Interakt Inspiration
Interakt: a multiplayer collaborative rhythm game
Interakt is a multiplayer immersive arcade game designed by Alex Greenwood and me. Up to 4 players have to cooperate and compete at the same time to master rhythm challenges with auditory and visual cues.
Interakt can be used as a fixed arcade installation or as a stand-alone app for iOS. It relies on the Unity game engine coupled with Ableton Link for wireless music sync and FMOD for generative music. A touch screen or any standard MIDI controller can be used as a game pad. A wireless version with iPhone pads was also designed. All input methods can be mixed and matched.
Four players have to cooperate in order to keep a central sphere from expanding and finally outgrowing the play field. The game ends when the end of a level is reached or when the sphere overtakes the players.
Random rhythmic patterns
Besides the collaborative aspect, the originality of the game lies in the generation of random rhythmic patterns. The linearity is broken during gameplay because all players have to solve their individual random rhythmic puzzles and still manage together to prevent the sphere from expanding. This demo video shows a fast-moving game session with only one player actively engaged:
Different types of music games
Music games can broadly be categorized1 as either rhythm action games or electronic instrument games. Frequency (2001) or Rhythm Tengoku (2006) are good examples of the first category of games, the most famous being Guitar Hero. Many clones appeared along the way, with less mainstream2 artist choices:
Electronic instrument games are games that:
“generate music and put the game principle outside the realm of rewarding points and clear winner or loser conditions”.3
Electroplankton (Nintendo, 2005) is a prime example:
