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[Aytrial]

I have no idea what to do with the final boss. How do I avoid the purple spikes?

You don't avoid them, you "collect" them like you do with normal orbs: double tapping the note. Basically, you get punished for not collecting them, whereas with regular orbs there is no penalty.

It's good practice for Expert and Master as you break your combo chain if you don't collect orbs.

 

[GroundCombo]

As a rhythm game fan I bought the shit out of this as soon as the PS3 version went up. I like the music selection (I didn't expect Chinese rap, fun to hear though) and the game is quite addictive; however, I don't really like the double-tapping mechanic. It's kind of clumsy and hard on the fingers. Not sure what would be a good replacement. The upcoming notes - and especially rhythms - are also much harder to sight-read than in other music games due to the layout, though obviously that improves with practice. I suppose turning off the dynamic camera is pretty much the way to go with harder difficulty levels?

The demo song is HARD compared to the start of the actual game. Some people will probably be turned off by having their balls kicked in after the tutorial.

 

[Aytrial]

As a rhythm game fan I bought the shit out of this as soon as the PS3 version went up. I like the music selection (I didn't expect Chinese rap, fun to hear though) and the game is quite addictive; however, I don't really like the double-tapping mechanic. It's kind of clumsy and hard on the fingers. Not sure what would be a good replacement. The upcoming notes - and especially rhythms - are also much harder to sight-read than in other music games due to the layout, though obviously that improves with practice. I suppose turning off the dynamic camera is pretty much the way to go with harder difficulty levels?

The demo song is HARD compared to the start of the actual game. Some people will probably be turned off by having their balls kicked in after the tutorial.

Honestly, I wasn't too bothered by the actual input for double notes. However, what made it feel clumsy for me was that there a disconnect with the visuals as your character doesn't strike the enemy twice. As such, you don't feel like you're fighting along to the beat when double notes appear.

Turning off the dynamic camera is a must in my opinion, as I found the times when it zooms in and out with the beat distracting. Hell, I broke a lot of combo chains in with my Normal run as I lost track of notes and it messed up my timing.

Finally, reading notes becomes far easier with practice and is extremely rewarding once you get the hang of it.

 

[wilflare]

Hmm, I guess rhythm games are dead after all.

please don't think this way - I'm really enjoying this game on my Vita
I'm hoping for more songs! (not a fan of the current song selection)

 

[Open Source]

please don't think this way - I'm really enjoying this game on my Vita
I'm hoping for more songs! (not a fan of the current song selection)

It's going to have to sell better than it has so far...but if it does, I'll definitely be pushing for more music, especially in pure electronic genres (rather than the electro-rock that's the most prevalent genre in this). The good news is that DLC is much easier to get approval for, since we can afford to pay a larger amount per track than with included stuff (assuming we charge a decent amount per song).

Hopefully PC version will rescue it because I don't think it's sold even 5,000 copies yet (when it gets to the 50-75k range, then we have something to work with). We probably should have charged a lot more, since niche games need to make more per user to survive, but I was hoping that at $10 for 2 platforms, more people would impulse-buy.

 

[Open Source]

Honestly, I wasn't too bothered by the actual input for double notes. However, what made it feel clumsy for me was that there a disconnect with the visuals as your character doesn't strike the enemy twice. As such, you don't feel like you're fighting along to the beat when double notes appear.

Turning off the dynamic camera is a must in my opinion, as I found the times when it zooms in and out with the beat distracting. Hell, I broke a lot of combo chains in with my Normal run as I lost track of notes and it messed up my timing.

Finally, reading notes becomes far easier with practice and is extremely rewarding once you get the hang of it.

Yeah, the double-tap is a compromise that serves two purposes. One is that animations can't play fast enough to match both button presses. And even if they could, there are dozens of possible "start" positions that would then require hundreds of additional "double-hit" and "recover" animations. We already did an insane amount of hand-animation for the game; I can safely say that it's probably 5X or more (3D) handmade animations than in any other indie game ever. The other is that some high-energy moments in the songs aren't on the beat/halfbeat. Putting the off-beat stuff as the second tap, which is not judged for precise timing, lets us assign a tap to these moments without requiring the awkward memorization of weird offbeat timings.

I play with dynamic camera on just for the challenge and extra connection with the music. I love it when the screen shakes a little bit with heavy bass notes and such. But it's certainly easier with it off.

 

[Aytrial]

Yeah, the double-tap is a compromise that serves two purposes. One is that animations can't play fast enough to match both button presses. And even if they could, there are dozens of possible "start" positions that would then require hundreds of additional "double-hit" and "recover" animations. We already did an insane amount of hand-animation for the game; I can safely say that it's probably 5X or more (3D) handmade animations than in any other indie game ever. The other is that some high-energy moments in the songs aren't on the beat/halfbeat. Putting the off-beat stuff as the second tap, which is not judged for precise timing, lets us assign a tap to these moments without requiring the awkward memorization of weird offbeat timings.

