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Introducing KickBeat, a Music Combat Game for PS Vita

L

Loudninja

Member
The first thing about KickBeat that is immediately visible is its fighting theme. If you watch the old Hong Kong kung fu movies, you’ve probably noticed that the fight choreography is heavily rhythmic. We noticed that, too, and figured it would be a good theme for a beat-matching game. Combine the martial arts theme with heavy, aggressive music that goes well with punching and kicking, and you’ve got a game with a little more edge than the ones where you get jiggy to the the latest autotuned pop hit (not that there’s anything wrong with that, especially with friends and/or limited sobriety).

Second, we got rid of the bars, arrows, and button icons that other music games rely on for action cues and replaced them with fully 3D animated characters. Instead of just seeing characters in the background moving to a preset script as eye candy while the actual gameplay takes place in an abstract 2D interface, you actually control and react to those 3D characters. That means you actually get to focus your attention on what those characters are doing! As you play the game, you’re creating your own fight sequence with your button presses (or screen touches). We also even let you get rid of all the other interface parts (such as score) if you like, so that there are no distractions from the action.
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Selecting the music for KickBeat’s hard-hitting soundtrack was an equally daunting task, but very rewarding when you manage to find that perfect track or hidden gem and get a deal signed. We didn’t get every song we wanted – I really wanted the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” for example, but it didn’t work out. However, those setbacks just made us look harder to find great music in unlikely places. We ended up with 18 tracks across multiple genres (mostly drum & bass, rock, and hip-hop), from big names like Pendulum and Rob Zombie to some stuff you probably haven’t heard before. The most unusual? A track from Shen Yi, a Taiwanese rapper – yes, it’s in Mandarin, and yes, it is awesome.

We also thought it would be fun to be able to put your own music into the game – that was my favorite feature in Audiosurf. We’ve got a feature that will allow you to do just that, with no scripting on your part required – just put in a couple pieces of info, customize a couple settings to your taste, and the game creates a new level for you to play.

One other part of the game I want to mention is the story. Because we’ve put all this effort into making characters a central focus of the game, we needed to give these characters a human touch. Otherwise, they’re just animated props. Our story revolves around a lovestruck and unlikely hero drawn into a battle for control of the world’s music. It’s lighthearted fare, but we’ve done a bunch of hand drawn and fully voiced sequences that really bring the characters to life.
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http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/05/23/introducing-kickbeat-a-music-combat-game-for-ps-vita/

Video in the link.
 
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Lyphen said:
Papa Roach, Marylin Manson, P.O.D, Rob Zomie, No Thanks.
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As long as it's old Manson (up to and including Golden Age of the Grotesque) and Rob Zombie (his White Zombie albums and first solo album) I'm good with those two, while Papa Roach and P.O.D. can fuck off. If it's newer Manson and Zombie, then no thanks.
 
Now that you’ve got the basics, let me tell you a little bit more about the game’s history. It’s been around in idea form since 2006, and we started development on it in 2009 – an exciting time for me, as it’s my first original game idea to be put into production. Yep, KickBeat is my baby!
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Mortal Kombat Vita is running out of excuses. And look at how many characters are on screen.


SalsaShark said:
good answer

stupid defense force answer

i dont even own a vita, just played a bit of Uncharted on a friend's. Im genuinely asking about the graphics, c'mon now.
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Yes they are bullshots. But the video doesn't appear to be. You can see some jaggies there.
 
SalsaShark said:
stupid defense force answer
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No, stupid response to a stupid question. I just found your logic to be pretty funny.

Image quality depends on the game and the developer. And this game shouldn't be pushing the Vita too hard.

But I'm pretty sure these are bullshots.
 
I am curious about the artist choices. The combat seems to have some gracefulness to it, yet it seems like the music will be over the top.
 
There will be a demo.

Length depends on how many tries it takes you to get through each song. Plus some incentives to replay for better scores, like the score competition in our pinball games and some unlockables (the second half of the story unlocks after you finish playing through all the songs, for example, so that you can bump up the difficulty level and go through them again with fresh story scenes). We’ve also got four difficulty levels, with higher scoring potential as you go up – meaning that there are plenty of reasons to strive for mastery once you’ve got the basics down!
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Pretty interested, I love me some Rhythm games. A little weary on the soundtrack but I will wait to see how things mesh in-game before I make any judgments.
 
