Backbeat News

Hello Superfans!

We have been busy beavers this quarter working on all kinds of fun things in the office and now we can share some of them!

First and foremost, we have a new content update in Backbeat, the Gig and Gear Expansion! Update now and you will receive a bevy of fun new things to mess around with, some inspired by feedback from you:

• Six new chin-scratching time-based environment puzzles and hijinx
  
• Classic 4:3 CRT display mode
  
• A new master band title and the ultimate guitar effect pedal, OCTAVER
• Dialogue chatter volume adjustment
  
• Interface scale adjustment
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Six new remix levels take our heroine Watts and friends through adventures including fishing for change in arcades, hanging out at the mall, and breaking Josh out from unpaid overtime. And there's no better way to think outside the box then use a 90s 4:3 aspect ratio when solving your puzzles! Imagine what Backbeat would look like on an original 32-bit GameStation with CRT mode. For the hardiest Backbeat players, we've added an entirely new guitar pedal, OCTAVER, as the final unlock in the game. Can you reach 13000 style points to try out the phattest bass in town? We believe!

If you can't get enough of Backbeat's amazing music in Steam, we can't blame you! You can now take Backbeat's snazzy solos wherever you go as we've launched Ichigoichie Records on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Tidal, and Deezer. Follow us and support your favorite indie developer on the go, leaving that soundtrack on LOOP. ːsteamhappyː


Try it on your favorite music service here: https://ditto.fm/backbeat-original-soundtrack


Our art team has been working on some new Backbeat remix comics and we're happy to share the next one. This time our heroes have been shortchanged by a certain club owner and need to stealthy retrieve their fair share. Check out episode two of Garage Band Bites, "Stiffed Again".

Read and follow on Instagram here.
Read and follow on Tapas here.

Today is our company's annual midsummer dinner in the garden outside our office, so we are toasting you! Thanks for helping make our 2023 a blast.



Get engaged!

Comment on this post and tell us what you think, or follow along on social.

Stay cool and funky!
-- David & the Backbeat team at Ichigoichie

Got a quarter? Give us a call!

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Hello funky 151a superfans!

Since Backbeat launched on all platforms in March, we have been hard at work at new exciting things to share from the town of Hornsburg.

We can't say much now, but suffice it to say there are some awesome new features in development built largely from your feedback! Look for more information in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we are proud to announce the launch of our official Backbeat web comic, Garage Band Bites. On Instagram and Tapas you can follow along with some fresh storylines involving our heroine, Watts, and her friends in Powerslyde. Check out the full episode 1 from the links below!



Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs_VSmwoRU4/? Tapas: https://tapas.io/episode/2860574

Get engaged!

Comment on this post and tell us what you think, or follow along on social.

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

Got a quarter? Give us a call!

Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - YouTube

Our sophomore title, the funky sokoban/stealth-strategy mashup Backbeat is now available on Steam!



This is our second title launching on Steam and it’s really cool to see how much our company grown since Hexagroove: Tactical DJ in 2020. The first time around was a great experience but there was so much more we wanted make more accessible and inviting. In Backbeat we designed the interface from the ground up for 4K and able to scale across Windows, Mac, and Steam Deck, on monitors boxy and wide. The games we design at Ichigoichie are built on mashing up genres and deriving our gameplay mechanics from musical theory. This was at times a little overwhelming in Hexagroove, so we worked hard to portion out new mechanics in Backbeat through a much broader portion of the game. So much in fact you’ll still be learning new tricks more than three quarters through the main campaign!

Backbeat is at first glance a turn-based sokoban puzzle game. You have a band of up to four characters and must get them all to the goal within a limited number of turns. Each character moves differently presenting unique challenges. After some levels we introduce time mechanics to the mix, and you’ll need to synchronize each character’s timeline with the others, working together to unblock obstacles on the path to the goal. Finally, we add four shared resources you must manage while navigating space and time. Which turns you choose to change direction or interact with the environment cause these resources to increase or decrease. Maximize the resources and you get a high score. Run out of resources, and you’re in a failure state. Fortunately, rewinding the turns of each character individually is possible to allow incremental improvements to your puzzle solutions.