Yeah, I completely understood the compromise from a design perspective, but it's one that certainly allowed for some impressive animations! I really appreciate the effort you guys put into creating fluid transitions for each action. It really makes quick and successfully combo chains satisfying.

 

[wilflare]

It's going to have to sell better than it has so far...but if it does, I'll definitely be pushing for more music, especially in pure electronic genres (rather than the electro-rock that's the most prevalent genre in this). The good news is that DLC is much easier to get approval for, since we can afford to pay a larger amount per track than with included stuff (assuming we charge a decent amount per song).

Hopefully PC version will rescue it, because I don't think it's sold even 5,000 copies yet (when it gets to the 50-75k range, then we have something to work with). We probably should have charged a lot more, since niche games need to make more per user to survive, but I was hoping that at $10 for 2 platforms, more people would impulse-buy.

I really hope this doesn't put you off the Vita as a viable platform

 

[Open Source]

I really hope this doesn't put you off the Vita as a viable platform

We've done pretty well with pinball on Vita, and I think the Vita version of KickBeat is actually outselling the PS3 version (in terms of which version actually gets purchased - obviously, Cross Buy makes it a moot point in the end), though that's a very low bar. So no plans to abandon the Vita. But I don't think we'll be building games specifically for it like we did with KickBeat.

 

[witchedwiz]

As a rhythm game fan I bought the shit out of this as soon as the PS3 version went up. I like the music selection (I didn't expect Chinese rap, fun to hear though) and the game is quite addictive; however, I don't really like the double-tapping mechanic. It's kind of clumsy and hard on the fingers. Not sure what would be a good replacement. The upcoming notes - and especially rhythms - are also much harder to sight-read than in other music games due to the layout, though obviously that improves with practice. I suppose turning off the dynamic camera is pretty much the way to go with harder difficulty levels?

The demo song is HARD compared to the start of the actual game. Some people will probably be turned off by having their balls kicked in after the tutorial.

Same..
Huge rhytm games addicted, i like kickbeat but doubletapping feels somewhat disconnected from the rhytm..
Good game apart from that!

 

[GroundCombo]

After finishing Lee's story on Normal and getting my ass thoroughly kicked by the first song on Hard, the double-tap mechanic isn't really a big concern anymore. Instead, I completely fail at reading the rhythm without the button hints. This might be a personal issue, but I'm usually pretty damn good at sight-reading other music games and this one just seems impossible. The spacing of the enemies is too nebulous to give a good indication of off-beat notes. I'll give it some more time, but it really isn't working for me right now.

 

[Rasec]

Really hope the game sells well and the pc version helps.
I bought this game on the moment it came out.

Really been and awesome and kinda hard ride xD.
Liked the animation you did and the story bits for it. Really made me feel more attatched to the characthers.

 

[wilflare]

We've done pretty well with pinball on Vita, and I think the Vita version of KickBeat is actually outselling the PS3 version (in terms of which version actually gets purchased - obviously, Cross Buy makes it a moot point in the end), though that's a very low bar. So no plans to abandon the Vita. But I don't think we'll be building games specifically for it like we did with KickBeat.

dang as a predominantly Vita gamer, this is sad news still :/
hmm. how are the games across EU/NA? is the game out in Asia/JP? I would think Asia/JP are bigger fans of such games (especially if matched with the right songs!)

 

[Open Source]

After finishing Lee's story on Normal and getting my ass thoroughly kicked by the first song on Hard, the double-tap mechanic isn't really a big concern anymore. Instead, I completely fail at reading the rhythm without the button hints. This might be a personal issue, but I'm usually pretty damn good at sight-reading other music games and this one just seems impossible. The spacing of the enemies is too nebulous to give a good indication of off-beat notes. I'll give it some more time, but it really isn't working for me right now.

There aren't any off-beat enemies. They're all on beats and half-beats. So listening to the music will help with timing. The learning curve from Normal->Hard is about the same as when first picking up the game. It just takes some getting used to focusing on the enemy positions rather than on the buttons on the ground.

 

[Open Source]

dang as a predominantly Vita gamer, this is sad news still :/
hmm. how are the games across EU/NA? is the game out in Asia/JP? I would think Asia/JP are bigger fans of such games (especially if matched with the right songs!)

Japanese localization is just such a pain that it's not on the radar right now. And we're not going to redo the music licensing. That was even more of a pain.

