I think you did a really great job! I'm playing on a five year old laptop, and I didn't feel any lag or slowdown. I really like what you did with the music in this game, with your attacks changing pitch to match the chord. My only complaint is that the game feels a lot slower than it actually is, if that makes any sense. Like, the game itself is fine, but the enemies move too slowly towards you. Like there's *too much* time to prepare. Maybe I got used to the hyperspeed mode in Guitar Hero...

I didnt quite understand the game. I never more than one hit before "GAME OVER", even tho imo I hit the timings well. It could benefit from being a lot fewer "nodes" in the beginning. Lovely entry tho!

Funny little game, run smooth on my computer so maybe the game is a little too fast.

The only little thing is it is hard to enjoy it if you only have one life so maybe give the player 2 at the beggining and a bonus on perfects or something like that ?

Music is cool buy the way :)
Good job !
If you wanna try some bad ass metal concert do not hesitate to take a look at my game :D

I like the idea, but man, this is WAAAY too hard right now for me! A few suggestions if I might.

1) I'd make the SDFJKL letters clearer somehow, or at least mention them in the description or title screen - took me ages to figure out those were the keys I was meant to press.

2) make the lanes visually clear - once I'd figured out the inputs, I struggled to know which key to press until it was pretty much too late.

3) Ramp up the difficulty - to ease players in, it would be really helpful to start with only, say, 3 or 4 keys actually in use, and bring the remaining ones in over time.

4) Make spacebar restart or something once you die - having to move my hands to the mouse and then re-find the SDFJKL keys before getting hit by the first note really hindered me getting used to the controls.

5) More lives! It's frustrating to die so easily, and again, only getting 3 seconds of gameplay before dying gets in the way of players getting used to the controls.

Apologies if that all sounds harsh - it's not meant to be! I genuinely like what you've got and I'd love to be able to actually play it :)

Thanks for the responses guys!
@Lyje - It's not harsh, thank you for the criticism and I will take your suggestions into consideration :)
@GoZz - I'll look at it!
@niterich @taviandir - Thank you for the feedback, I will try to improve it in the future

5 out of 5 kabayan 😁. Cool game!!!

Very cool game! Awesome graphics, music and audio management! Nice menu screen and transitions! Like said @Lyje, it's not so clear to understand the right timing to press the keys, however very good job!!

@mic_matrix91 Thanks for the feedback and for playing!

Cool game, stylish and pretty darn polished (slick menus!) for the time you had. I'd say make it a little easier for the jam, or have multiple difficulty levels. When it comes to a jam like this people have very little time to play your game so if they get frustrated quickly they'll give up and move on (I may have made that same mistake myself). But other than that, really well done, man! Good work!

@larryseinfeld Thank you for playing it! Aprreciate it man :smile:

This is really sick to be able to do that in only 48h, 3D graphics and audio are great and the idea for the gameplay is smart. You did all the hardest part, it's sad that you didn't have more time to polish the gameplay in a more friendly way :).
Anyway that's awesome, you should definitely vote for more people because you deserve to be more visible !

Hi, nice game, the 3D and the audio is very good, even more for a single person in 48 hours ! One thing, it's very hard to start playing at default speed :), I started 10 times before understanding and stop dying :D. A help menu with some explaination before the start would be nice.

It's a great game the only thing that bothered me was that it's hard and controls are frustrating, If I were you I would have used a button layout playable by one hand, just like guitar hero. Overall I had a good time plying it and my highest score was 5!

I had to slow down initially. For some reason on my laptop, the game would go very slow and then increase in speed. Anyways, this is the first LD game that used SDF and JKL. I actually liked that I could use both hands and that it wasn't tied to the arrow keys.

This game needs some time to get used to. And I think making enemies (or whatever it is) beatable when they are placed on the letters would make a game way less frustrating. The other complaint is about the need to leave my precious keyboard just to click 'play' and get the hand back from the mouse is really annoying. All the other aspects of the game are made very solid. Good work!

This could be a really awesome game - it's just too unforgiving at the moment. The presentation is awesome, and the gameplay is really fun the few times I managed to get a bit into the level, but it's so easy to make a mistake and die instantly. Would love to play this again with a bit more work in the balance.

