GH dev "thinking about" keyboard game

By Tom Bramwell Published 27 August, 2008

But extra peripheral chatter was untrue.

Guitar Hero: World Tour developer Neversoft is "thinking about" a music game built around a keyboard, according to project director Brian Bright.

Last week Bright hit headlines after G4 ran a story hinting at a new, as-yet unannounced World Tour peripheral specifically for the game's Studio mode.

However, G4 subsequently retracted that story, blaming misinterpretation. "According to a Red Octane rep, there is no new peripheral," it said.

Asked about the decision not to include a keyboard controller by Joystiq, however, Bright was relatively unambiguous.

"A keyboard controller deserves to be introduced with its own game. This is something we're thinking about," he said.

As for the keyboard's absence from World Tour, "We wanted a big mix of music in World Tour and adding a keyboard controller would either have limited our choices, or the players'."

One thing that Neversoft and publisher Activision Blizzard ruled in at Games Convention last week was the option to play as your Miis in the Wii version of World Tour.

Look out for our Games Convention thoughts on the fourth major Guitar Hero game soon, or check out our huge Guitar Hero: World Tour preview from earlier in the year.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • the_dudefather #1 4 years ago

    Mavis Beacon 2009?

  • paul_haine #2 4 years ago

    Typing of the Dead!

  • sickpuppysoftware #3 4 years ago

    The problem with a keyboard game is that you are essentially playing a keyboard. If you can do that then you can play a standalone keyboard anyway. The fun of the guitar hero games is they have simplified the whole guitar process so plebs like me that could never play a real guitar can pretend to.

    Unless the keyboard only has a few keys of course.

  • moggsy #4 4 years ago

    Would love to learn the keyboard with a Guitar Hero style game. Do it!

  • Ignatius_Cheese #5 4 years ago

    Hammond Organ Hero!! \o/

  • login_name #6 4 years ago

    Would love to learn the keyboard with a Guitar Hero style game. Do it!

    Then buy a PS2 and get keyboardmania 1-3. Granted, it's not rock music but at least you can learn to play the Monkey theme.

  • kangarootoo #7 4 years ago

    @sickpuppysoftware

    The same already applies to the drums. Doesn't stop it being fun. Anyway, the entire key hook of GH and RB is that you can scale your input without having to scale the music.

    If "essentially playing a keyboard" means tapping a key every half a second, the resulting 'music' on a real keyboard would sound crap. A keyboard game in the same vein as GH could trigger complex musical sequences from quite basic input from the player, making them feel like a keyboard god (is there such a thing?) just like the guitar and drum gameplay currently do.

  • Zomoniac #8 4 years ago

    @ sickpuppy

    Quite, I said this in the last thread on the subject. How could a keyboard controller be even remotely convincing with 5 keys? And if they make it proper size, then you may as well play a keyboard as the selling factor of not having to learn the instrument is gone. Plus I can't imagine how cluttered the screen would be.

  • Zomoniac #9 4 years ago

    @ kangaroo

    I think the drums in RB are very badly done for that very reason. Also, a drum kit in which you could just about pull off most non-prog pieces has 7, 8 or 9 pieces (kick, snare, two or three toms, hats, ride and one or two crashes), a keyboard has 88. In order to do big chords on expert with both hands the controller is going to have to be at least the size of a 61-key keyboard, with at least 6, if not far more, buttons at each end. Which is going to be very hard to sight-read on expert at full speed, that's a lot of notes. The guitar works as each finger is covered plus you still have to slide up and down the fretboard. It's 12 keys minimum for the same effect on a KB controller.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #10 4 years ago

    I imagine that a controller not much more complex than this one:

    [link url=http://www.argos.co.uk/s tatic/Product/partNumber/3475292/Trail/searchtext%3EKEYBOARD .htm
    ]http://ww w.argos.co.uk/static/Product/pa...[/link]

    Perhaps with a few of the keys painted the appropriate primary colour would do the job well enough.

    Of course, the best solution would be to allow any MIDI keyboard to be connected. That's not without precedent, since Singstar at least (I can't speak for Rock Band) uses standard Microphone connectors so you can replace them if you feel the need.

  • Zomoniac #11 4 years ago

    Even that one has 32 keys. Try playing that on split-screen.

    RB mics are USB. You can use any USB mic. And I'd hardly call 3.5mm jack the standard mic connector. You'd need an XLR to jack cable and then a 1/4" to 3.5mm converter to use one. (does anyone know why the two different jack sizes are referred to by different measurement systems?)

  • moggsy #12 4 years ago

    @ login_name

    Thanks for that - I'd not heard of keyboard mania - will have a look into it...

    Would still be nice to have something like it on my 360 though.

  • kangarootoo #13 4 years ago

    I am confused as to how people are finding issues with this.

    "I think the drums in RB are very badly done for that very reason"

    Can you expand on what reason that is? I thought the RB drums worked well well enough (actual controller quality issues not withstanding).

    That there isn't 10 drums isn't really the point. An actual guitar (with 24 frets, for example) has a possible 125 notes that can be fingered, but the controller with 5 buttons seems to do ok Given that the entire GH model is based around reducing the complexity of the input range, would a keyboard controller really need more than 5 keys (or 10, if you wanted to use both hands)?

    I suggest not, but lets discuss more.

  • skillian #14 4 years ago

    Are people not considering how perennially uncool the keyboard is? As hinted above, can you think of any keyboard gods (apart from Richard Clayderman)? What classic keyboard sections can you think of?

    Not to mention that Keyboard Hero would just be pushing buttons in time to the music (this is obviosuly what GH is anyway, but with strumming at least it has an illusion of complexity), and a synthesised sound( which is what most pop records use a keyboard for) only further emphasisesthe disconnect between what you're hands are doing and the sound coming from your speakers.

