video game

Awesome Band

by Chad Cableand Tracy Lee Dendy

Guitar Hero is made up of hundreds of miniature events. Each miniature event is a single note that corresponds with a single sound in the song. Because there are few songs that play the same exact note throughout the entire song, Guitar Hero has five differently colored events, so that the gameplay can accurately represent the change in pitch, tone, and volume through the change in color. Essentially, when you play Guitar Hero it feels like you're playing the song because what you do with the controller mimics what the artist is doing with their guitar - and the result is that you play music.

The remaining four games in Awesome Band become music rhythm games by reinterpreting all of those miniature events that make up a song. In Duck Hunt, each of the five differently colored notes in Guitar Hero become five differently colored ducks. When the note is played in Guitar Hero, the same colored duck is shot in Duck Hunt. To the Duck Hunt player it just seems like they're playing a classic video game, but in reality they're playing Guitar Hero. Everybody is playing the exact same game!

In fact, the displays of the games are just facades - they're completely unnecessary. Any of the games can be completed successfully by watching the Guitar Hero screen and responding to those notes. After all, the events in the other games are generated by the song choice of Guitar Hero. The music rhythm genre is going nowhere - it's in every game and has been in every game!

The videos to the right showcase each games interactions compared to Guitar Hero. It helps in digesting and understanding how the events are reinterpreted by each game. The video at the top of the page shows the effect of all five games working in harmony.

Awesome Band was implemented in four months entirely from scratch in Processing with the custom controllers being programmed with Arduino micro-controllers.

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