GDC08: Phase session not procedurally generated [update]

Harmonix's Chris Foster decided instead to go ahead and manually write his postmortem on the design of the iPod rhythm game Phase. Throughout the talk, Foster returned to the point that in all decisions, the team went with the "fun" option to make an accessible game. Every decision was informed by the need to make a game that is just fun for a potentially non-gaming audience.

The most notable feature, and the one that caused the most trouble for the development team, is the procedurally-generated gameplay. Since Phase works with the music on your iPod, note charts must be automatically generated. Foster talked at length about the issue of ensuring that these are fun, making sure that there aren't too many or two few and that they are consistent. Some important decisions that went into this: the "slider" sections in silent parts of the song, and varying note density not only by beats, but also by loudness, to ensure a dynamic gameplay experience. Sensitivity of the generator was tested with an eclectic set of 200 songs, including especially problematic Japanese noise music and Bjork.
Foster showed some early design work on Phase, which started development as a two-button PSP game, then was put on indefinite hold by some other project of theirs, with drums or something, and then was picked up again. Originally, the concept of the game involved building a city with your music -- as the player successfully captured gems, structures would begin to build up on the sides of the game track. This took a number of visual forms, including one arresting black-and-white view that Foster said he would like to revisit for a game. It looked really cool. The question of presentation lingered throughout development on the PSP and iPod until the discovery of Andrew Stewart's artwork provided direction. His fun-focused design helped lead the team away from iPod-shaped cars or Spore-style iPod monsters.

The iPod provided its own issues. It didn't have the power for a "world-building" design. It also had a weird controller. In order to test their designs, the team actually built an iPod "emulator" by cutting the touchpad off of a desktop keyboard and gluing two paper circles to it. This touchpad, however, was more sensitive than the iPod's. Foster revealed that the team also had to add code to iTunes in order to get songs into the game, meaning that Phase installs on the computer and the iPod.

As for automatically-generated content in Rock Band: an attendee asked Foster why it had been left out or if it was planned, and Foster responded that the software couldn't separate out instrumental tracks, and could only operate on entire pieces of music. He did indicate that Harmonix was looking into the feature for possible self-imported Rock Band tracks -- possibly for a sequel.