Today, Warlic and I finally get to revisit and rework the combat sounds in AdventureQuest 3D. The first round of sounds that we put in a while back (which are still live in the game now) are really heavy handed. Our goal in this pass is to better fitting sound fx than the over top "meaty thwacks" (yup, that is actually what we named those sound files.) So we are putting in the better combat sounds that we found. They are better fitting, better mixed, and... here is where the post is about to get weird: Follow the tempo of "Staying Alive" by the BEE GEEs (No, seriously)
The heart inside your chest beats. Bum bum.... bum bum.... Unless you undead of course. The average resting beat is 72 BPM (or beats per minute.) OH! Off topic... I find this number fascinating for so many reasons. I think it might actually be the real "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything." At least for humans. Back when I was learning about film, I found that movies and TV shows were often secretly edited to a beat. To this day, if you ever see me watching a movie, I am probably secretly trying to find the "1... 2.... 3... 4...." beat in my head. The rule of thumb is you can change the scene on any even beat. Preferably on a power of 2 to make flow. WHAT!? Well... if you have a steady beat going, you can change on the 2, 4, 8, 16, beat. You can try this. Watch anything (good) on TV and clap your hands to a steady beat. Try to keep the beat consistent and notice that they change the scenes on the 2nd, 4th, 8th, or 12th, etc-th beat. Neat!
How does this apply to video games? I believe that good games, like movies and TV shows neat to have a beat... especially for combat. So I did some heavy research onto "what is the best beat?" This ultimately led me to... "Stayin' Alive" which is 104 BPM. This was the tempo Doctor's used to say to perform CPR to. (Perhaps my inner Paladin liked the "life saving beat") Then, I noticed that LOTS of things use the 104 BPM rhythm. LOTS OF THINGS. There is probably a good reason for that.
Our combat was already pretty close to this tempo, but we have some broken rhythms... so I talked to Korin and he figured out how to animate our AdventureQuest 3D characters at 30 frames per second, to 104 beats per minute. This means that auto attack will follow a very flowing beat, and special attacks will all have a length matching 1/2, 2, 4, 8, or 12 beats-- just like movies. Will anyone who did not read this design notes post every notice this? No -- just like they never noticed it in any other games they played. This is one of those things that we only notice when something is wrong... but we cannot put our finger on it. However, when it is done right, it just feels natural and fun. This is definitely one of the secret sciences of good video game design.
(Is it just me or does our default model look like One-Punch Man?)
(From @SirThanksalot1)
Like everything else... this is an experiment. Excited to see how it feels when it goes live and we all get to try it out.
For the next release, Kraken & Zhoom also coded some volume controls. They will be in AdventureQuest 3D's option panel. Then for good measure, he added the options panel to the title screen too. (Smart!)
On Monday we will be talking about *Transmission abruptly ended. Sounding emergency alarm*
Undead Legion Ruler
Scribble Scribe
