Rhythm Storm News

[p]Rhythm Storm 1.0.04 is now available on Steam! In case you got here without knowing much about it, Rhythm Storm is a rhythmic bullet heaven/swarm survival/survivor-like. It uses vector-graphics (aka lines and polygons only, no textures), but more importantly, it has tons of vehicles, powers, weapons, and upgrades. There are many ways to succeed in the game, and if you want a head start, I posted a Beginner's Strategy Guide earlier this week.[/p][p][/p][p]After playing the game a bunch this week in preparation for launch, I made a number of minor tweaks to the visuals, audio, and a few gameplay elements. There was also some good feedback from the Steam forums thanks to the (no longer available) demo. You might notice some slight visual differences between the trailers (like the launch one below) and the actual game, but I think all the tweaks/changes are for the better.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]BUILD BALANCING[/p][p]With so many different builds and ways to play the game, there's always going to be some that are stronger than others. I'm less concerned with subtle variations or minor difficulty roller coasters, but I've tried to make sure most intentional strategies/builds can work out on Elite, and that no build is so OP that it makes the game feel easy from beginning to end. [/p][p][/p][p]I've really focused on making all powers and weapons viable. There are 10 powers, 10 body weapons, and 10 turret weapons, and you can combine those in a huge variety of ways. Each of those 30 things has two Ultra upgrades (you can only one Ultra at a time), so that's 60 different builds if you focus on any one of those, and then there are many combinations and different vehicle properties to consider, along with 32 Ultra Combos that require at one or more Ultra upgrades.[/p][p][/p][p]A RADIANGAMES ROGUELIKE[/p][p]I'm sure that some of the words I'm said in the paragraph above won't make sense to you. But I hope you are able to stick to the game to the point where they do. I'm still really enjoying playing the game after hundreds of complete runs (thousands if you count world 1-complete runs). The beginning of the game can be overwhelming for new players, and I'm still trying to think of ways to convey some of the game's secret/hidden upgrades prior to them popping up.[/p][p][/p][p]On that last issue, I've taken the approach of trying to add a variety of powerful hidden upgrades regardless of which build you attempt. I think I have most of the builds covered in that regard, but it's possible I missed a few, and I'm very open to adding more Ultra upgrades if I did. So if you max out an upgrade and think it should have an Ultra or special version as a reward, please let me know in the forums (or email [email protected]).[/p][p][/p][p]I wish I had made a roguelike game prior to Rhythm Storm, as they are especially fun to work on. But I'm glad that Rhythm Storm is Radiangames' first entry into the genre. Survivor-likes may be the "simplest" version of a roguelike, but they are far from simple to make. I probably won't make another roguelike for a few years, but I'll be updating Rhythm Storm for quite a while.[/p][p][/p][p]Speaking of updates, I'll be watching the forums and reviews for any issues and balance feedback, and I expect to update the game fairly frequently in the near term. [/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy the game! -Luke[/p]

