Backbeat News

It's been a couple of months since our last dev blog but that is how deep our noses have been to the grindstone. We are just a couple sprints away from the alpha version of our strategic puzzler Backbeat, and we have tons of content to prove it!



There are now forty levels in Backbeat! Our master designers Andy and Magnus have spent the last several months building final designs for all 20 of the mainline story levels which teach the mechanics of the game and take you through the dreamed of Watts and bandmates, as well as twenty more "remix" levels which are fun side quests used to unlock sweet musical gear, enhance your puzzling skills, and raise your band title to the limit. All that remains is one secret... well, we'll just stop there and you'll have to look forward to a big surprise when we launch.



Forty levels is a lot of places to visit and stories to tell, and this is where our set dressing and story team shine. David and Andreja have been decorating every club, gas station, and mall, meticulously recreating the feel of 1990s suburban USA. The lights, colors, and layout all evoke soft feelings of nostalgia from yesteryear. At the beginning and end of each level, a story segment plays where you get to know more about the citizens of Hornsburg, done up in classic 32-bit cutscene style.



On the other side of the office our UX and QA rep Simon sits concocting the next round's user test form. Puzzle games are hard to design because everyone sees a challenge in different ways, and through iteration and UI refinement we try to open up the accessibility a little more so everyone can enjoy. Each level is first created in a blockout partially dressed by the lead designer. Afterwards the directors and QA team try it out and provide feedback. After a second and sometimes third round of design adjustment, we prepare the level for user testing, studying how long each player takes to clear the level, where they get stuck, and which mechanics are not being communicated sufficiently. This leads us to a list of action points some of which we incorporate either by adding additional help UI and visual clarity to the game elements, or sometimes even adjusting the levels themselves.



Some of the UI improvements we've added in the past few sprints including the "keys and doors" UI, a zoom out feature, and the dithering of interior walls. A big part of Backbeat is using the environment to unblock certain characters' paths, or conversely blocking guards or enemies from reaching goals. This is done through an interaction solo with a special item we call a "key", which will affect some other obstacle collectively referred to as "doors". Keys are marked up with outlines on the objects, and a floating triangle on top. Corresponding doors bare a circle of the same color. This is useful when a puzzle involves multiple keys and doors in the same map.



Interior walls initially were made transparent with dithering in a small section when characters were directly behind them, but this wasn't sufficient to see all possible paths and understand what movement is possible, so we modified the rendering code to set all interior and southern facing walls semi transparent with dithering during gameplay.



Finally, after all this experience improvement, we of course need a few jokes to keep things light. Some of our favorite 90s brands are parodied in Backbeat and our lead artist Andreja has done a wonderful job incorporating them into our design aesthetic.

Later this month we'll be at GDC in San Francisco with the alpha version of Backbeat, some swag, and a very exciting announcement! We hope to see you there on the expo floor.

[h2]Join the conversation![/h2]

Do you have an idea for a dev blog topic? Curious about the team and story of Backbeat? Comment on this post or tweet at us, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stay cool and funky!
-- The Backbeat team at Ichigoichie



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Happy New Year! The game design team at Ichigoichie is building new levels left and right, and refining new super moves for the members of Powerslyde. Meanwhile, the scenario team is adjusting the dialogue and help system before sending the story off to Japan for localization. Watts and the rest of us wish you the best in 2022!



We have no dev blog this month as things are quite intense, but we do have a tiny demo update that will help some players.

[h2]Usability tweaks[/h2]

We have a number of features designed to help the player when breaking conditions occur in the game. When a musical resource or turns have been depleted, Watts will appear and specify exactly why play cannot continue.



We've also improved playback and guard rendering to make things a little easier to see. Paths for guards are now drawn so you can predict their movements, and all paths and collision areas are hid during the victory level playback.

[h2]More to come![/h2]

Fifteen of the main story levels in Backbeat are complete! In the next month we will be working on finishing the rest and starting the remix levels which fill out the single player campaign. Additional features like audio customization and stats in My Backbeat are on the way and we're looking forward to sharing more with you in February's dev blog.

[h2]More from you![/h2]

Some of these improvements came directly from suggestions made by superfans like you! Do you have another idea for an improvement to make the funky story of Powerslyde even better? Drop us a comment below or shout at us on social media.

Stay cool and funky!
-- The Backbeat team at Ichigoichie



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November's dev blog comes about a week late due to some nasty colds decimating the Stockholm population, but now we are plugging on and adding more features for the the full game.

When the members of our band Powerslyde are relaxing, they go where anyone else in the 90s would think to unwind: the mall of course! The Hornsburg Towne Mall is the scene of events both epic and comical in our game, so our environment artist Andreja worked hard to build "the mall with it all". The in-world brands have yet to appear, but we'll save that treat for later.



Also this month we are working out the kinks and logic bugs for the four power moves you unlock later in the game. Having the ability to break through a wall, slide past guards like Pete Townshend, or blow away enemies with an epic sax toot increases the complexity and number of solutions possible in the more advanced levels of the game. We did a pass of visual effects to begin with, and are now putting together audio clips with our composer before integrating them into some grey box levels.



