Lumines as thematic reference point

[Phil Steinmeyer]

OK, so I'm thinking about possible game themes (audio/visual) for a match-3 (NOT game mechanics)

Lumines has a very cool and striking presentation. Personally, I think the game mechanic is only decent, not great, but it's presentation stands out. For those who've played it on PSP: (because playing the clones on PC gives you a taste of the gameplay, but not the presentation)

Do you think Lumines-style presentation would be viable for the casual PC market? It's got a very disco/techno-dance thing going on. A nice way of making puzzle games sexy for the demographic that has a PSP (probably young-ish males). But I'm not sure about this for our demographic (older, much more female).

On the other hand, it's very striking, and since few in our target group have seen Lumines, it would seem very fresh.

Also, how do you think the music in Lumines was done? Is it stitched-together short snippets, or much longer pre-assembled songs? The former can be done for casual games with file sizes kept small, but the latter would bloat the size. How hard would it be to find a MOD musician who could, at a reasonable price, make music of that style and close to that quality?

[impossible]

I think Lumines is a great theme for casual games. It might be a little hardcore for the soccer mom audience, but then again they might accept it also. My game, Boxen, is partially inspired by Lumines, both gameplay and graphics wise. Although graphically its more like tetris attack than lumines.

The music seems like it could have been stitched together, especially because of the semi-interactive native of the music. If I could find a musician that could do music of the quality of lumines I would be a happy man :).

[Anthony Flack]

I haven't played it - is it a bit Rez-like?

[Sirrus]

I haven't played it - is it a bit Rez-like?

Not at all...
Its more of tetris-esque block matching...check out a video on Gamespot. There are a couple of indie clones as well.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

The indie-clones capture the gameplay, but not the audio-visual presentation. It's the latter I'm interested in.

[Anthony Flack]

Not at all...
Its more of tetris-esque block matching...

No, I meant the presentation, which sounds a bit like Rez. I knew it was some sort of block-matcher.

Anyway, I've looked it up now, and seen some pictures, and... what do you know? It's actually by the same guy who made Rez.

[Bmc]

I guess he has a new game coming out called Every Extend Extra

based off of this game http://nagoya.cool.ne.jp/o_mega/product/e2.html which is pretty fun

[soniCron]

Sorry to contribute to this off-topic branch, Phil, but there's a web game based on Every Extend called Pretty Pretty Bang Bang (http://www.studiohunty.com/bang/) in case you guys wanted to see what it is like.

[steve bisson]

Do you think Lumines-style presentation would be viable for the casual PC market?

We had a good response from players for our lumines clone but honestly we had to redesign the graphic and audio presentation for the casual game market ( i have been working on that lately ). It did get some attention in its original form, mostly from eastern europe for some reason.

The dynamic sound thing is really hard to achieve... sound design for it requires a skilled audio artist. You have to create sound effects that sounds like they are instruments from the music and they have to sound good and in sync even when played at almost random moments. I spent long hours playing with a synth on top of the level's music to create riffs that sounded like sound effects that sounded like melodies blah blah....

to make a long story short... it may be more difficult than you imagine.

[DanMarshall]

Where Lumines succeeds, as far as I'm concerned, is in its melding of all available fields into one. It has great music, and the gameplay moves along with it. Likewise, the background visual images move in time with the music, and hence gameplay.

Lumines' _style_ is rhythm. It's this that makes it hypnotic and such a delight to play. Of course it helps that it has simple rules, and presentation/ mechanics are flawless...

d

[RohoMech]

heh, well we kinda used some lumines mechanics in Boxen (http://mawsoft.com/Boxen3/Boxen3-Demo.exe), I know there are some PC-based clones of the game out already, and probablly many many more to come.

I never liked the time-line in that game, it bugged me cause you couldn't control the speed of the game....some people loved it (it helped make it more rythmic...they could fall into a groove easier).

Also, I know there's some MOD libs out there that you can use to change the speed of the mods playing, so you might be able to get your audio-visual representation with them (I can find out what they are if you're interested)

[StGabriel]

For what it's worth, I think that the game mechanic of Lumines is indeed quite excellent. Under analysis you can realize that it is indeed quite a deep game. I myself have played well over 100 hours of the damn thing, a lot of that in the 60s attack mode. There is a lot to learn about playing well, both in terms of strategy and in terms of hand-eye coordination and after all my play time I'm still sure I could improve quite a bit were I to keep playing. Even without levels, music or fancy graphics I can get quite entranced by the clone I made of the game.

Not everyone will get that deeply engaged in the game. But I do think that Lumines' game mechanic deserves quite a bit of credit for its success as a game.