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Beat 2 Beat (2023)
Game Genre
Beat em' Up
Role
Lead Designer
About this game
Beat 2 Beat is a 2D side-scroller Beat em’ Up with a 64-bit Pixel Artstyle that uses music genres as a concept.
Each of the characters, bosses and stages would be heavily based on a music genre.
Players will play as both Rokku (Genre: Rock) and R3VU (Genre: EDM) who witnessed a mist of dark musical energy taking over their city.
Both of them decided to team up and save their city by getting rid of the dark musical energy.
Software Used:
Ableton
Google Docs
Design Process
This was made during our Game Project Studies 1, taking place during Semester 4.
We were tasked to make a game with a team with the theme of "THIS IS SICK!".
My perspective for "THIS IS SICK!" is something flashy and cool, so me and my team decided to make a beat 'em up game that has a few interesting points:
- 64-bit Pixel Artstyle
​- Characters and Bosses are based on Music Genres
- Unique Skill for playable characters
- Character Swap System
- Ambush Event
- Music Takeover System
Ambush System
Aside from the game's theme, we also needed to pick a design aspect for our game. As for this game, I decided to go for Sudden Chaos. This is where the Ambush System, which is a feature where tons of enemies surround the players during the gameplay, makes the players fight their way out. This feature will come into play as we are the players to feel a sudden panic halfway through the game.
Music Takeover System
Since this is a beat em' up game based on music genres, the plan for the Music Takeover System is where at the start of the levels, the background music will start from the enemies' respective music genre. But as the game progresses, the background music will gradually transition into the playable character's respective genre.
Since the game is about the characters saving the city from dark musical energy, I wanted to make the players feel the mood changes for the game and also want to let them know that they are close to beating the game. As well as giving the game a little bit of a narrative element. Hence the implementation of this system.
During this phase, I started 2 types of mockups for the game, one for the UI and the Level Layout. As well as Game Flow Diagram and Gameplay Loop.
UI Mockups
Level Layouts
Game Flow Diagram
Tutorial Flow Diagram
Stage 1 Flow Diagram
Core Gameplay Loop
The goal for this game is simple, the player will start from the beginning of the stage, and they have to go through a bunch of enemies to reach the end of the stage. To do that, they will have to fight the enemies and the bosses using their skills and their ultimate. When the player reach to the end of the stage, they'll clear the game and proceed to the next stage.
Stages
The game contains a total of 2 stages, each stage will be based on a music genre, that also includes the enemies and as well as the boss.
- Tutorial Stage (Hip Hop)
- Stage 1 (Japanese Oriental)
Tutorial Stage is where the game will teach and guide the players about the overall game mechanics, the controls, the swap system, and the ambush event. This level's theme will be based on the street and ghetto theme.
Stage 1 will be the first and the final stage of the game due to the lack of time to add in more stages for this project. This level's theme will be a Japanese theme and as well as including a boss at the end of the stage.
Enemies
There will be 2 types of enemies, enemy 1 and enemy 2
Enemy 1 will be an enemy that is tanker and has more health, however, it will deal less damage to the players compared to enemy 2, which has lesser health but it deals higher damage to the players. Hence enemy 2 will be holding a weapon in the game.
Boss
As for the boss, I wanted to make it a unique boss that doesn't work like how bosses will usually executed in your typical Beat 'em' Up game. I wanted to include a sense of bullet hell inside of the boss battle. This is because of the inspiration from the Japanese game Touhou. I think it will be interesting if the players will have to dodge the boss' attack while beating the boss.
Aside from mapping out how the game should be, I also composed the BGM for the game. You can listen to the soundtrack here:
https://kai-music-room.bandcamp.com/album/beat-2-beat-original-soundtrack-collection
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