Interesting. Could have used a quick what's happening text. Although discovering what the game was about was a bit fun, I almost stopped prematurely because of the "annoying" sounds I didn't know that I was making.

Didnt really understand it at first, but seems to be a refreshing concept.

Thread-1" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Line unsupported: interface SourceDataLine supporting format PCM_SIGNED 44100.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, big-endian

just fyi, the sound format you used does not work across all platforms in java, it's an unsupported extension.

It still runs otherwise but i honestly have no idea what to do, i can move things around but no idea.

Sorry, without sound there's not too much to the game.

What platform are you on? I hadn't seen any problems when testing OSX 10.6, Windows XP, and linux mint alsa + jack.

I'm using Beads for audio (which in turn appears to use Tritonus) through Processing.

http://www.beadsproject.net/
http://www.tritonus.org/
http://www.processing.org/

I couldn't figure out what to do.

I know it's more a toy than a game but it was loads more innovative than most platformers out there. I also liked the drawings and the background space-y music.

I found it a bit hard to understand what the game was about, but once I got the hang of it, it was fairly interesting to play

Can't figure out what to do exactly; is the point to just make random noises? If someone could point out the goal, I'll give it another go! Thanks!

Can't figure out what to do exactly; is the point to just make random noises? If someone could give a small hint, I'll give it another go! Thanks!

Well that was... interesting :P.

I had very little idea what was going on, all I eventually realised was that you seem to be effectively making loops by setting the robots on paths. I think in order for that to work though, it needs a lot more GUI elements, otherwise the player gets very confused, very quickly.

Very cool, on the whole though. The innovation, nice audio and nice graphics certainly helped

Audio is crackly on OSX. Interesting idea extracting gameplay out of a sequencer, but it's not much of a game at the moment.

Really interesting concept, but I don't think that the total absence of a tutorial or a small intro to the game is a good idea. I took the time to explore until I found what the controls did and I managed to create a bizarre melody with the automated robots, but I think most people won't take the time. I think that the initial effort may result not funny for some people. But it is ok if you intended to do something more experimental.

Thank you to everyone for the feedback.

@dukope: Could you let me know your hardware specs + java version? I tested OSX on a MacBook Pro and an older MacBook and it worked well enough.

@Raptor85: Following up, I tried switching to the PulseAudio drivers on linux mint and while the sound still played it did break up/get crackly.

I am not altogether happy with the performance of the audio library I am using (Beads), though chances are good I am not using it in the most efficient way.

Thus in a future version of tr-3012 I will be removing the sample playing functionality from the game itself and will instead send MIDI & OSC events to an external program for rendering the audio.


@Monkey Armada, @noddy2006, @dagothig, @spilth, @SidetrackGames, @liger13: Since this is more of a toy/instrument and less a game, I thought that the element of discovery might make it more interesting. The trade-off is that people may be confused/frustrated; thanks for your feedback.


@R3ason: Yeah, that is pretty much the point. I have always wanted to try non-traditional ways of sequencing drum machines/other electronic music.

I'm able to switch between robots and move about, but I don't hear any sound at all. I'm on Ubuntu. Is sound essential to figuring out the game? If so I may not be able to do this. Here's the error I get:


Exception in thread "Thread-1" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Line unsupported: interface SourceDataLine supporting format PCM_SIGNED 44100.0 Hz, 16 bit, stereo, 4 bytes/frame, big-endian
at com.sun.media.sound.DirectAudioDevice.getLine(DirectAudioDevice.java:157)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO.setupOutputJavaSound(Unknown Source)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO.access$100(Unknown Source)
at beads.JavaSoundAudioIO$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Apparently sound is the magic to make this work, but I didn't get any. (OSX). Also, this spun my CPU into serious overdrive.

This game lacks a bit of visual feedback and perhaps a tutorial. On the other hand, once I started to make sense of the robots roles I had fun improvising some beats. The concept deserves to be developed further! A daring entry!

Weird little synthesizer toy. Might have been nice to have something besides percussion.