I had no idea how to play the game when I started, so adding a description anywhere will help. Once I figured it out it was pretty fun, and difficult. Great music too. Good job!

Lots of thoughts on the game. I'll start with the good ones.

The visuals are great. I like the voxel art style, the colors used also give the game a unique feel. The music further compliments the mood really well. I also like how the enemies kind of look like small notes. Well done there! The speed setting was also a nice addition.

Now for some flaws.

The controls were a bit off. Not because I had to use sdf and jkl keys, but because the "notes" at keys **S** and **D** did not register as well as the other ones. I would tap them *perfectly*, but I'd still fail to hit them. In addition, the grace period for landing a note was too short. I'd suggest you take a look at guitar hero and how it handles missed notes. It ranks you depending on the distance that the note was from the baseline.

The difficulty could've been handled better. You shouldn't fail the player on a single miss when the hitbox for hitting a note is so small. The notes had to be **exactly** inside the purple bar for them to register. I know that the speed setting could be utilized for making the game easier, but that's a conscious choice that the player has to make. When they slow the game down, they *admit* that they're not good enough. In addition, asking the player to modulate the difficulty of a game they haven't played yet might leave them confused, so I'd suggest, again, to look at guitar hero. Since it doesn't instantly fail newbies and just ranks each of their notes, it allows them to learn and lets the more experienced players set harder challenges for themselves (like landing all A's).

In summary, the game was beautiful, but I didn't manage to have fun with it because of its unforgiving nature. It's easy to make a hard game and give players a difficulty bar they can adjust. A punishing game can be tolerated if its rules are always consistent and leave the player thinking about what **they** did wrong, not what the **game** did wrong.

Don't get discouraged by the mistakes you made, they should instead empower you to improve. Looking at the dumb mistakes I made during this LD only made me realize how much I learned during those 48 hours and I'm sure you learned a lot as well. I'm looking forward to playing some more games from you in the future!

Heya, I really like rhythm games. I had no problems with understanding how to play the game, as having the controls right in front of me did help a lot, however, even while nailing the button presses perfectly I've failed several times. Honestly it's nothing surprising for a jam game not to have perfectly polished controls, but I'd just probably add several health points to the player and also speed the game up a bit. Dying wasn't as annoying as playing through the slow opening phase again and again was, really. Other than that, good job and keep at it!

The dark souls of rhythm games. Didn't really understand what to do at the start. Would have hoped the music to line up with the beat a little more, and the challenge was a little too much with the controls are a little rough. Very nice graphics, and the beats and interface were well done.

@nikaoto thanks for all the constructive comments! I'll be sure to take note of them, very insightful feedback!

I've reached the quota of over 20 ratings, thank you all for your comments and for playing!

I really like both the concept and the exection. I got 30-ish on .3x speed, 'cause I'm bad. (64 on .1x, but doesn't really count).

Suggestions/nitpicks:
* maybe allow players to get git a few times before losing - this felt too harsh
* a controller version would be cool - this kinda expects the player can touchtype
* I got what seemed like random speedups after hitting a few notes which made the character go a lot faster (after slowing down when hitting the first note) - was that intentional?
* the collider for hitting the notes felt a bit off, but that might be just me or input delay
* the main track was great, but the scorescreen tune started to get on my nerves rather quickly

Hi, good concept here! Really cool for the first Ludum Dare!

I reached a score of 29, but I think I would get a better record if the game will react correctly to my input. Looks like sometimes game just do not listen to my input.

Also speed of the music sometimes changes randomly. Do not know if it is a part of a bug or a part of the conception.

Maybe a problem with music speed and keylisteners will be fixed if you use activation of your main functions (like object movement) in FixedUpate() and keylisteners in the Update(). Actually I am not a developer but I met this trouble really a lot. So, maybe my advice will be useful. :3

It is a really nice mix of a genres for the theme!

I would really play your game more if it will become more polished because I liked it :3

Good job! :3

OK so the concept is original and the visuals are decent BUT I find this game WAY too punishing - I think it would be more enjoyable ot you could take a handful of hits before dying - beyond that the realization is decent with the menus and everything, the presentation is pretty neat (y)