Beats 1.7.1b FINAL
Been super busy with school (just graduated earlier this year) and work (just started right after that), but I’ve finally got a break to come back and revisit Beats. Reinstalled eclipse and the Android SDK, updated a few libraries, fixed a few bugs here and there, and tested it on my Samsung Captivate (running CyanogenMod 10, nightly) and Galaxy Tab 10.1 (running CyanogenMod 9). No new features since I’m working on Beats2 now, but feel free to send me patches if you want! Here’s the changelog (note that r16 is based on the open-source code):
Beats 1.7.1b FINAL – Changeset [r16]
- Android 4.x ICS support (tested on CyanogenMod 10 nightly)
- all speed multipliers effectiveness DOUBLED, please adjust your settings!
- fixed Graphics zip delete error
- updated AdMob to v6.2.1
- updated Immersion MOTIV Haptic Effects to v3.5.39.3
- updated all translation
Links:
Download
Facebook
Google group
Beats2
Donate
Changelog
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Beats2 Prototypes Video
On a side note, the project won 1st place in my school (University of Pennsylvania)’s CIS Poster Competition ; )
~Keripo
Beats2 Prototypes
It’s done! For those who haven’t read the last post, “Beats2 Prototypes” is pretty much a series of demos/prototypes designed for the purpose of quantitatively comparing different user interfaces for large touch-screen devices – in this case, 7″ or larger Android tablets (you can still run it on your Android phone, but that’s not the target of the study).
It’s also my senior design research project (i.e. not a polished final product) and an important precursor to Beats2, which will target BOTH small touch-screens (i.e. Android phones, iPhones, etc.) AND large touch-screens (i.e. Android tablets, iPads, Windows 8 slates, etc.).
Report: PDF
Poster: PDF (JPG)
Code: Google Code
Here’s the Google Play blurb:
NOTE: This is designed to be run on wide-screen TABLETS (i.e. 7″ across or larger) – the interface may not be easily to use on smaller screens such as phones.
This is a demo app created as part of an academic research project focus on developing various touch-based user interfaces for rhythm games. This app features numerous prototype interface designs with the intention of being tested by users and compared in their effectiveness.
This app collects usage data that will be used in the future for designing better touch-based UIs for rhythm games, specifically Beats2. Please try to test out all the different game “modes” and submit feedback via the built-in tracker. Keep in mind that these demos are only prototypes made for testing purposes and are not final products (hence the lack of fancy graphics and only one test song).
Beats2 Prototypes:
Data from it will be used for developing Beats2, so please try it out and submit feedback!
~Keripo
Beats2 New Years Update
A day late but oh well. Happy New Years from Keripo!
Since the last update quite a bit has happened but here’s the rough plan for 2012. There will be two projects: Beats2: Prototypes and Beats2. In a nutshell, I decided to make Beats2 development a part of my senior design project for university (think “undergraduate thesis”), the result of which will be a paper entitled “Designing Rhythm Game Interfaces for Touchscreen Devices”. Prototypes will be a demo app that will be used for conducting a study comparing various rhythm game interfaces (i.e. think DDR vs Beatmania IIDX vs DJMAX Technika, etc.) with the results of the study and the basic game engine later being used for Beats2. A general overview of the project can be found here and the current progress report can be found here but details are highly likely to change over the course of the semester (they already have at the time of this post). Here’s a quick rundown of things:
- Beats2: Prototypes = simple demo app comparing various rhythm game interfaces
- Beats2 = full fledged rhythm game using the same basic game engine as Prototypes
- Will be developed using the Unity 3 game engine
- Unity 3 plugins: ex2D for graphics, Immersion’s MOTIV plugin for haptics, FingerGestures for input?
- Target platforms: Android, Windows, Web Player
(iOS and Mac OSX targets will depend on level of interest/testers, other targets may come later) - Prototypes expected to be complete by April, Beats2 will be worked on after that
- Source code license will depend on plugin licenses, so project may not be allowed to be fully open source ; (
On a side note, although I have long stopped working on Beats 1.X (which was always meant to be nothing more than a small personal project for fun), the Android Market (limited) and Localytics (more accurate) reports for the past year went far beyond my expectations. Especially considering that Beats was and always will be an indie project; I’ve done pretty much nothing to promote the game so I’m assuming popularity arose from word of mouth. Here’s the numbers:
(Note: Beats 1.0b was released sometime Oct 2010 but these numbers only reflect Feb 2011 and after).
