For my midterm project I decided to remake my own design version of Guitar Hero. The game functions are straightforward and the concept is laid out, so all I have to focus on is actually coding it in p5js and designing my own UI. I firstly began with a reference of the functions I’d like to remake, my main point of inspiration is from this code by Joseph Aronson.
When testing out this version of the game I instantly knew what parts I liked and what I would eventually change. The main factors that worked well in my opinion would be the interactivity of pressing the buttons or missing them (when you press the border lights up green, when you miss the screen flashes red). However, the buttons ZXCV felt very uncomfortable for my hand to quickly tap on the keys, which goes against the original idea of Guitar Hero which came in the form of ergonomic keys on a toy guitar handle.
For this reason I decided to remake my interface with only three keys, and I chose to use the up, left, and right keys since they felt the most comfortable to rest my hand on.
To take this idea a step further, I will also be adding different music to the different levels that will correspond to how fast the user must respond with a matching key i.e an the extreme level would have an Eminem Rap song as opposed to the easy level that might have a slow song.
Additionally, I will add a sprite character playing the guitar to the side of the screen which will be programmed to stop/play according to the music playing or not (when the user loses, the sprite will not be moving).
Currently, I have customized my own interface according to the three buttons I want to use, and am working on adding sound (which is not working in the way I want it to as of yet). I have also made my starting title/menu screen which is working, and when the user chooses the level “easy” the screen successfully transitions to the game screen. I still have to add my moving sprite on the game screen and I need to figure out how my key output sounds will connect to the music I insert. There is still a lot of fixes I have to make, but for now I’m very happy with the progress.