Audiosurf Comments by Dan Whitehead

To me at least (and its just my opinion, Im entitled to it) it doesnt feel like you are riding the music - which is the selling point of the game. When so much is, as you've already admitted, random - you're not riding music at all.

But you are riding the music. The music is just not presented in exactly the same way that you for some reason expect. I find the music -> track transition brilliant, and see a perfect relection of the respective music in the track. The way you desctibe how it seems to look totally random for you almost makes me think there's a bug in the game which screws it up for you, because I have difficulties in comprehending what you actually mean. Or maybe you're just extremely unfortunate with the tracks you pick?

What I don't find so brilliant - and that's where I maybe agree with a part of your post - is that the actual gameplay mechanics are rather simple.

Big cheesey grin fun hypnosis.

Same. Loving the game. I agree that it should deserve at least an 8.

What I don't find so brilliant - and that's where I maybe agree with a part of your post - is that the actual gameplay mechanics are rather simple.

Yeah, they are simple but I think that they're good. They make Audiosurf easy to pick up and hard to master. Of course it'd be nice to see a more complicated gameplay mechanic based on music but Audiosurf is a step forward in that matter - multiple characters with special abilities and boni, the need to match blocks instead of just collecting them.

By the way - the simple gameplay makes it possible to enjoy the track as well as the game itself. I don't know if you noticed that as well but when I play with one of the more ambitious characters on Elite on some fast track I start to completely disregard the music and that kinda sucks.

Also, I think that Audiosurf is a rather casual game that you're supposed to play in shorter "bursts" instead of sitting in front of it for hours straight. Of course it ceases to be casual if you really set out to beat some high-scores on popular tracks.

I think its ace, the new way to listen to music. Music v2.

Ha! IGF winners announced. Of course all the entries were brilliant and worth checking out but Audiosurf won in two categories: Excellence in Audio (obvious ;-) and the Audience Award (also obvious, considering its popularity and release shortly before the festival - a brilliant publicity stunt).

http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/02/i...

Here's how I feel about it, for what it's worth.

Audiosurf works because the game and music work together to create more than the sum of the parts. Perhaps the blocks don't match every single beat, perhaps the track form doesn't exactly match what you'd like or expect it the translation of the music to be.

Regardless there is no denying that when your brain is running at 100mph trying to dodge this and hit that and squeeze in and out of the tiniest gap in a fifth of a second, and your heart is pumping because you think this time you might actually get that ninja or finish that combo and the faster the pace gets the faster and crazier and more heart pounding your favourite track gets the absolutely last thing on your mind is "oh I don't think much of the effects timing" or "why does this look like guitar hero" (does it look like guitar hero? I don't have the game but I've seen it numerous times and the only similarity I can see is that things approach from the top of the screen.)

I would describe playing Audiosurf as listening to your favourite music with an adrenaline dump on top. I find it hard to criticise that.

As for the 'gameplay' being simple, what's complex about Tetris? You rotate blocks, woo. It'll never take off. Tetris is fun when you hit the high levels, not level one. Audiosurf is fun when you're 3 minutes in to Tarantula, not when you're dissecting it's algorithms or comparing it to something else.

It's not about the game, it's about the music! I'd choose Winamp over any puzzle/rhythm game in the world, because with Winamp you can listen the best music ever! And where I want to point is that Audiosrf is better than Winamp!

Dan, Dan, Dan... a seven?

This game clearly goes to eleven.

The niggly bits aren't enough to drop it to a 7, imo.

Atleast an 8. Atleast.

7 is the correct score. this is a game that is directly "about" the graphical show it puts on, and the graphics are more than a little undercooked. A great innovative idea that needs more polish.

Each block isn't meant to time with the beat. That would the block formation repetitive and have the whole point of dodging/collecting them rather pointless.

Fact is, each block is the way it is because of the music track you picked. Besides, that is only one part of it. Experience the entire surf as a whole.

I recently went through 8mins of Ode to Joy. The brilliant change of pacing and intensity is exactly what you 'expect' when listening to it.

Still not understanding how this got a less score than tired old rehashes which haven't brought anything new to gaming.

Well, another reason it gets a seven is because the translation of a song into "colored blocks and road bumps" can be jarringly inaccurate to the song playing. The beats DO translate well enough into road bumps but alas, the road bumps dont offer much to the gameplay since the bumps arent steep. There's clearly a randomizer in the app's algorithm so that simpler songs look varied when translated. That's bound to confound the translation at times too. I suspect there will be another version down the road and it will be a great improvement to what we seeing now.

I think it has been explained several times in the comments section how the audio analysis works (approximately).

Sure I read those other comments (they were interesting hypotheses) and yes, the algorithm still needs improvement in the ways I mentioned.

Yeah, maybe a little tweaking but I don't think that the algorithm is EVER "jarringly inaccurate".

Also, the road bumps are meant to be something like a visualization (like much of the other stuff in the game), not an important gameplay element, although in some songs that change the tempo drastically they DO become quite important.

If the song isn't analyzed properly it might be the codec's fault. This has been mentioned on the Audiosurf forums many times... Lossless formats offer much better track recognition than the lossy ones...

I gave this a try. I really like the idea but the game behind it just seem a bit crappy to me. As Puzzle games go. I mean, when you compare it to something like Lumines for instance.

Wonder if it'll work with freeform jazz?

An interesting idea but sweet holy mother of crap, what a weak ass way of doing it. Pick up frustratingly off-beat blocks on a highway to low-fi graphics heaven, rinse and repeat. Three months from now if the nuts in this thread are still not over the fact it INTERACTS WITH MY MUSIC LIBRARY AND IS THEREFORE AWESOME OKAY I'm buying myself a lobotomy. And then a Mac.