One thing we wanted to add to Backbeat was a story to motivate the your choices and set the stakes. The setting is 1995 in suburban Washington, D.C. and has a lot of callouts to the last days of the analog era before the advent of the internet. The narrative is a homage to ensemble 90s dramedies like “With Honors”, “The Commitments”, and “School of Rock”. Heroine Watts is doing her best to hold together a band of amateur funk musicians and contending with all the struggles of collaborative creation: inflated egos, clashing personality types, and external responsibilities to work and family. A diverse cast of characters exist in each of the two main bands, and we hope you can find one that speaks to you.

If you’re a fan of puzzle games, turn-based strategy, or story-rich retro experiences, then I think there’s something for you to appreciate, and many more novel features to discover. Start with the free demo and I hope you have some fun!

Here are some places to get tips on starting and up to speed on what makes Backbeat unique:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946791114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmCvB3AKNLU&list=PL-c7vBDSe07Lumz1ZKPuWGnDj-GNynJF5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rDkXJwnYMo&list=PL-c7vBDSe07Lumz1ZKPuWGnDj-GNynJF5&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Kn6_cXYhU&list=PL-c7vBDSe07Lumz1ZKPuWGnDj-GNynJF5&index=3

From lovely Stockholm,
David Ventura - Creative Director

Our 90s retro video game homepage Our Twitter

Hello puzzle/strategy fans!

The journey to launch is nearly done! We have been hard at work squashing bugs left and right and polishing Backbeat and now we're in the home stretch. The full version of Backbeat will launch on Steam in two weeks on March 16th!



The last few months we've gone through the game and taken note of all the little places we can make things smoother and more engaging, and internally we're just finishing up testing on a slew of features that will be ready on day one:

* SteamOS / Steam Deck support
* mouse controls
* performance optimisations
* dialogue flow adjustments

These are just a few of the many small updates we're adding right now so get those fingers ready. A lot of these improvements are the direct result from your kind feedback in our Steam forums, so a big thanks goes out to our demo players.



The melodies of Backbeat are just too good to put down. We can't get them our of our heads! And so we've collaborated with our composer the amazing Pete Fraser to add a arranged soundtrack to the Steam page which will also be live on March 16th.



We're on the road right now exhibiting at DevGAMM in Gdańsk, Poland, so we'll sign off for the moment but see you again on launch day in two weeks.

Stay funky!
/David & the Backbeat Team

After the Steam Next fest in October, we have been in full bug bash mode, but taken the time to sneak a few holiday goodies into our free demo to make the game easier on the eyes and fingers.



[h2]Dialogue auto-advance[/h2]

We have added an auto-advance feature to the dialogue system so you can enjoy the cutscenes with much less effort. Pressing TAB or the X/Square button during dialogue will cycling between two advance speeds and manual. Your preferences will be retained between gameplay sessions so sit back and enjoy the 90s!



[h2]Language! Idioma! Sprache![/h2]

To make enjoyment of our ensemble dramedy even easier, you can now choose between Japanese, Spanish, German, and Simplified Chinese! The operating system language will be used by default on initial installs, but you can change at any time with the refined OPTIONS menu.



[h2]Playback camera system upgrades[/h2]

We squeezed a shot composition and lighting editor into the playback camera system, so on level clear you now can enjoy a wider range of desaturated pastels, lights, and bloom settings as Powerslyde takes the stage.



And many, many more small upgrades in sound and graphics we don't have changelists for right now, but trust us, it's better, and all thanks to your feedback!

[h2]Beta testers wanted![/h2]

There are still a few months to go before we release the retail version of our game, and we're spending our days hunting bugs. Do you think you have what it takes to help? Send us a comment or message on social media we will review your application for beta testing and give you access to a deeper version of the retail game to tinker with.



See you soon, god fortsättning, and 良いお年を！
/151a Team