Guitar Hero was all the rage for a few years, before the entire world apparently got sick of it overnight. Some diehards still remember the charms of rhythm games, though. Among them you might count [Joseph Valenti] and [Daniel Rodriguez], who built a Keyboard Hero game for their ECE 4760 class at Cornell.
Keyboard Hero differs quite fundamentally from Guitar Hero in one major way. Rather than having the player tackle a preset series of “notes,” the buttons to press are instead procedurally generated by the game based on incoming audio input. It only works with simple single-instrument piano music, but it does indeed work. A Raspberry Pi Pico is charged with analyzing incoming audio and assigning the proper notes. Another Pi Pico generates the VGA video output with the game graphics, which is kept in sync with the audio pumped out from the first Pico so the user can play the notes in time with the music. Rather than a guitar controller, Keyboard Hero instead relies on five plastic buttons assembled on a piece of wood. It works.
It’s obviously not as refined as the game that inspired it, but the procedural generation of “notes” reminds us of old-school rhythm game Audiosurf. Video after the break.
that’s just lap guitar hero
Frets on Fire?
Gone.
Singstar was more fun.
Rhythm games are still extremely big in Japanese arcades, indeed a popular one is Nostalgia which is played on… a keyboard.
Clone hero and YARG (Yet Another Rhythm Game) are more supported than this, although I would like to see where this goes!
I really want some FOSS games that can teach any real electric instrument.
It’d be so cool to just grab an instrument plug it in and go until you are able to play whatever you want.
I’ve craved that since hearing about RockSmith.
you don’t need a computer to gamify practice :)
you just need to have a big smile on your face while you practice :)
it’s not as hard as it seems because banging on an instrument is a delight :)
I’d rather have the computer so I have something to check against and guide the learning.
Not everyone likes to just sit with an instrument and fiddle with it until you get somewhere.
For me the skill would be the joy and not the process.