[p]Rhythm Storm 1.0 releases on Steam in 3 days. To prepare for the release, and to help players succeed at the game, I'm writing up a strategy guide. Part 1 is all about Beginner/General strategy, and I'll create intermediate and advanced strategy posts in the coming weeks. [/p][p]Note that the following might be considered spoilers, to some extent. So if you prefer to figure out things on your own, you'll want to stop reading now. Let's begin...[/p][p][/p][p]ONLY TWO CHOICES?[/p][p]Rhythm Storm's upgrade system only gives you 2 choices every time you upgrade. That would appear to make the choice "simple": set A or set B? But you have a strong influence on what A or B can be. In reality, A or B is really two of A, B, C, or D. There are six possible sets of choices you'll see each time you upgrade (AB, AC, AD, BC, BC, or CD). At the start of each world, you also choose what ABCD are, out of 6 upgrade sets. The choices you make for upgrade sets matters more than you might realize. Let's get started with good options to start the game.[/p][p]\[We haven't discussed rerolls, which give you a third choice when upgrading. We'll cover rerolls next time.][/p][p][/p][p]BEGINNER STRATEGY - STARTING CONFIGURATION[/p][p]Let's rewind, and give you some good starting build strategies for the first two vehicles: Guardian and Devastator. Guardian is the starting vehicle, so let's break down the vehicle configuration choices. There are two of each choice initially, and a third choice is available after completing world 1 with a given vehicle. We'll focus on the first two columns for Guardian:[/p][p][/p][p]The first choice (POWER) honestly isn't that important, but if you're not going to be upgrading your power, More Shocks is probably slightly more powerful.[/p][p]The second choice is a bit more important, as this could be the weapon you'll upgrade the most. Again both choices (Plasma and Wide) are valid and don't affect gameplay style too much, though when you get to more advanced builds you'll want to think about what additional weapons you want later when making this choice.[/p][p]The third choice is a bit simpler: You should choose Storm over Pulse unless you want to play a risky up-close style. Pulse can become overpowered, but it takes a LOT of upgrades to get there, and it wants you to be ok getting really close to enemies.[/p][p][/p][p]UPGRADE SETS[/p][p]Next we'll look at the upgrade sets, which are probably more important than the starting configuration. You have to choose 4 out of these 6 sets, and you'll see 2 of those 4 sets (chosen randomly) every time you upgrade.[/p][p]The sets change a bit per vehicle, and you can affect one based on the vehicle configuration, but what you see in the screenshot below are the ones you're most likely to see for the Guardian. [/p][p]There are multiple valid builds for beginners, but I'll cover 3 in particular here:[/p][p]BUILD 1 - Turret/Power Hybrid Build[/p][p]BUILD 2 - Body/Power Hybrid Build [/p][p]BUILD 3 - Weapon Variety Build[/p][p]For the Hybrid Builds, you'll choose these 4 sets below for the Turret version, and change the first set to "Working Out" instead of "Point And Shoot" for the Body version.[/p][p][/p][p]For the Weapon Variety Build (Build 3 above), we want to choose these 4 sets.[/p][p][/p][p]For all 3 of these build directions, we're trying to choose a combination of upgrade sets where we'll have potentially good choices for both columns for our build when upgrading.[/p][p][/p][p]UPGRADE CHOICE BASICS[/p][p]For the Hybrid Builds (1 and 2), your objective when upgrading is to either upgrade your power (Shocker) as much as possible, or upgrade your Turret/Body weapons as much as possible. You can do both, particularly if you're always choosing the "better" of 2 sets you're given. Let's do a quick example of the very first upgrade, using Build 1:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]There are some good upgrades here, but column 1 is quite a bit better for the following reason: All 3 upgrades work together to make one thing (your Power) better. Unlocking a new weapon isn't bad, but you should generally avoid unlocking other weapons *unless* that's your explicit strategy (I'll cover that in a bit). If you unlock another weapon, you'll have a lot more firepower/weapon upgrades to choose from, which likely means less synergy and cumulative effects. [/p][p]\[NOTE: If you had a reroll or 2 unlocked, and wanted to do a weapon-heavy build, you'd want to reroll this and see a couple new choices.][/p][p][/p][p]Now let's see what the next upgrades are, and adapt accordingly. Because we were able to choose some good Power-centric upgrades the first time, we're hoping to see the "POWERFUL" set again.[/p][p][/p][p]And we got it! There's a 50% chance of seeing a specific upgrade set in each upgrade. The "FIREPOWER" upgrades in this case are actually pretty good, so if the other option wasn't "POWERFUL", I'd choose that one most likely. At this point our Shocker power is ramping up quickly, so we want to keep upgrading it (or energy generation) whenever we can. If we don't get "POWERFUL", we'd want to not choose new weapons and choose generally "good" upgrades, with an eye towards what we want to upgrade alongside our power. [/p][p]\[We'll cover long-term upgrade strategy next time.][/p][p][/p][p]WEAPON VARIETY BUILD[/p][p]Let's move back to Build 3 (Weapon Variety). This build has a different upgrade strategy, because you want get to 4 weapons ASAP and then choose upgrades that benefit multiple weapons as much as possible. Here's our first choices:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Here we want the right column, because it gives us a new weapon (Creeper and Burst are similar in power/etc), and "SWIFT SHOTS" benefits all weapons. "SURVIVOR" is also slightly better than "LOCK-ON", especially early in a run. Next upgrade:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Again we'd choose the right column, this time despite having to choose "LOCK-ON" over "SURVIVOR". The other two upgrades are just much better for our build. For the rest of the run, we want to continue choose upgrades that benefit multiple weapons (turret weapons, body weapons, or all weapons).