Design

Here we collate details about the design targets.

For a start, a point list breakdown of the project as I see it.
Elements can be added, rearranged, or sub-grouped as necessary.
No priorities are assigned.

• [Front-end](Frontend Design)
  • Player management: players can join/leave the game
  • Profile management: players can 'login', keep a profile
  • Player instrument selection
    • Present available/configured instruments, players can select from instruments
    • Players may assign themselves multiple instruments; ie, instrument + vox, or Geddy Lee might want bass + keyboard + vox ;)
  • Game options
    • Controller/input device configuration
    • Theme selection/settings
    • Synchronisation, latency adjustments
  • Access song library web service, download new songs
  • Song selection...
    • Filter songs in various ways
    • Present statistics and stuff
  • Choose play modes?
    • Free-play (many players playing together)
    • Competitive mode (many players playing the same parts competitively)
    • Story/mission mode?
• Gameplay
  • Load/play/synchronise music
  • Synchronisation/latency compensation
  • Parse input, track scores
    • Many instrument types
    • Live audio input analysis (vocals etc.). To MIDI?
    • Are there distinctions between Guitar Hero and Rock Band that people will care about?
  • Dynamic screen layout, give the most screen space to the instruments present in play (multiplayer)
  • Note track rendering
    • Many instrument types, guitar+drums are the most popular to start with
    • How to theme/skin these?
  • Background rendering...
    • Static image, bundled with songs?
    • Video clip? (if the song has one...)
    • Psychedelic visualisations... Milkdrop or something?
    • Full 3D environment (much later... requires lots of art, animation, scene management)
  • Pause/options menu
    • Typical options...
  • Support players joining/leaving the game during gameplay? (good party feature)
• Editor
  • No reason not to include an editor of similar style to the original FeedBack