    I really can't imagine that a Keyboard Hero would have anything like the appeal of a Guitar Hero.
    Edited by 1 at 27/08/08 @ 12:14

  • Zomoniac #15 4 years ago

    It's almost entirely down to the hardware really. It's very badly made and very unresponsive. I think getting 100% on a few songs on expert is actually impossible as the response times simply aren't quick enough. The pads have no rebound at all, so controlled strokes can't be done, and same goes for the pedal, those quick double strokes are perfectly easy in real life because you get a bounce from the drum head and the tension in the spring, and it's control of the backswing that makes it work. Doing it on something that doesn't bounce is an awful lot harder. In many way RL drums are easier than RB drums, just because they play favourably to the player, rather than seemed to be designed to be as hard to play as possible. I'm very pissed off that the new elite drumset thing that looks like a proper e-kit still has that fucking awful pedal. Surely anyone who would buy that would be serious enough about playing to either buy or have their own pedal? If they had a proper kick pad, with a setting to enable double-pedal use (just on the good kit), the game would be a lot better.

    And like I said earlier, you need to be moving your hands or it won't feel good. RB/GH on easy or medium get very boring very quickly due to the static hand position, so to do this you'd need 12 keys at least. Problem being how do you cram 12 keys onto the screen and it still be readable at speed, and still leave room for the other instruments?

  • Zomoniac #16 4 years ago

    Are people not considering how perenially uncool the keyboard is? As hinted above, can you think of any keyboard gods (apart from Richard Clayderman)? What classic keyboard sections can you think of?

    Have you ever listened to any Deep Purple? Anything with Rick Wakeman? And Ben Folds is the coolest musician of all time. FACT.

  • skillian #17 4 years ago

    Man, I love Ben Folds, he only one awesomeness point down from Colin Meloy, but neither of them are cool. In fact, Bouzouki Hero would work a whole let better than Keyboard Hero.

  • JedEvangelion #18 4 years ago

    Of course, if Harmonix bring one out, Neversoft will change their tune.

  • kangarootoo #19 4 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    I agree with all of that. I did say build quality not withstanding in my previous post. The drum gameplay, with the number of pads used, works just fine for me. But the gameplay is let down by the poor controller (all the rockband controllers are pretty terrible, lets face it). If the controller was better, the gameplay would meet the challenge (so says I anyway).

  • kangarootoo #20 4 years ago

    "In fact, Bouzouki Hero would work a whole let better than Keyboard Hero."

    I know what a bouzouki is, but all the same I immediately thought of Godzuki from the old Godzilla cartoons. Godzuki Hero ftw (that is the first and last time I shall ever use ftw in a sentence, so enjoy it).

  • Zomoniac #21 4 years ago

    And it's the very fact that he's so uncool that makes him so cool. And he knows it, and his hilarious. Plus his showmanship is second to none (doing press-ups on the lid of his grand whilst leaning over and playing it was damn impressive).

    But it isn't mass sales cool. For some reason people would sooner have a drugged up wanker in a hat with no personality playing the same endless predictable twiddly solos during the bits in between what I believe to be a cat having its tail run over with a lawnmower.

  • Zomoniac #22 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    I know you did, but until it works it's hard for me to assess the gameplay properly. Whilst it seems it would be okay in theory, because the hardware ruins the game it's hard to say the gameplay is fine, as I don't get a chance to experience it properly. Support for a proper e-kit would be nice, but it'll never happen.

  • moggsy #23 4 years ago

    @ Zomoniac

    Problem being how do you cram 12 keys onto the screen and it still be readable at speed, and still leave room for the other instruments?

    There wouldn't be any other instruments - it'd purely be a keyboard game like Guitar Hero is purely a guitar game.

    Keyboardmania (as has been mentioned in this very comments section) has already does this successfully in the arcade and on the PS2.
    Edited by 1 at 27/08/08 @ 14:04

  • Zomoniac #24 4 years ago

    That looks pretty neat. Problem being that at the price it would be, I don't see many people buying a game with no multiplayer.

  • moggsy #25 4 years ago

    I play GH3 without multiplayer. How many people really fork out for an extra guitar rather than just pass the guitar around?

  • kangarootoo #26 4 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    I'm sure they have already announced a premier kit for Rock Band 2, that is the result of a tie-in with some proper e-kit maker. And you can use it as a normal e-kit too if you add a brain module.

    I forget all of the useful details, but I'm sure a bit of web searching will provide them.

  • Zomoniac #27 4 years ago

    @ Kangarootoo

    This is the elite kit. Look at the foot pedal. It's practically unplayable as a standalone kit with that thing. A V-Drum support through a MIDI-USB connector would be much appreciated.

  • InfiniteFury #28 4 years ago

    At first I thought.....no. Because of the lack of coolness in playing a keyboard really well.

    And then I thought....hang on! Because that solo from "The Way it is" by Bruce Hornsby came into my head

    And then I thought.....meh, wouldn't work unless you had tonnes of keys.

    And finally I decided that if they did do that song, I'd LOVE to play it on the Guitar Hero controller rendering the whole thing pointless.

    So in conclusion, I don't know.

  • kangarootoo #29 4 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    Ah, I'm with you on that. Lack of of proper kick pedal is a big fail on any e-kit. The lack of a hi-hat pedal also means its not really a proper e-kit. A good start point for someone looking to migrate from RB/GH to proper drumming perhaps, but it might turn out to be false economy.

    A better buy for someone looking to enter e-drumming on a budget (needs a PC).
    http://ww w.firebox.com/product/1573/USB-...

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #30 4 years ago

    Lennon

    Lewis

    <a href= "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vMs2we3wM4&feature=rel ated">Dylan</a>

    Gallagher

    Elton

    Axl


    Keyboards (and pianos) rock.