[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]DEVASTATOR BUILDS = EASY MODE[/p][p]Devastator is a bit easier to upgrade, since it only has one turret weapon slot, and you can easily avoid getting additional (body) weapons. There are many sub-variants, including a Drone-heavy build, or a faster one, or a power-centric one. Weapons and powers can vary as well, but the upgrading strategy centers more on these upgrade sets:[/p][p][/p][p]For most Devastator builds, you want a strong turret weapon, so choose "FOCUSED FIRE" and "FIREPOWER", and DO NOT choose "WORKING OUT". "POWERFUL" is optional, depending on what you prefer. Assuming you always select "FOCUSED FIRE" and "FIREPOWER", and not "WORKING OUT", it's hard to go wrong with the Devastator.[/p][p]Of the sub-varieties of builds for Devastator, the ones that are the most foolproof are the Drone ones. In those, you'll have "TINY WARRIORS" as your 3rd upgrade set, and the 4th upgrade set can be whatever you want. Then you'll always have at least one of the 3 upgrade sets you want for each upgrade, and the 4th can be chosen only when it looks especially good.[/p][p]Because 3 of the 4 upgrade sets will be upgrading a single weapon (or benefit from upgrading that weapon), it's fairly easy to make a powerful Devastator build using these upgrade sets.[/p][p][/p][p]The builds above can get you through world 3 without too much trouble (on Normal with minimal Modifiers). Now let's jump into more general strategy while playing:[/p][p][/p][p]GENERAL STRATEGY - XP AND UPGRADING[/p][p]One of the more important elements of the game is collecting XP so that you can upgrade your vehicle. You can obviously move towards XP to gather it, but there are multiple ways to draw it towards you. Upgrading your vehicle's magnetism is one way, the large Magnetic Charge powerup (below) dropped by enemies pulls all energy/XP towards you, and the DECELERATOR powerup increases your magnetism range. If you don't gather XP quickly enough (within 30 seconds or so), it'll disappear. It's not unusual to have some XP disappear, but you should generally try to actively gather it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Gather enough XP, and you'll level up and upgrade. When you see a purple/pink upgrade as below, that generally means it's very good and you should choose it. In this case, Ultra Damage is one of the best upgrades in the game. You won't see it with many builds, but it's one of the reasons to go for the Guardian's Weapon Variety Build above.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]GENERAL STRATEGY - POWERUP BLOCKS[/p][p]Your vehicle's damage output and upgrade path may not always be optimal, or take a while to ramp up. Powerups dropped from blocks can help fill the gap and keep your run going. Look for arrows on the edge of the screen to help find Powerup Blocks.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] These blocks can contain one of 5 powerups:[/p][p]* DECELERATOR - Enemies slow down considerably, but you barely do, and your magnetism increases.[/p][p]* GIGABLAST - Unleashes a series of powerful concentric explosions.[/p][p]* INVINCIBLE - Gives your vehicle invincibility for around 10 seconds.[/p][p]* LANCER - Smaller powerups that give you ammo for powerful shots that pierce multiple enemies.[/p][p]* SHIELD REPAIR - Repair 1 shield layer and gain 20 energy. If your Shield is at max, you'll gain 50 energy and a Spark (used in the Modifiers menu).[/p][p]The SHIELD REPAIR powerup will appear more frequently when your Shields are low, but there's no guarantee you'll get one even at 0 shields remaining. Otherwise the powerups are equally likely to drop from a block. A GIGABLAST has the most damage potential, but it requires enemies to be surrounding you to be especially effective.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]GENERAL STRATEGY - POWERS[/p][p]The first vehicle in the game, Guardian, is the only one with a fixed power: Shocker. All the other vehicles give you 3 potential Powers (out of 10 total) to choose from. Powers can deal a significant amount of damage in some way, even those with a movement element to them. Energy for powers recharges over time when not in use, and you also gain energy from Powerup Blocks and Magnetic Charge powerups.[/p][p]Each power has different strategies and upgrades that affect how to best use them, so it's hard to generalize power usage. Generally a power should either complement what your build does well, or do something to cover a weakness in your build. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Shocker (above) is a power that can do a bit of both, as its aim is omnidirectional, and its damage output is fairly continuous. The omnidirectional aspect can help stun/slow attackers for builds that are more directional. The continuous damage complements almost any build because it can fill in the gap in damage to weaken/finish off an enemy. So if your main weapon is dealing 10 damage per shot, and enemies have 12 hitpoints, hitting the enemy with 1 weapon shot and 2 Shocker hits (1 damage per hit) will be much faster and more efficient than 2 weapon shots.[/p][p]If you find yourself with max energy, you're probably not using your Power enough (or it might be worthwhile to try a different one). If you're always nearly running out of energy, you may need to upgrade your power more so it's more effective, or be more selective in how you use it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]COMING SOON - MORE STRATEGY [/p][p]We covered a lot this time, so I'll hold off on more intermediate/advanced strategies for later. There will likely be 3 parts in this series, so keep an eye out for them in the coming weeks. Let me know if there's anything you have questions about, and I'll answer them in the comments or try to cover them in a future guide.[/p][p]- Luke[/p]

