keyboard.

Alternating Stages:

• Training - Player inputs the MIDI data and transforms Lio (Creature’s name)
• Exploration - Player releases Lio into the level and controls him through it to reach checkpoints

Trainable Zyk Traits:

Part of gameplay is discovering which aspects of music affect which traits. After the player activates certain traits through music, they’ll get a list of correlations in their “Memos” section. This can be viewed at any point in time. Knowledge of all traits won’t be necessary, as levels will have multiple means of completion.

• Attitude (determines core statistics for a Zyk)
• corresponds to minor vs. major key
• expressed by the Zyk’s facial expression (major=upbeat, minor=mellow)
• Weight (determines if Zyk can walk over sparsely covered holes)
• corresponds to chords used vs melody
• expressed by the size of the Zyk
• Speed (how fast the Zyk can move/run)
• corresponds to type of note used (IE eight/sixteenth notes)
• expressed by the wag of the Zyk’s tail/ears + feet
• Sneak (can the Zyk sneak past enemies or does he wake them up)
• corresponds to density of notes played
• expressed by the Zyk's opacity
• Ferocity (can the Zyk intimidate enemies)
• corresponds to number/percent of notes played out of key
• expressed by the size of the Zyk’s eyes/ears
• Toughness (how well can the Zyk stand up to attack IE HitPoints)
• corresponds to the amount of repeated patterns in the piece
• expressed by the texture of the Zyk (possibly has a shell?)
• Jump (how high can the Zyk jump)
• corresponds to number/percent of notes played in the upper range
• expressed by the size of the Zyk’s wings
• Dive (how deep can the Zyk dive)
• corresponds to number/percent of notes played in the lower range
• expressed by number of gills/tail on the Zyk
• Attack (how much damage can the Zyk inflect)
• corresponds to the average interval between notes
• expressed by size of claws/arms
• Color (what color is the Zyk)
• corresponds to key the player uses
• expressed by the color of the Zyk

Special

• Infinite Flight - Unlimited Jump/Dive
• Play only arpeggios
• Wings grow to Max size (And maybe glitter or do something cool)
• Projectile Rainbow - Unlimited Attack/Ferocity
• Play a chromatic scale
• Shoot out rainbows in front of you
• Flower Blossom - Unlimited Sneak/Speed
• Stay in a Pentatonic key (Use only five notes)
• Flower petals follow you everywhere (If we have particles, else flower petal stamped on belly or something — Care Bear style!)
• Dragon Scales - Unlimited Weight/Toughness
• Play a whole tone scale
• Texture of creature gets scales.

Negative Feedback

• Affects a Trait called "Irritation"
• The higher the Irritation, the less the Zyk will listen
• Irritation is expressed by the Zyk (twisting ears, folding them down, wincing)
• If Irritation maxes out, the Zyk transforms into an evil block (a cube, with evil eyes)
• Note Duration
• If notes faster than 1/16 are played for more than 2 beats
• Chord Density
• If more than 5 notes are played at a time
• Tritones
• If notes are played together that are 6 half-notes apart
• Half-Note Intervals in Chords
• If simultaneous notes played are right next to each other (1 half note apart)

Level Design

• Victory condition
• Different Ranked Checkpoints:
• Gray (very easy [-1 renown])
• White (easy [0 renown])
• Red (medium [1 renown])
• Blue (hard [2 renown])
• Gold (very hard [3 renown])
• Diamond (all but impossible [5 renown])
• For every 10 points of renown,
• As a scientist, you must gain a certain level of renown [50] to win the game. Renown is gained by gathering the different colored flags. This means that levels would be replayable (but only after the player has completed the full subset of levels).
• Appearance
• 3D side scroller.
• Level editor with fixed items/objects/backgrounds/tiles that can be placed
• Levels should be very varied - vertical motion, horizontal motion, extremes of each
• Different Areas: Inverted Pine Forest, Mountain/Cave, Cloudscape, Under Icebergs, Red Desert
• Level progression is semi-linear but with branching paths that then coalesce at the end. This allows for more specialized levels based on certain traits.
• Items
• Boards: These correspond to weight and speed (The Zyk walks over them and they break). 5 different types, rotted to various extents, correspond to how quickly they break under certain weights.
• Walls: These correspond to attack power (The Zyk lashes out against them with his fangs). 5 different types, decayed to various extents, correspond to how easily they can be broken down.
• Boulders: These correspond to toughness (The Zyk turns around and pushes against them with his back). 5 different types, of different sizes, correspond to how firm one must be to push against them and make them roll.
• Monsters
• Upalok: These are our bird-eating monsters. They are dull and dim-witted, but also about the size of trees. They look straight up in hopes of catching their bird prey, but despise being disturbed. Depending on size of the Upalok, the Zyk may be able to sneak passed without being noticed. As soon as the Upalok hears the Zyk, it will devour it.
• Iyabol: These are round balls with a single stalk-mounted eyeball, the rest of their body occupied by a gnashing maw. Iyabols are incredibly hard to fight by strength alone, but depending on how many of them there are at once, they can be intimidated. (The fewer there are together, the easier to intimidate)
• Slohta: This creature looks like whatever Melissa wants it to look like. It can't be intimidated because it's a lazy bum, but luckily it's susceptible to attacks depending on its size.
• Nurran: This creature has a fin that runs the length of its body. Its favorite attack is to coil into a ball and roll after its prey at high speeds, grinding back and forth over their bodies until they’re destroyed. The best way to handle these creatures is to run. Fast. Very fast . There are different sized Nurrans, the smallest being the fastest.
• Sulger: A sulger has an enormous flat head that it loves to ram into everything it sees. If you’re tough enough to withstand the initial bash, the Sulger normally manages to knock itself out in the process of trying to run you over.
• Kinsin: Kinsin are flat, gelatinous monsters. If you’re heavy enough, you can just squish them into the ground and watch them dissipate. If you’re not, walking over these guys is a very, very unpleasant experience as they tend to bubble up and burn away corrosively at flesh.

