The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Beatbuddy
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, the boys from Threaks talk about the early indie success of music-mixing, action-adventure title Beatbuddy. What's your game called and what's it about?
Beatbuddy is an action-adventure that takes you into the world of a song. You take control of our main character Beatbuddy and navigate him through levels where everything you see, the enemies and challenges you encounter, are synched to the music and rhythm of the individual tracks that make up a particular song, which you can manipulate and basically re-mix through your interactions.
The game will feature licensed music that you will be able to move freely through, assembling and disassembling the track. We're planning to feature a great line-up of popular artists and songs and have developed a proprietary sound-filtering technology, which allows us to create levels matching each song with animations that are right on beat.
What was the IGF experience like - entering, waiting for finalist announcements, and getting an honorable mention?
Well, we here love to compete, so it was extremely cool especially to get the honorable mention. Getting the version ready to be entered was of course a bit of a crunch, as we tried to put as much into a short demo level as we could. Ahead of the announcement, we all got pretty nervous - I think none of us could sleep. Getting the honorable mention felt like a real milestone, especially considering the calibre of talent that was in the competition this year.
To be in the company of games like Fez, Tiny and Big and all the others, is a special thrill. We're looking to maybe do that extra step to a nomination with the game next year, when it's finished.
Beatbuddy is an action-adventure that takes you into the world of a song. You take control of our main character Beatbuddy and navigate him through levels where everything you see, the enemies and challenges you encounter, are synched to the music and rhythm of the individual tracks that make up a particular song, which you can manipulate and basically re-mix through your interactions.
The game will feature licensed music that you will be able to move freely through, assembling and disassembling the track. We're planning to feature a great line-up of popular artists and songs and have developed a proprietary sound-filtering technology, which allows us to create levels matching each song with animations that are right on beat.
What was the IGF experience like - entering, waiting for finalist announcements, and getting an honorable mention?
Well, we here love to compete, so it was extremely cool especially to get the honorable mention. Getting the version ready to be entered was of course a bit of a crunch, as we tried to put as much into a short demo level as we could. Ahead of the announcement, we all got pretty nervous - I think none of us could sleep. Getting the honorable mention felt like a real milestone, especially considering the calibre of talent that was in the competition this year.
To be in the company of games like Fez, Tiny and Big and all the others, is a special thrill. We're looking to maybe do that extra step to a nomination with the game next year, when it's finished.