[p]It's finally here after 3 years: Rhythm Storm version 1.0 is coming to Steam on July 25, 2025![/p][p][/p][p]To celebrate the announcement of a release date, there's an all-new trailer:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]The release date trailer was going to be a use remixed version of the original announce trailer song from 2023, but after watching trailers for other competing games, and looking more critically at that original trailer, I changed plans. I wanted to have the trailer represent the game more effectively, and I liked what games like 20 Minutes Til Dawn and Vampire Survivors did in their trailers. So I remixed world 3's music into something more trailer-friendly, and focused more on showing the game's progression and variety. The result turned out about as well as I could have hoped for the amount of time I had to put it together. Hopefully others like it too.[/p][p][/p][p]Three Years of Development*[/p][p][/p][p]I started work on Rhythm Storm in the summer of 2022. But I didn't work on it exclusively for more than a month or so at any time during the past 3 years. In that time, I've worked on 3 other games a similar amount of time (or more), including Instruments of Destruction, Speed Demons 2, and Fireball 2. [/p][p][/p][p]There were 2 major demos of Rhythm Storm in 2023, with the Alpha demo in February, and the Beta demo in June. But I wasn't really happy with the game after either demo, so I took a break from it for a while, and finally played similar games in 2024 (instead of just watching YouTube videos). Vampire Survivors is obviously the king of the genre, but in terms of direct influences, 20 Minutes Till Dawn is the game I paid attention to more closely when I reworked most of Rhythm Storm's game systems in early 2025.[/p][p][/p][p]As mentioned in the 2025 Demo post, development this year went very smoothly, and nearly every change I tried worked out. The result is a game that's far more enjoyable than the early versions but still retains the overall vibe and unique flavor. I've probably started over a thousand runs in the game this year, but I still want to go back and play more to try new builds and refine my strategies. After being something of an enigma for a couple years, Rhythm Storm's turned out to be one of my favorite games I've made.[/p][p][/p][p]Launch And Beyond[/p][p][/p][p]With 10 turret weapons, 10 body weapons, 10 powers, and 10 vehicles, along with hundreds of upgrades (and 21 modifiers), it's impossible to test every combination. I always think I've refined the balance as much as I can, but every time I play, I find a few things to tweak. So I'm expecting and looking forward to refining the game after its launch on Steam. Version 1.0 is definitely not the final version of the game.[/p][p][/p][p]I may also need to write up a beginners guide at some point, or maybe create a video, just to point new players in the right direction. You're only choosing between 2-3 things at a time in game, but the choices you make before the game matter, and your choices in-game compound quickly. Plus there's one late-game modifier (semi-permanent upgrade) that unlocks more new builds than you would expect.[/p][p][/p][p]After the Steam version is refined for a month or two (or maybe more, if the game is more successful than expected), I'll work on finalizing the ports of the game to Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. I'm planning to finish the console ports of this and Speed Demons 2 at the same time. Their release dates might even be in the same week, but that's far enough away that I'll worry about the details later.[/p][p][/p][p]FYI: I plan to leave the demo up until shortly before version 1.0 launches. So if you want to check out a snippet of the full game, you still have a few weeks left.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

