To a traditional gamer, the thought of rhythm-based games would possibly draw up the names of two prominent titles in the genre: Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Guitar Hero. Despite how different they are in gameplay (one requiring complex legwork on a dance mat and the other interaction through peripherals), both are classic examples of the genre. The general core of a rhythm game is the idea of comprehending the rhythm set by the game and responding with player input in the provided rhythm. Success in the game can be measured and scored by how close to the rhythm the player’s actions were (Pichlmair and Kayali 2007, 424). This paper studies this core of rhythm games and suggests ways it can improve in the future.

What is the current appeal for rhythm games about, and how can it evolve in the future? The idea is to determine the general formula for rhythm games, examine what makes them successful, and suggest possible ways they can evolve in the future and how established practices can be challenged.

It is important to understand how the rhythm game genre can grow as the world moves more and more into a virtual state of being. By understanding what is successful about the current formula, we can determine how the genre can adapt to new technologies in a way that hits human cognition effectively for rhythm games.

The Current Rhythm Game Blueprint

According to Boudreau and Poremba (2019), "Through the use of 'instrument' peripherals, live performance recordings, motion and performance capture, and even dynamic video, the connections between gameplay and real music performance have long been packaged as part of the play experience." Most successful rhythm games have similar general design elements: a vertically, horizontally, or highway scrolling beat map and a so-called judgment line indicating the performance of the player through timing windows. The main difference comes from graphical response, the hardware used to play the game, and what the player takes back from the play experience. Rhythm games are evolving. While the classics are still loved and appreciated, it’s becoming increasingly important for players to experience convenience of play and increased immersion.

What do rhythm and music-based games aim to achieve?

According to one of the founders of Harmonix, the company behind the Guitar Hero series, the purpose for music-based games is “...making the joy of playing music possible for millions of people who can’t or won’t learn the craft of making music.” (Wixon, 2007). Additionally, rhythm games have fitness, social, and pedagogical benefits. In her research, Debra Lieberman (2006) states that games like DDR fall under the category of “exergames,” which are games that require physical exertion for interaction. This results in overall improved fitness (Lieberman, 2006).

Classifications within the rhythm genre of games

Two main classifications can be drawn upon within the rhythm games genre: Games where players can play the game like an instrument and create sounds in response to the gameplay, and games where the player is judged on their response time to a given music track and has less freedom of expression in regards to the music (Pichlmair and Kayali 2007, 424).

Using this classification, one can analyze the previously mentioned statement by the CEO of Harmonix and deduce that what they were aiming for was a game that fell into the former category of classification when, in fact, it falls into the latter. As stated by Machover (2011) from the MIT Media Lab, who happens to be a mentor of the founders of Harmonix, “The bad news is that [neither] platform is truly musical, nor do they encourage learning, expression, or creativity.”

This remains a topic of debate, as Miller (2009, 408) claims that vertical, horizontal, and highway scrolling games do in fact provide a learning experience for players. The telegraphing of the scrolling musical notes is stated to be similar to sight-reading of music sheets for actual musical instruments (Miller 2009, 408-409).

Current state of the rhythm games market

Music games as a genre have been seeing a decline in sales since 2008. In his book, Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming’s Greatest Hits of All Time, Scott Steinberg attributes this decline in sales to how much it costs the player to play it. The market was oversaturated with sequels instead of DLCs, and it was becoming expensive to purchase peripherals that only work for certain games. Furthermore, the rise of free-to-play games on web browsers, smartphones, and PCs was making players unwilling to spend money (Steinberg, 2011, 11-12).

Hits and Misses: What Works and What Doesn't in Rhythm Games

Dancing on Stage: The Art of Performative Play

The gameplay design for rhythm games is usually done in a way that keeps players engaged while making the highly skilled players look good in doing so. Despite the lack of creative expression within the game, players do have a wide range of expressive possibilities in the real world (Pichlmair and Kayali 2007, 428). This encourages performative play, and an example of this could be how games like Dance Dance Revolution provide space for players to create choreography around the given beatmap (Austin, 2016, 15).

The origins of rhythm games in arcades, which essentially exposes players to the idea of playing in public, gave rise to performative play. This continues on outside of the arcade through online platforms like YouTube and Twitch. This makes rhythm games good party games and improves social interaction.

Hands-On Fun: Interacting with Rhythm Game Gear/Peripherals

Player interaction with peripherals enhances the user experience. It is satisfying to hear the clicks of player input synchronized with the song. For example, a player playing Taiko no Tatsujin would feel the satisfaction from hitting the drum interface and it would also sound entertaining to anyone watching them play. However, with time, people have become reluctant to purchase large plastic peripherals for up to $100 (Steinberg, 2011, 11-12).

The Power of Community Content

One of the main problems with rhythm games being released is that most games only contain music that was created for the game or they have obtained the rights for. In many cases, players lose interest in the game for this exact reason. This is a major cause for why most rhythm games have such short lifespans. Successful rhythm games encourage community-created content (Miller, 2017).