- 420k+ direct Android Market downloads
- 4.6/5.0 average rating (out of 3.7k+ ratings)
- 640k+ unique users (includes non Market downloaders)
- 5.5mil game sessions, average duration of 12 minutes
- Most users: China (44%), Japan (19%), USA (15%), South Korea (8%)
All in all, 2011 was a great year, lets look forward to an even better one in 2012!
Links:
Download (Beats 1.7b FINAL)
Facebook (like the page and spread the word!)
Beats2 (will be updated more frequently as the semester goes on)
Donate (Unity 3′s iOS license is the same price as the Android license: $400 >_<)
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Beats 1.7b FINAL (Open Sourced)
Summer ends and university starts again. With the change comes the release of Beats 1.7b FINAL, the last version of Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game. This also marks the open sourcing of Beats and the starting point of the Beats2 project!
Beats 1.7b FINAL is almost the same as Beats 1.7a-r570 (Beats 1.7b FINAL is r575). For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Google group, here are the changes since 1.6.2b:
- tablet support!!!
- improved screen updating and scaling
- modified sliders and guidelines for osu! Mod
- smarter osu difficulty selection
- custom loadable graphics
- new SM-based default noteskin
- updated with Immersion MOTIV Haptic Effects, Version 3.4.73
- more touch-friendly main menu
- rearranged settings menus a bit
- translation update
- removed MobFox
While there are still a lot of unresolved bugs and minor feature requests, I will no longer be updating Beats but focusing on Beats2 (which will be far more stable and feature-filled). Instead, I have open sourced Beats 1.7b FINAL under the Modified BSD License. The source code can be found alongside the Beats2 source code here (svn/trunk/beats). If you wish to use the source code for your own projects, PLEASE read the ReadMe.txt first. Beats2 will be a completely new rewrite and also have a desktop version as well.
For those who have troubles running Beats 1.7b FINAL due to memory issues (e.g. some older phones running Android 1.6 will force close due to a RAM-related graphics-loading bug), you can always download older versions here. Otherwise, hope you enjoy the final release and look forward to Beats2!
Links:
Download
Facebook
Google group
Beats2
Donate
Changelog
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Beats 1.7a Preview and 250k Downloads!
To start off, it seems that sometime earlier this month, Beats hit 250k downloads on the Android Market! (this doesn’t include downloads from the Downloads page and other locations of course). So here’s the obligatory thank-you picture!
While I’ve been quite busy over the summer with work, I did manage to get my hands on a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb (3.1). Which means, yes, the next release of Beats will support tablets! In addition to hacking around to allow for proper scaling, a few other changes have been made in the development build, including customizable graphics (new StepMania-based noteskin is used but the original graphics are still available), updated UHL (vibrations will hopefully work now on more devices), and work-in-progress sliders on osu! Mod! Check out the demo video below:
Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game – 1.7a Tablet Demo [Android]
Beats 1.7b is planned to be released sometime before September, but you can get the latest development build from the Google groups link below. Make sure to keep check with the Changelog page to see what to expect in Beats 1.7b. Don’t forget to visit the Translations page to help make sure Beats 1.7b will be fully translated into your language!
Links:
Download (Beats 1.6.2b release build)
Facebook
Google group (Beats 1.7a development build)
Translations
Beats2 (for the future)
Donate
To-Do list
Changelog
Look forward to the next release!
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Beats 1.6b
After many weeks of inactivity, I finally got a chance to sit down and crank out code for a while. As a result, there have been tons of MAJOR changes/features added in Beats 1.6b. Here’s just half of the changes:
- full .dwi support
- experimental .osu support
- save local high scores
- use Immersion’s Universal Haptic Layer (UHL) for vibration control
- translation project public at http://crowdin.net/project/beats
- added Screenshot Mode setting
- see the changelog for more
The long promised .dwi support is finally here and complete (as far as my testing has gone at least). SM->osu! Mod has been done back in 1.5b, but now real .osu files can be used as input with osu!->SM pretty much complete (sliders and spinners aren’t yet added though and direct beatmap downloading support from http://osu.ppy.sh will require some peppy poking). High scores are saved locally per stepfile and difficulty level, and screenshots can be taken by pausing the game while having the Screenshot Mode setting enabled. As well, thanks to the hard work of all the volunteer translators at crowdin, Beats is now officially available in 12 different languages (but of course, you can make that grow)!