VanWinkle said:
I asked the creative director of the game if the game was native res and whether the screenshots were an accurate representation of the graphics, and he said:

So there you go.
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I don't care what he said, those shots are bullshots, unless the Vita can pull off some impressive SSAA now.
 
We don’t have a release date yet (we’re still finishing up the game), but we can safely say it will be this year sometime.

We’re aiming to have competitive multiplayer (I don’t want to 100% promise it just yet because it’s one of the things that, although functional right now, isn’t complete).
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Damn, this actually looks pretty badass! Though Frick all this awesome download only content lately. I mean it was cool when I lived in town with an actual REAL Internet connecion, but now that I only have a crappy satellite connection, it's almost impossible for me to access it.

Oh well, time to feed off some public Internet connection again, like the library. This is a main reason why portable systems is my gaming-style of choice right now.
 
Spiegel said:
No, stupid response to a stupid question. I just found your logic to be pretty funny.

Image quality depends on the game and the developer. And this game shouldn't be pushing the Vita too hard.

But I'm pretty sure these are bullshots.
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im comparing it to a high budget Vita game that released not too long ago, i know it depends on the developer but platforms have limitations man
 
SalsaShark said:
im comparing it to a high budget Vita game that released not too long ago, i know it depends on the developer but platforms have limitations man
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Uncharted for the Vita is notorious among Vita owners for running at a lower resolution and having poorer image quality than just about everything on the system. The actual graphics are great, just badly rendered (if that makes sense).

The game to compare image quality to is Wipeout 2048, which just looks like a bullshot in motion when playing it.
 
androvsky said:
Uncharted for the Vita is notorious among Vita owners for running at a lower resolution and having poorer image quality than just about everything on the system. The actual graphics are great, just badly rendered (if that makes sense).

The game to compare image quality to is Wipeout 2048, which just looks like a bullshot in motion when playing it.
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I know that now! given the specs i dont know how this game couldnt look close to these screens, Uncharted is the one that didnt make much sense for me and know i now why.
 
Game looks cool. I already can't stand the main character, though.
 
It is indeed "Boom".

Also, the VO for the trailer wasn't done by the actual voice actor for the character.

As far as the screenshots go, I'll have to ask the team when they get back. I'm not the best at analyzing these things...and we do have a build running on another Sony device that would lend itself to such mischief...
 
Could be cool to try with a demo first

There will be a demo.

Length depends on how many tries it takes you to get through each song. Plus some incentives to replay for better scores, like the score competition in our pinball games and some unlockables (the second half of the story unlocks after you finish playing through all the songs, for example, so that you can bump up the difficulty level and go through them again with fresh story scenes). We’ve also got four difficulty levels, with higher scoring potential as you go up – meaning that there are plenty of reasons to strive for mastery once you’ve got the basics down!
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This is good
 
As long as this is a PSN title with a development and price structure in line with proper sales expectations I can see this making money, otherwise its doomed. I don't see a big enough audience (let along VITA audience) for this type of game.
 
Alchemy said:
As long as this is a PSN title with a development and price structure in line with proper sales expectations I can see this making money, otherwise its doomed. I don't see a big enough audience (let along VITA audience) for this type of game.
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It's a PSN release. Looks like it could be fairly cool.

Edit: Pendulum in the soundtrack??? Fucking sold!!!
 
Alchemy said:
As long as this is a PSN title with a development and price structure in line with proper sales expectations I can see this making money, otherwise its doomed. I don't see a big enough audience (let along VITA audience) for this type of game.
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It's funded from the pinball slush fund. We just made it because we thought it would be cool to try something completely off the wall. Hopefully we get to do that more often - I want to make a roguelike.

And yeah, it's gonna be on PSN at the same price as every other game we've released.
 
DMPrince said:
just am able to listen to the video now.

is that the VA from Chaos War? lol just make him less interested and we have a match.
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The VA for Lee (the narrator and protagonist) wasn't available for the trailer (his lines were done months ago). So we improvised - the actual voice acting in the game is much more...professional.
 
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