Hyper Beat Engine by hypersnow

High-speed racing to the beat!
Please report any bugs from other versions - only tested on Windows.
How to play:
Use Space to hit a pulse when it reaches your heart to speed up. Hold down Space to use boost if you have any (meter to the right). Use the Left and Right arrow keys to turn, and follow the Up and Down arrow key prompts at the bottom to generate more boost.
Changelog:
New build with rhythm and camera fixes has been uploaded.

Ratings
| Overall | 15th | 4.132⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 44th | 3.934⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 36th | 4.132⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 42th | 4.289⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 99th | 3.921⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 23th | 4.041⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 58th | 3.729⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 4🗨️ |
The only things that annoyed me a bit were that the beat seemed of by a small margin, which gave me the need to look at the bar all the time instead of feeling the beat.
Great job, you've made a lovely game!
Yet, I will pick out some things I didn't like:
What is the point of having separate missions and time trials? I would be much more happy if there were just the two tracks, each with medals you can earn.
I think the game was a bit too much zoomed in to see anything useful on the track. I was looking just at the minimap whenever I wanted to see the track.
Very long respawn time. Time trial games like these absolutely need one button restart.
Also, bumping into walls was very frustrating, in the way it kind of steered me into wrong direction. I would want (and expect) them to just slow me down!
I guess the most important part of a (50%) rhythm game is audio and you really nailed that. I has a nice untz beat to it. I'm also a sucker for vector-style graphics, you really went the extra mile with that, I love the design of the ship and the particles. There were a lot of nice details hidden here and there too, like being able to control the ship at the title screen, I only noticed that after the fourth or so time.
One thing I would maybe note is that the beat counter and the boost arrow keys felt too far removed from each other. The main difficulty when going for the boost was - for me at least - moving my eyes away from the beat counter and the road. Though I'd take that with a grain of salt, maybe it was only me.
So yeah, the gameplay is really unique, I keep trying to think of whether I've seen something similar before, but the best I can come up with is a part in Space Channel 5, but that was hardly a racing game. A great job on all fronts.
Anyway, are you going to continue working on it? It'd sure make nice game with more tracks!
I'm impressed by the main menu though :P it's awesome.
The gameplay was really fun, you nailed the music sync so you can just hit spacebar to the beat (only listening) and watch the road
Congrats on the entry
I think this could be taken further into a solid indie title, would be rad if there were some more interesting rhythm patterns and ai racers to compete against.
It's nice to play a very polished game made in this short time :)
@TwinGhosts There was a bug with the rhythm, it's fixed in the newest build.
@BoltKey Originally there were supposed to be AI racers in the missions, but I ran out of time. I uploaded a new build with camera fixes, but I'd definitely like to fix the other issues you noted in a post-jam version.
@Eiyeron @Royerson Looking back, I'd like to integrate the up/down presses into the beat somehow. Though I have another project, I wouldn't mind revisiting this one and adding such mechanics in the future.
EDIT: To see my live thoughts, check out this recording of the livestream [here](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/253875862).
With some more development this could be a really great release. Bring back the good ol Wipeout days!
There is also a moment when you forget that you actually have a vehicle to drive.
Glorious!! Partly you also have the feeling you have to shoot down some red stuff.
Keep it up!!