A Dance of Fire And Ice by fizzd

[raw]
made by fizzd for LD30 (COMPO)
A one button rhythm game about hitting the breakbeat.

[POST COMPO version adds TUTORIAL LEVELS, a few bends earlier on to make the start a little less monotonous, as well as letting you go back to the menu. If you want the true competition version for fair judging, get the Dropbox version! And if you want a less steep learning curve, get the itch.io one!]
--
A planet of fire,
A planet of ice,
Eternally dancing,
Alternating the lead
So one will not
fall in the other
to make two mildly lukewarm planets. Ugh!
--


Use whichever key you see fit - though the left and right arrow keys adjust the offset.

I've tested the latencies on Mac and PC and adjusted them for each platform, but there is a chance your computer will have a different latency setting as well. Use the training area to check the latency!

About half the jam was spent trying approaches to sync movement as accurately as possible, regardless of how off the player's input is. The way I figured how to do it is, if you hit it a little early/late, the angle will jump a little to compensate for it! Thus the planets are eternally in sync with that cosmic bass drum.

Ratings

Coolness 52% 3
Overall 3.79 93
Audio 4.26 6
Fun 3.83 61
Graphics 2.72 799
Humor 2.54 413
Innovation 3.83 120
Mood 3.33 272
Theme 2.96 749

Feedback

invi
25. Aug 2014 路 02:53 UTC
I love the sick beats you have in your games. The feedback from the game was really solid and rewarding. Wish the first section was shorter though. Or at least ramp up a little faster. Very fun rhythm game :D
bladderbloat
25. Aug 2014 路 08:32 UTC
Very cool idea, would love it on mobiles!
matthias_zarzecki
25. Aug 2014 路 09:05 UTC
Ohh, that is a great puzzler-idea :D
馃帳 fizzd
25. Aug 2014 路 09:56 UTC
Thank you for the feedback guys! One thing I really do need feedback on is difficulty - did anyone beat the first level or give up? If you beat it I'd be interested to know what speed level you managed to get up to. It'll come really useful when designing more stages.

(My personal best is 1.3x!)


Also did it work fine on Windows machines, if anyone can confirm?
BinaryPie
25. Aug 2014 路 12:56 UTC
Fizzd, worked fine in Chrome on Windows for me.

Excellent game. Great job linking the gameplay/music rhythm.
Scott Baker
25. Aug 2014 路 14:09 UTC
I can't get past that first turn in the second level! Nice game, great music. Also, GoT!
LaFleur
25. Aug 2014 路 14:12 UTC
I'm awful at rhythm games, but this was so much fun!
SaintHeiser
25. Aug 2014 路 14:15 UTC
Very cool idea but too difficult for me. Also it'll be better with randomly generated level. Kinda boring to run straight line at start every time.
jpmit
25. Aug 2014 路 14:27 UTC
Great idea! Hard but fun. Well done.
ZwodahS
25. Aug 2014 路 14:28 UTC
Please make the starting segment shorter .... Other than that nice idea !
CryoGenesis
25. Aug 2014 路 14:30 UTC
This game is badass. Really cool how the movements match the music. Great job.
burgerdare
25. Aug 2014 路 14:32 UTC
This is actually a lot of fun. I feel like it would benefit immensely from having a background track with a rhythm that synced up with the ideal button press times. At least right now, it feels a little easy to get lost in the beat of the song and lose track of your button timing.
awesomeusername
25. Aug 2014 路 14:44 UTC
That was awesome. Easily 5 stars for audio.

I was so happy that I finally got to hear the song all the way through.
vividhelix
25. Aug 2014 路 17:33 UTC
Enjoyed this, I agree it would work well on a phone!
eott
25. Aug 2014 路 18:57 UTC
Great game! Like you realized, the game is a bit unforgiving, but fun nonetheless.
heterosapiens
26. Aug 2014 路 17:00 UTC
Awesome stuff! Barely managed to spam my way through the game just to listen to the awesome beats.

Although, a more forgiving-puzzly-version for non-twitchy gamers would be nice. :P
fil00dl
27. Aug 2014 路 16:37 UTC
the revival of rhythm game. awesome!
ceosol
27. Aug 2014 路 22:13 UTC
Definitely cut down the first part. A lead should be something like 8 bars. That was around 25 bars (Although I couldn't get an accurate count since you have to pay attention to get that far). The best part of the game was the turns and how it synced to the beats. I got up to the upward zigzag and finally called it quits because it took so long to get back there every time.

