Beat Battle!

🎧 Release your inner DJ in a flash jam session! 🎶 Mix music tracks and SFX to craft the perfect song! 🏆 Vote for the best one and unlock new crazy sounds!

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Inspiration

It all began with a simple question: can we make a quick, catchy, and truly social mobile game in just one month? We started thinking about existing party games that challenge creativity and personal expression (Garthic Phone, Pictionary, Dixit, and so on…), making the most of the players as “content generators”. There was definitely a pattern to follow. Can we make a videogame out of this? Sure. How can we turn it into something unique though? We decided to avoid the manipulation of images and focus on the other core aspect of the audiovisual language. Music and sounds surround players in every digital experience, but are usually relegated to the background and feedback system. But what if manipulating the music was our core mechanic? The rest is histor-… I mean, is Beat Battle!

What it does

Beat Battle is a fast-paced DJ competition to the last beat! Players enter an underground disco club and participate in free-for-all jam sessions: they have to compose a short song by remixing audio tracks and sound effects. Jam Sessions follow a simple and quick game loop:

  1. Base: Choose a combo of tracks (drums, instrument, and percussion) to compose your song.
  2. Recording: Customize your song by clicking on SFX buttons in real time. You can choose from a selection of shared and personal sounds, as well as change the pitch for comedic effect.
  3. Show-off: All competing songs are played. Listen carefully while you get loose on the dance floor!
  4. Voting: Everyone votes for the best song. When results are revealed, you get points (Notes 🎵) based on your ranking. Spend Notes in the shop to buy new sound effects and express your inner groove!

How we built it

We started development as soon as possible to try out our core mechanics. Our first working prototype was ready in just a few hours, and we kept improving on it during the whole production, polishing the game design on the go. One of our devs was fully focused on UI programming for mobile compatibility. The other one went full composer-mode and spent a lot of time selecting and refining all the audio assets and related mechanics. Our designer managed 3D level design and set dressing, as well as his beloved (game design document)[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QRshMQnvI0Y6-ucSx8DcsIyclUkP9m4QLbDagj3b3eY/edit?usp=sharing]. In the end, UI covered 90% of the gameplay, making mobile interactions smooth and intuitive. We made sure to keep the game loop easily scalable, leaving room for finishing touches and future updates.

Challenges we ran into

This project was our first entry ever in an official Meta Horizon Creator Competition, so… everything was sort of a challenge. We started exploring the desktop editor a couple months ago, during the Meta Worlds Creator Academy in New York, but we’re still learning new aspects and work techniques every day. Many problems and bugs popped up along the way, but somehow we managed to fix (or dodge) each and every one of them. Initially, we started delving into Noesis UI as well, but pretty soon decided to focus solely on Worlds development to actually complete the project. We’re sure that in given time we’ll be able to implement it in our pipeline for future worlds!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our main pride is making something that we enjoy both as developers and players. We managed to unleash our love for music (some of us have real DJ experiences in their backgrounds!) and translate it in a quick and catchy game loop. We hope you’ll have as much fun playing Beat battle as we had developing and playing it.

What we learned

As said in the Challenges section above, pretty much everything was a new discovery. We strengthened our skills with the Worlds editor, its programming and UI system, its limits and the tricks needed to make everything work in a couple weeks of production. Also, we explored the niche but very rich design space of musical composition for the first time.

What's next for Beat Battle

We’d love to keep updating and polish the game to add variety, replayability, and social features. We’re already planning on adding new musical genres for Jam Sessions, as well as expand the selection of sound effects in the shop. Lots of ideas for different game modes and additional features came up during development. For example, a whole new room for non competitive freestyle sessions, a shop dedicated to avatar customization, and an achievement system that pushes players to experiment and keep composing.

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