Speaking of our composer the fabulous Pete Fraser, he is now set up with the tools needed to create some of the vanity unlocks that allow musical customization of the game. Behold the mighty AKAI Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI)! This will be used to produce a sultry synth sax that Chaz can obtain after a significant amount of puzzle solving aplomb from the player.



Finally, we have put together all the assets for the two alternate portrait styles which are optional in the game. The "sleek" and "speech bubble" styles give the character portraits new cutouts, backgrounds, and colors to allow you to set up your own narrative experience. We're adding this feature as a homage to one of our favorite 16-bit action RPGs, Secret of Mana.



If you are in the Stockholm area, we'd love to see you! We are schedule to do a beta test of some of the levels from the full game at Indie Game Dungeon next Wednesday the 15th. Attendance is free so hit us up on social media for more info if you'd like to drop by.

[h2]Join the conversation![/h2]

Do you have an idea for a dev blog topic? Curious about the team and story of Backbeat? Comment on this post or tweet at us, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stay cool and funky!
-- The Backbeat team at Ichigoichie

Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Youtube

Thanks to all of the players who have tried the Backbeat demo in its first month. Production of the full version of the game is continuing, and we have some small updates to the sights and sound of the game to make playing the demo a little easier and a little more funky.

[h2]Options and usability[/h2]

As before you can toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode with Alt-Enter/Cmd-F. Fullscreen is now the default and you can change the window size manually in the new baby Options menu. Language is also no longer constrained to a Steam launch option. You can change between English and Japanese at any time as well. Button guides and WASD prompts have been added until we are able to add mouse support in a future version of the game. As we get closer to release of the full version we'll be adding for options for customization of the dialogue and sound.

[h2]Realtime reverb[/h2]

Speaking of sound, as in Hexagroove, we run our own custom audio engine inside of the game. This month we have upgraded our signal chain to include realtime reverb to simulate the sound of different locations inside of the game. In the full version this will help create a live feeling based on the venue Watts' band is playing, regardless of which pack of sound clips and instruments are used (did we mention the full version has over six configurable instruments and instrument playing styles?), but for now you can hear how music in Josh's Hollywood Movies has gained a more cavernous feeling.

[h2]Club mode++[/h2]



On the other side of the coin, we've added some graphical enhancements to make playback even funkier. When Watts, Toshi, and Josh are strutting to the goal area, the playback feels more like a music video with the addition of camera tilt, disco balls, and pulsing spotlights. Check out their saunter to the stage in Callahan's dive bar for maximum effect.

[h2]Removal of Prologue, 2-1a, and 3-1a[/h2]

Several story-heavy levels were removed from the demo to make the path of trying the mechanics and getting to the big STAGGER resource reveal on level six even faster. If you have already played the prologue, you got a sneak peak! The three removed levels are now sealed and will be waiting in the full version, so if you find them missing it's not a bug, it's a feature!

In addition to the larger adjustments above, there are buckets of smaller stability and performance improvements under the hood. To reinforce the system requirements, when you run the demo on an unsupported version like Windows 7 or macOS High Sierra, a popup will tell you about the baseline.

[h2]More from you![/h2]

Some of these improvements came directly from suggestions made by superfans like you! Do you have another idea for an improvement to make the funky story of Powerslyde even better? Drop us a comment below or shout at us on social media.

Stay cool and funky!
-- The Backbeat team at Ichigoichie



Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Youtube

It's late October, we are still tingling in the afterglow of our demo launch last month, and the game dev marches on.

If you've played to the end of the demo, you may remember how funkmaster Cliff portended a serious situation for our heroes involving a metal band. We won't say any more about that but on an unrelated note we have finished another of our internal showrooms, the live house DC10. This is a place where our heroes find themselves out of their element so we worked extra hard to make it a stark contrast to the cozy brown haze of Callahan's where their live gig journey began.



Also this month we are finishing up visual effects for the band, adding little touches like these two. First we're adding some simple light animations to the music during playback, and another where band members will play accompaniment in the goal area while waiting for the last character to join. One thing we thought of when doing environment animations for Backbeat is the frequency and synchronization. With funk there is more swing in the beat so it doesn't make sense for everything to flash off and on to a pumping four-on-the-floor like you'd find in Hexagroove. So we make the color changes and speed a bit more organic and less unified in the presentation.



Finally, we're getting ready on the marketing side by adding some new branded art for splash screens and dashboards. The key is to show up visibly in all storefronts regardless of the size of the thumbnail when scrolling through, so the logo has to be prominent, while keeping the background eye-catching enough to make you want to see the image enlarged. What do you think?



We made a sneak appearance with Backbeat at IndieCade's GameTasting last weekend, and have entered our first competition as well. Keep your fingers crossed and cheer for us!

[h2]Join the conversation![/h2]

Do you have an idea for a dev blog topic? Curious about the team and story of Backbeat? Comment on this post or tweet at us, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stay cool and funky!
-- The Backbeat team at Ichigoichie

Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Youtube