Rock Meter

Throughout the development of our game, we've struggled with integrating music into our game. We want players to get into the music and we want the music to matter to the game but our other design choices just didn't work. If we had the players directly influence music, button mashing would lead to bad things. If we made the controls too oriented towards guitar, it makes the controls too difficult. From the beginning we wanted music to be a big part of the game but we just couldn't figure out how to make it work.

The rock meter is what we needed in our game. Playing off of the Spinal Tap 11/10 volume meter (also the namesake of our company) we devised a game mechanic that incorporates music but also encourages high speed gameplay. The idea for the rock meter game up during a design conversation and I loved it. I think the idea was validated after it's first playtest. When the dial goes up to 11, players smile.

The dial represents the players health, how well the player is doing and the volume of the music that is being played. We wanted the dial to reflect reward systems in both guitar hero and fighting games. As the player does well, the dial goes up. The higher the dial goes, the louder the music gets and if the dial gets to 10, a crowd starts to cheer. If the dial gets to 11, a crowd comes on the screen and cheers and the character receives special abilities. If the player isn't doing well (getting attacked or not attacking constantly), the dial goes down. Below 3 on the dial lowers the music and causes booing.

I love this new mechanic. I think it adds a lot to our game and I think it makes the whole game more enjoyable. As I said earlier, play testers have started to smile while they play our game. That is what we are going for.