Design

Here we collate details about the design targets.

For a start, a point list breakdown of the project as I see it.
Elements can be added, rearranged, or sub-grouped as necessary.
No priorities are assigned.

• [Front-end](Frontend Design)
  • Player management: players can join/leave the game
  • Profile management: players can 'login', keep a profile
  • Player instrument selection
    • Present available/configured instruments, players can select from instruments
    • Players may assign themselves multiple instruments; ie, instrument + vox, or Geddy Lee might want bass + keyboard + vox ;)
  • Game options
    • Controller/input device configuration
    • Theme selection/settings
    • Synchronisation, latency adjustments
  • Access song library web service, download new songs
  • Song selection...
    • Filter songs in various ways
    • Present statistics and stuff
  • Choose play modes?
    • Free-play (many players playing together)
    • Competitive mode (many players playing the same parts competitively)
    • Story/mission mode?
• Gameplay
  • Load/play/synchronise music
  • Synchronisation/latency compensation
  • Parse input, track scores
    • Many instrument types
    • Live audio input analysis (vocals etc.). To MIDI?
    • Are there distinctions between Guitar Hero and Rock Band that people will care about?
  • Dynamic screen layout, give the most screen space to the instruments present in play (multiplayer)
  • Note track rendering
    • Many instrument types, guitar+drums are the most popular to start with
    • How to theme/skin these?
  • Background rendering...
    • Static image, bundled with songs?
    • Video clip? (if the song has one...)
    • Psychedelic visualisations... Milkdrop or something?
    • Full 3D environment (much later... requires lots of art, animation, scene management)
  • Pause/options menu
    • Typical options...
  • Support players joining/leaving the game during gameplay? (good party feature)
• Editor
  • No reason not to include an editor of similar style to the original FeedBack

---

Player UI mechanics: Concepts: Players, Devices, Parts

1: Player signs in
Player may sign in by pressing the start button on a personal 'menu control' device (ie, a controller with directions; gamepad, guitar/drums controller, dance mat, etc.), or using the keyboard as a universal menu controller.
A 'Player' is created, associated with their personal input device, or no association (falling back to keyboard in turns).

On sign in:
Players nominate a profile, then associate from the list of recognised input devices (may be controllers, mics, midi devices, etc) any number of 'Device's with their 'Player'.

When selecting songs:
Players are associated with Devices, and as such, UI can represent whether the player has any playable parts in the selected song.
Upon song selection, an options menu may be presented to choose a specific part to play with each of the players associated input devices. Selection would be remembered for consecutive songs.
Players with personal menu input devices can configure their play options in realtime, players with no personal menu input device will be required to configure their options in turn using the master keyboard.