 

[wilflare]

Japanese localization is just such a pain that it's not on the radar right now. And we're not going to redo the music licensing. That was even more of a pain.

music-licensing is definitely a pain :/
hope you consider Asia though! games like DJ max etc are very popular here so Kickbeat should do well

there's no need to translate to Japanese (i think) for the Asia region, english should be just fine (may just need Chinese)

 

[Lesiroth]

A friend of mine just got this on PS3 two days ago, and he's been bugging me to check it out ever since. Gonna check out the demo in a bit, but I'd love to know if you guys are planning DLC in the future for other music genres to add some variety.

 

[Open Source]

Man, we needed reviewers to review this game professionally and equitably for the game to do well, and they really blew it. 1-2 hours on the easiest difficulty isn't enough to understand the game (or to get the brain to make the transition from the abstract cues they are used to in other rhythm games to 3D animated characters as cues), yet that's all that the large majority of reviewers giving negative reviews played it. And unfortunately, most of the positive reviews aren't on Metacritic, and most of the negative ones are.

And so instead of giving the game credit for innovating in visual feedback in a rhythm game, they criticized it for not being a fighting game (seriously, IGN) or for the visual feedback being too noisy for them to handle. Well, yeah, it's a rhythm game that adds visual noise to the information signal just like every other type of video game does. That's going to make it harder at first, just like it would be hard to play Madden if every football game you'd played up to that point used nothing but 2D Xs and Os for the players. That doesn't mean that Madden's inferior; quite the opposite. You just need to play enough for it to click - which means EXTRA time playing the game for your review, rather than less time.

And the soundtrack criticisms don't square with how other indie music games are judged. Games with generic electronica, j-pop, etc. and shorter soundtracks have no complaints from reviewers, yet for some reason they obsess about the 4 or so older songs in the game and go on endlessly about how anything older than 5 years can't be used in a game because it's old. What.

So frustrating. Reviewers should be smart enough to understand this, but it's mostly just a bunch of derping from people who obviously wanted to be playing GTA V instead.

 

[Cheddahz]

I just thought I would post in here, since the Steam version is coming out tomorrow and I plan on getting it (and I hope some other people decide to pick it up as well)

 

[ambientmystic]

I just thought I would post in here, since the Steam version is coming out tomorrow and I plan on getting it (and I hope some other people decide to pick it up as well)

It's out now, it has its own Steam page and everything.

Some further impressions to come from others, especially when it comes to the PC enhanced features perhaps?

Might be getting it if it's well optimized for the PC, but looking at those min requirements on the Steam page it seems like older potato laptops like mine should be able to handle it nicely.

 

[ambientmystic]

Sorry for the double post, but I just picked this up.

Performance-wise the game runs smooth as butter on my ancient 4.5 year old Core 2 Duo laptop with an ATI Mobilty Radeon HD 4670 at 1080p60 lol. I can even throw in some AA, but for a timing critical game like this consistent 60 FPS is everything, so the dips that come when I enable AA are unacceptable.

Optimization is spectacular, no doubt about that, kudos on the team for the splendid port.

The game itself is quite difficult even at Normal mode for me (using a 360 pad here), but then again the only experience I've ever had with this genre is the Project Diva games, which provide a much more simpler visual feedback system for the button presses. This game demands your total attention, especially aurally; it gives as good as it gets.

I've played a few stages of the story mode so far, and it's been a blast. The songs are rather okayish so far, I look forward to experiencing the more fast paced ones when I get to them.

If Open Source (the dev) is still around, gratz to you on your team for taking the chance at something different in the genre, and bringing this game over to Steam. Hope the sales pick up, I heard it didn't do so well on the Vita/PS3 previously.

Oh and for your own sanity, disable the Dynamic Camera. At least until you've gotten good at the game, it makes it so much easier to focus on what's actually going on.

 

[wilflare]

hope the release on Steam gives the game the much deserved attention

 

[Jay Shadow]

Tried it for the first time today on Steam.

Beat Your Music is unfortunately glitchy but they're working to fix it. As it stands now they hit you a lot in between the beats you define instead of on them. Regular solo play is solid though. Hopefully custom music is fixed soon.

 

[Vinnk]

I see that Kickbeat: Special Edition is out on the Wii U now.

So what was the consensus on this game? It looks like a blast.

Also how is the Wii U port? I can't seem to find much info about it. I am hoping it will use the gamepad touch feature well.

Seems it is also out on PS4 now and Xbox One soon.

Sorry to bump an old topic.

 

[Vinnk]

Well I bought it. It's pretty fun, but also really hard. I am kinda weak-sauce on these games but I'm enjoying it.

Anyone else?