What is MIDI?: MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) records the duration, intensity, and frequency of a musical note as raw data that can be used towards many other outlets beyond the creation of sound.

Detailed Game Progression:

The game opens up with a vocoder (digitized human voice) introducing the player (“you”) to IRAIL (The Institute for Researching Aurally Intelligent Lifeforms). As a new recruit to IRAIL, the instructor explains your duties as part of the on going research in the institute. These instructions will be part of a trial level, and outline the basic schematics of game play.

First, the player is introduced to Zyks, the race of lifeforms in question at the institute. Zyks have a strange relation to music, and exposure to different musical properties mutates the Zyks’ physical and mental traits. Here the player might see a series of different mutated Zyks and hear the ‘themes’ that created them. After this explanation the player sees Lio, their own personal AILIOR (Aurally Intelligent Lifeform in On-going Research). This will be the main screen of the first stage of the game “Training.”

Training: During this stage of the game, the player has the opportunity to shape their Zyk, “Lio”, however they wish through the use of MIDI input based on a com-keyboard schematic (or actual music-keyboard). The player is given a background beat/drum track, and then will play along (hopefully in time).

The player has thirty seconds to introduce their character to a brief ‘theme’. At any point in time, the player can edit or retract the notes that they’ve played, reverting Lio to the state he was in before he heard them. As the player creates the notes, they will be quantized (To the nearest 1/16 in easy mode, or 1/32 in expert) so that during playback all of the notes will be on the beat and in rhythm. In consequent levels, the player will have the option of starting off with an entirely blank Zyk, or adding more themes to Lio to further advance his statistics (recommended).

The screen will be set so that the upper half contains the image of the Zyk (preferably transforming in real time, though this may not be feasible). The lower half of the screen is divided into two parts. The higher part will be a list of “Registered Traits” that the Zyk has understood (for instance, the different chords, rhythms, keys, intensities, or frequencies). The lower part will be a score which shows the notes the player inputs. It will also, on the EASY mode, have a scrollable wheel which will show the key the player wants, if he/she wishes to map that onto the ASDFGHJKL row of the com-keyboard (for ease of use).

Once the player has the Zyk they’re happy with (Thirty seconds of MIDI data will be accepted), they ‘eject’ the Zyk into the environment, beginning the second stage of the game.

Exploration: The second stage of the game involves controlling Lio through levels in a more typical gaming style. Levels expand and then coalesce in this pattern:

Ideally, there would only be perhaps three commands. Of course, these commands would have been influenced by the MIDI input. The general scheme would be as follows:

“Jump/Dive” – This command would handle the vertical direction of the Zyk. A jump, or a dive into water possibly. (W/S)

“Attack” – This command would handle interactions with other hostile creatures in the environment. (A)

“Special” – This command would be reserved for unique abilities the Zyk adopted from the music input. (D)

On top of this, there would be the typical left/right controls. (ß,à)

Sample Walkthrough: The player begins on a small platform. Beneath them and in plain sight is a gray flag. This is the “failure flag”. Players who get to this flag lose one point of renown, and cannot continue on their path as long as they have a gray flag in any level. The gray flag appears in the event a player is simply unable to reach any other flag.

In front of the player to the left is a successive row of holes, each of which is covered by boards of different thickness. The player can go as far as possible, and when their weight is more than what the board can handle, or if their speed is such that they can’t run fast enough to get off the board when it breaks, then they will fall down and get access to a separate part of the level. This set might be divided based on enemies. The general approach for levels is that they will have several possible branches, each of which will end in flags relevant to how difficult or advanced the Zyk had to be to get there.

End Condition: 50 points of Renown. The player has the ability, while advancing through the levels, to return and play old levels. However, when old levels are played, the player will NOT get to go through the Training stage again. Instead, they can simply use any newly acquired traits from other levels. If the player unlocks a different branch on a second play through, then any new level will have the Training stage. Also, the player cannot count more than one checkpoint from any given level. The highest checkpoint of all play throughs will be considered when calculating renown.