Break Beat Battle Machines: Devlog #2

Break Beat Battle Machines will be a rhythm game/turn-based RPG-hybrid where the players build up their attacks by performing the right dance moves. The game is being made in the Flixel engine and will be developed for Windows, the web and hopefully Mac and Linux too (I've gotta look into it).

EDITOR

I'm getting pretty close now to finishing the editor. I've now implemented:

• Simple arrow placement
• Being able to change the duration of the arrows
• Arrow colors based on the timing of the arrows (red is on-beat, blue is off-beat)
• Save / Load (which is broken for the time being, I believe, since I added some extra stuff)
• Waveform display
• A simple selection menu
• Zooming in/out
• Changing the resolution of the arrows between sixteenth notes and triplets
• Being able to select and delete multiple notes at once
• Being able to create patterns from selected notes and quickly stamp them onto the track

At the moment I'm fixing some bugs and implementing the last features, before moving onto the main gameplay loop.

One of these features is the use of patterns:

I want the player to learn certain patterns by color and quickly identify those patterns during gameplay. I think this will make it easier for beginners to perform more complex moves. This is visible in the video (the red glowing rectangles around the pattern).

I still have to make it so that the editor/game reads the patterns from one centralized pattern file.

GAME STRUCTURE

The editing tools and the game will be seperate projects. The editing tools will be contained in one project and will be used to generate the assets needed for the game. The game will have only the logic needed for the gameplay and will make use of these assets.

The structure of the game is going to be something like this:

• Song Chunks - These are the step charts and contain a single music loop
• Songs - These make use of Song Chunks and decide the flow of the music (which part goes first, which part gets played when one of the players has low HP etc.)
• Scenes - Background, foreground, cheering people in the background, etc.
• Campaigns - Will contain things like the story cutscenes, which scene and song will be used in a particular situation

I'm still figuring out some things, so this is likely going to change in the future.

Stay tuned for more!

If you're interested in this project, consider following me:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AvizuraNG (most active)
• Discord: https://discord.com/invite/qDhPv6SYyS
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BreakBeatBattleMachines
• Itch: https://lorenzovdh.itch.io/