Fret Nice

My name is Mårten Brüggemann and I'm the creator of Fret Nice. I did the design, programming and sound for the version of Fret Nice that is now entered in the IGF.

I started drawing my own games as soon as I had played my first videogame in the '80s. Even then it was an expressional media that spoke to me. I remember designing board games with my parents before that too, so I guess I had a pretty creative upbringing.

Fresh out of university as I am, I felt that I have some own ideas for games I want to explore that just wouldn't be possible for a completely new and untested game designer in a corporate development company. I guess that's a common choice for people in my position.

I'd define it as a developer that at the end of the day answers only to itself. Come to think of it, I guess this is hardly ever the case.

I think it's great that people can realize and share their ideas into small games. I think there are many small indie games that have really unique presentations and ways of expression, which makes them small pieces of art. It's very hard to keep an alternative style coherent throughout larger game projects with more people included and longer development times.

The interactivity and how all different components of a game; its graphics, sound etc., work together towards promoting this interactivity.

We actually got contacted by one of the organizers of the IGF suggesting that we should enter. Before that, the IGF wasn't really on our radar, although we realize now that it should have been seeing all the attention the contestants earn, and rightfully so, in media etc.

I started working on Fret Nice about a year ago. I wanted to make a game using the guitar controllers [from Guitar Hero] since I'm interested in alternative types of controlling games.

I'd have to say getting the guitar to work with every aspect of the game, both as a responsive controller for the platform movement and as a musical instrument when using it as a guitar. This was the main challenge with making the game and it was something I worked with from day one and all the way through development, but I guess the challenge was also one of the reasons I decided to make the game using a guitar controller.

The way you defeat enemies in the game is based on how and what you play on the guitar. This is a core mechanic of the game and defines a lot of things of the overall feeling of Fret Nice. This mechanic however, although very forgiving and not very hard to master, has proved difficult to explain to the player and this often results in the player just mashing on the buttons of the guitar instead of actually playing riffs as intended. The difficulties in explaining this system resulted in the addition of some instructive elements that in hindsight may have been redundant. This includes the notation of the riffs played in the HUD which isn't really visually connected to the actual use of the riffs. This system was also the main reason a separate tutorial was included in the game. I personally feel it's easier to get a feeling of the controls of a game if they are presented in an actual level, not removing the game from its context, so the tutorial was something that actually went against what I believe in as a game designer.

So, although I personally thought the riff system was easy to understand, and I actually still feel it's not really that hard, the fact that it was so tricky to explain should have been a huge warning sign that this may have been something that should have been worked a bit extra on. This is in fact one of the main changes done to Fret Nice in the version currently being worked on. The riffs have now gotten a more emergent visualization that actually shows how the riff can be used. This lets the player visually compare what he/she is playing to what he/she should be playing and may therefore easier define what and if something isn't done right. This progress was not discernable with the old system.

As we haven't launched the game commercially no such situations have arised. When we started making Fret Nice it was very much a hobby project with the intentions of just experimenting with what joys the guitar controller could bring to the game, and as that we didn't think of the complications referencing to the Guitar Hero controllers would mean. In a later stage of the production we did take some steps towards making the game less associable with that specific controller, such as making small adjustments to the pictures of the in-game guitar to make it look less like the SG model the Guitar Hero controller is modeled after.

We have regular meetings every day where we get up to speed on where different team members currently are working on. This helps planning and prioritizing and helps iron out problems that may occur during the work day.

The current version of Fret Nice took about 4 months to create. We have initialized the process of getting the game more up-to-date on the technical side, making the style more stylish and riffs more rifftacular in the process. When this version gets into a serious production phase we estimate a development time of 5-6 months.

I used a game making program called Multimedia Fusion 2.

We're using an in-house multi-platform game engine as a base for our games in order to make them as easily modifiable for the different structures of the different consoles. At this point, while developing the core of the game, we focus on PC and XBox360 versions of the game and as that we use Direct3D for graphics. We use Fmod for sound.

I'd say the guitar controller, although that might be cheating as it brings so many things to the game; the musical touch of the game and the physical interaction this new way of playing the genre brings. But to name one thing I'd have to say the interactivity between these things - the actual physical activity of playing out the moves on the guitar and feeling what consequences these actions have in the game.

We, (as in our company, Pieces Interactive), are currently trying to get Fret Nice and our other game Puzzlegeddon out on consoles.