The Rhythm Storm Alpha demo released in early 2023, when the game was announced. Though the demo hit a lot of goals I had for the game, I didn't really enjoy playing it that much. After some additional refinement, a Beta demo was released in mid-2023. It fixed a couple minor issues, but some fundamental problems remained. At the time, I thought that the rhythm and upgrade elements were a bit too conflicting, but there was something else not quite right. So I took a break from the game while I finished Instruments of Destruction.

The difference between the Alpha and Beta demo was fairly large, and the new 2025 demo has received even more revisions. The fundamental gameplay remains that of a bullet heaven or swarm survival game with music-synced elements. In the end, I didn't change much with the music syncing, but instead the process of upgrading is very different from previous demos.

With the Alpha and Beta demos, XP was gained automatically, with enemies dropping an "upgrade" powerup when you reached a new "level". Enemies also dropped energy instead of XP, which was used to fuel your powers, minor powers (in the Beta demo), and drone respawning. Balancing the energy dropping in particular proved difficult, as more enemies spawned more energy which made it far easier to destroy lots of enemies at once.

After playing a bunch of bullet heaven games in 2024, it was obvious that the fundamental changes I made to enemy drops was one of the core problems. Enemies dropping XP was far better than them dropping energy.

The other issue was the upgrade process was just too cumbersome. You want to look at the the choices, make a decision within a second or two, and jump right back into the gameplay. That was impossible with the double upgrade system. Choosing 1 of 3 items in two different columns, plus deciding whether to reroll one (or both) column just added up to way too many choices and controller inputs.

The 2025 Upgrade System

In the 2025 demo, you upgrade by pressing left or right, then pressing A (or clicking twice with the mouse). That's the whole process when you first play the game. Later you can press X to reroll one to three times. There's a bit of reading to do if you want, because each choice gives you 3 upgrades at once. But you can also just look at the first word of each column and generally know what you're choosing between.

When you first start a run, and after each world, you'll select 4 out of 6 upgrade sets. These upgrade sets are categories or filters, essentially. When you upgrade or reroll, the game chooses 2 of your 4 sets, and populates them with random upgrades from those categories. There's more to it than that, but it gives you a little more control over which upgrades you'll see while still remaining fairly randomized. And it streamlines the upgrades in a way that feels good.



The 2025 Demo

The full game will have 8 vehicles, 20 weapons, and 10 powers at launch, and the demo gives you access to a good number of those (4, 16, and 6, respectively). The major limiting factor in the demo is not the content that's not available, but the game stopping part of the way through the second world. Some of the really powerful upgrades are just becoming available around then, and you'll only briefly see some of the ultra combos if you're lucky.

Having played through the full game hundreds of times at this point, I'm always a bit disappointed to have the demo end, since I'm usually just starting to see the full power of my build in action. I think the overall demo length, and the progression in it, is enough to show a pretty good preview of the full game, but it's possible I should be letting you unlock another column of modifiers (and one more vehicle) or play through through a bit more of the 2nd world.

The demo version now has its own page, mostly so it's easier for players to give feedback through reviews. Having lots of people play the game (and leave feedback) is a great way to refine a game. Or to find out that they hate it. I'm hoping for the more of the former than the latter. Either way, if you missed the new demo trailer on the main page, here it is:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Full Game Release

The full game is nearly done at this point, so its release will be this summer, at least for the Steam version. Because of the variety of builds and upgrades and ways everything can interact, the plan is to update it multiple times post-launch. The 1.0 version will still be the best I can make it, and this demo will help, but I'm sure there will be some builds or strategies that I've never thought of that need balance tweaks.

If the Steam launch proves successful, I hope to add more content in the form of additional vehicles and a lot more secret upgrade combos (and maybe alternate music/worlds if things go really well). Either way, I'm really happy with how the game has turned out after not feeling good about it a couple years ago. It's not guaranteed that design changes to a game will make it better, but it seemed to happen with surprisingly frequency these past couple months.

[Special shout-out to 20 Minutes Till Dawn, my favorite bullet heaven to play while trying to sort out the issues with Rhythm Storm.]

PS. After the game balance stabilizes post-launch, it will be coming to Xbox Series X|S and Playstation 5.