Innovations and Challenges Ahead

Creative Twists in Rhythm Gameplay

In recent years, a few games have come along that have challenged the general idea of a rhythm game. One such game is Crypt of the Necrodancer by Brace Yourself Games. In his case study of this game, Bradley Kagan (2020, 68) claims that most other rhythm games “...fail to expand a player’s sense of self and immersion beyond the surface layer of the game.” Where those games failed, Crypt of the Necrodancer succeeded. It creates an enhanced sense of immersion where the music is inseparable from the gameplay experience (Kagan, 2020, 69). While the game has some traditional rhythm game elements, like a beat bar, it is also additionally a dungeon crawler. The appeal of both genres of games intertwined makes for a completely new and interesting form of gameplay.

Tech novelties

Consumers of rhythm-based games, as previously mentioned, are unwilling to buy expensive peripherals that can only be used for certain game titles. However, the evolution of technology has brought with it a range of possibilities. Tech novelties that improve user experience through virtual, augmented, and mixed reality could introduce new applications for rhythm gaming. Games like Beat Saber have already gained a big enough following, which is rare for a VR game. At the time of writing this paper, it is the best-selling VR game on the Oculus Store. VR Games like Beat Saber are also being considered the next generation of exergames, as presented by Szpak, Michalski, and Loetscher (2020) in their study, and they also provide freedom for performative play on online streaming platforms.

Tech novelties will evolve further. Georgiou et al. (2018) have conducted research on highway scrolling rhythm games using the Ultrahaptics TOUCH Development Kit (UHDK5) and a LEAP Motion controller, where beats are captured using hand gestures and the player receives haptic feedback (Georgiou et al. 2018). With these technologies, there are a variety of possibilities for rhythm games. Any surface could be used as an instrument.

The best of both classifications of rhythm game styles

An alternative to tech novelties would be actual musical instruments. The debate between the two classifications of rhythm-based games mentioned earlier could come into play here. One game that has somewhat achieved this is RockSmith by Ubisoft. The idea behind RockSmith is that one could plug in an actual guitar and play with all six strings (Austin, 2016, 231-232). The game is structurally the same as a horizontal, vertical, or highway scrolling rhythm game, but also has pedagogical value as a learning tool. While Guitar Hero could not achieve the status of a true music simulator, games like Rocksmith hold the potential to fill in that gap.

CONCLUSION

It is important to understand how the rhythm game genre can grow in the coming future. Despite its shortcomings, it still has a dedicated following of players and a large appeal. By studying rhythm games of the past, we can derive their failures and successes, using them as reference in order to create more exciting and creative solutions for enhancing the immersive musical experience. With rhythm games becoming more accessible, requiring less peripheral use, mobile tech improving, and faster internet connections being available, rhythm gaming is seemingly ready to take on a new foothold within the industry.

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List of References

Austin, Michael. Essay. In Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play. New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2016.

Boudreau, Kelly and Poremba, Cindy. 2019. “Rock Stars & Plastic Guitars: Designing & Playing with Captured Experiences in Music Videogames” DiGRA '19 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix. [DiGRA Conference](http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2019_paper_186.pdf).

Georgiou, Orestis, Craig Jeffrey, Ziyuan Chen, Bao Xiao Tong, Shing Hei Chan, Boyin Yang, Adam Harwood, and Tom Carter. “Touchless Haptic Feedback for VR Rhythm Games.” 2018 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2018. [IEEE](https://doi.org/10.1109/vr.2018.8446619).

Kagan, Bradley. 2020 “Slave to the Rhythm: Examining Immersive Experiences through the Interplay of Music and Gameplay in ‘Crypt of the Necrodancer’” International Journal on Stereo and Immersive Media 4, no. 1 (2020): 66–79. [Revistas Lusofona](https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/article/view/7191).

Lieberman, Debra A. “Dance Games and Other Exergames: What the Research Says.” CORE. Accessed January 19, 2022. [CORE](https://core.ac.uk/display/23743765).

Machover, Tod. “Future Opera for Robots and People Too.” MIT Media Lab. Accessed January 19, 2022. [MIT Media Lab](https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/future-opera-for-robots-and-people-too/).

Miller, Kiri. Playable Bodies: Dance Games and Intimate Media. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Miller, Kiri. “Schizophonic Performance: Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Virtual Virtuosity.” Journal of the Society for American Music 3, no. 4 (2009): 395–429. [DOI](https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196309990666).

Pichlmair, Martin and Kayali, Fares. 2007. “Levels of Sound: On the Principles of Interactivity in Music Video Games.” Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference: 424-430. [Research Gate](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253005594_Levels_of_Sound_On_the_Principles_of_Interactivity_in_Music_Video_Games).

Wixon, Dennis. 2007. “Forum: Here's Entertainment: Guitar Hero: the Inspirational Story of an 'Overnight' Success” Interactions 14, no. 3 (May): 16-17. [ACM](https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/1242421.1242435).

Steinberg, Scott. 2011. “Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming’s Greatest Hits of All Time. Lilburn: Power Play Publishing.

Szpak, Ancret, Stefan Carlo Michalski, and Tobias Loetscher. “Exergaming with Beat Saber: An Investigation of Virtual Reality Aftereffects.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 22, no. 10 (2020). [DOI](https://doi.org/10.2196/19840).

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