Love the music and game.
Hypnohustla
28. Aug 2014 路 05:56 UTC
This is a really great rhythm game. So slick. Love it :)
Nuclear Napalm
28. Aug 2014 路 16:15 UTC
Nice one! Love the beat!
Shide
28. Aug 2014 路 16:49 UTC
Really great and addictive rhythm game. Just as rhythm game should be. Great work!
mrexcessive
28. Aug 2014 路 19:13 UTC
Hi there. Amazing sounds and visuals. Great game really good job. Source code needs to be provided for the 48h competition ... Good job!
Kate Kligman
29. Aug 2014 路 03:59 UTC
Cool idea, fun to play. The audio really worked well with this.
danidre14
30. Aug 2014 路 17:12 UTC
This game is crap, it doesn't even read all key presses, although you are clearly tapping out the life of your keyboard, and/or mouse! Fix that glitch. On a side note the game was really interesting, and I almost beat it out that one time. But then the constant "wait till he reaches halfway and not read his key down, although it is not a bend, and he is pressing on time" that the game loves to do, just makes me wanna low my start even more! Just be happy I'll give you 5 and I smell your game coming in the top 100, if not the top 10, if not the top 1.
tbam
01. Sep 2014 路 04:10 UTC
Great music, brutal difficulty, great overall!
radmars
01. Sep 2014 路 05:11 UTC
Awesome, I love to see rhythm games in LD. The bends were hard to get the hang of until I heard the rhythm (good call on the tutorial for post-compo). The latency values to make it feel right were different on the title screen vs the actual game which weirded me out a bit (based on tempo maybe?) Also were the colors just random? Might be cool to have them be based on accuracy so you can potentially adjust yourself. Got up to 1.1x then I stopped btw. Nice work!
OFF
01. Sep 2014 路 05:25 UTC
Maybe the ONLY rythm'game i ever liked.
The idea of the two star is simple but create an unusual feeling compared to the "line" spirit of any rythm game.
I'm really fan of the track, and the background effect.
Real nice and fun game.
spotco
01. Sep 2014 路 10:15 UTC
That was fucking glorious.
You weren't kidding with the difficulty, after about 30 mins got about 3/4ths of the way through the song at max (before regressing and not even being able to do the intro part).

Add JPop and sparkles/special effects and I'd fund it.
Crocanti de Pollo
05. Sep 2014 路 22:57 UTC
Nice take on the rhythm genre :)
bentog
06. Sep 2014 路 20:00 UTC
As a fan of Rhythm Heaven, I say this is amazing!
bentog
06. Sep 2014 路 20:06 UTC
Also, maybe you didn't notice, but the melody really sounds like this: http://adhesivewombat.bandcamp.com/track/8-bit-adventure had to take a star away from innovation because of it :(
SnoutUp
09. Sep 2014 路 22:00 UTC
Loved this! Very well made, feels so good to get through the level.
micahcowan
10. Sep 2014 路 07:01 UTC
Very cool! The original is just way too damn hard without some introduction. The revised version obviously fixes that, but it seems like maybe the full-on level in it runs a little faster? At any rate it doesn't seem to read my keypresses as consistently on that level as either the earlier (slower) levels, or the full-on level from the original.

Music's nice, glad you gave it a little more to do during the intro sequence in the revised version. Fun game!
runvs
10. Sep 2014 路 19:00 UTC
Great Idea! Really love that concept. Please make a mobile version, this would be so great!
It works fine on windows.
klianc09
10. Sep 2014 路 20:50 UTC
Simply awesome rhythm game. Got up to 1.2x speed before I quit. My thumb is now hurting (thank you for including gamepad support). Absolutely love the music and the game.
klianc09
10. Sep 2014 路 21:17 UTC
Oh, I forgot: You should shorten that intro. At higher speeds the beginning is near impossible until the beat kicks in.

And I just completed 1.2x speed.
(...one day 1.3x ... one day...)
MaesK
10. Sep 2014 路 21:50 UTC
Very innovative considering the theme, nicely done! I would have never expected to see a rhythm game here, specially of this quality.
Sunflower
11. Sep 2014 路 09:05 UTC
Interesting entry, but the compo version was just downright evil, making player start without some prior training or something, and in both version the main song starts being audible very late, making the beginning a pain - quite often I lost on the straight path at the beginning, and at later point, once I got into rhythm, I was losing on the bends. I didn't dare to beat 0.9x version, though. >.<

Oh, and I really dislike the green/red beats in the background; they're just so intense, and make my eyes tired. Maybe reduce their alpha a bit? Like, 5 or 10 times? ^^"
lkr
11. Sep 2014 路 17:18 UTC
Fun take on music games and the compo theme :)

Would have loved to see more variation in the beat in more advanced stages! Made it to 1.1x, but it was quite difficult to keep the beat until the bass kicks in at that point, so restarting was kind of a chore.

I had great fun with the game :)
alvarop
13. Sep 2014 路 15:41 UTC
Really fun!
馃帳 fizzd
16. Sep 2014 路 12:47 UTC
Woah, broke the top 100, and #6 in audio - missed out on runner-up for audio by 0.02 points. I wasn't even sure it was going to do that! Lots to learn anyways, was a fun first game jam. Thanks for rating everyone.
BluePhoenixFireGames
23. Dec 2015 路 17:06 UTC
AMAZING! I love this game! 10/10 on everything from me!
Rustam
05. May 2017 路 10:10 UTC
Its like a having a whole card shop in your pocket! http://downloadfreesoftwareblog.ru Feature Highlights: Playlists (with random play) Thumbnails (only on devices with Android 2.