There’s only been a few minor graphical changes, but here’s a few random 1.6b screenshots for eyecandy:
LOVE & ROLL – generated osu!->SM || Bad Apple – real osu! data || Bad Apple – high score!
Whats next? If you haven’t heard already, I am planning on doing a COMPLETE REWRITE of Beats over the summer/fall, tentatively called Beats2. Not only will it be OPEN SOURCE (modified BSD license) and rewritten with many of the wanted features on the ToDo list but it will be designed with customization and game mode flexibility in mind. New to the rhythm game scene and only know Guitar Hero? Beats2 will have it – guitar mode. Old-school and just want to Beatmania IIDX it up? No problem – beats mode. Prefer imported games? Lucky for you, I’m a fan of Project Diva and Jubeat! A side/parallel project that I’m very interested in is attempting my hands at an actual rhythm analyzer library for helping generate stepfiles directly from music in your library (think DancingMonkey, cept for more than just StepMania).
Beats2 is a distant long-term project at the moment, so what about Beats? Following Beats 1.6b, I will probably be experimenting with adding various features here and there listed in the “Experimenting with Beats 1.7b” section of the ToDo list.
Obligatory URLS:
Download
Facebook
Google group
Translations
Beats2
Donate
Enjoy the release!
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Beats + Kinect = Win
UPDATE: Demo video and full report released and new downloads available. See here for more details or see below:
Finished up writing the full report with instructions, etc. Includes all relevant documents, source code modifications, photos, and of course a video of the actual demo ; )
Report: 2011-05-09 ESE350 Final Project – Report.pdf
Video: Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game – 1.5.5b Kinect PoC Demo [Android]
Files: http://beatsportable.com/static/kinect/
Blog: Dance With Your Hands
For installation instructions, download all the files in the “install/” folder and skip down to “5. b)” in the report.
Happy hacking!
~Keripo
===============================================
OLD POST:
For the final project of one of my classes, I modified Beats so it would take input from an XBOX Kinect. The result is a Kinect hooked up to a Beagleboard-xM running Android and playing Beats. It was all proof-of-concept of course as everything ran with extreme lag, but it was pretty cool nevertheless and fun! Here’s a pic of my lab partner mastering Tetris (Rock Version) on Beginner[1]:
More pictures are posted posted on the Beats facebook page here!
For more info, see the (currently still being updated) blog here. The modified, signed APK can be downloaded here. The patch file (for inspection-purposes only) can be found here. The modified ofsample demo used for calibration can be downloaded here. The (possible?) source for the demo can be found here. Make sure to recompile your Beagleboard’s Android kernel with ‘CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y’ and add ‘mount usbfs none /proc/bus/usb -o devmode=0666′ to your init.rc file as per instructions found here.
Happy hacking!
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
Looking for translators
To deal with managing the various translations/localizations of Beats, I have uploaded the strings to crowdin, a collaborative translation tool that supports Android.
http://crowdin.net/project/beats
If you are interested in helping out with the translations, please visit that site and start translating! In particular, I am strongly looking for someone to help out with Japanese translations. Once translations are complete, I will release a quick Beats 1.5.5b update which will include some of the updates on the Changelog page (particularly a setting allowing you to explicitly change the game language).
As always, make sure to join the Google group to keep up with updates. Happy translating (and happy Easter to those who celebrate it)!
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
100k Downloads!
Yay, the new version of “Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game” has reached over 100,000 downloads (with over 1000 ratings averaging 4.5/5 stars) \o/ Technically this happened months ago under the old package name but I just didn’t notice back then xD (the current cumulative total downloads so far is actually well over 250k at the moment ^_^)
Due to heavy school work, I haven’t had much free time to work on Beats apart a few random things listed on the Changelog page. Rest assure, however, that all your feedback and support has not been forgotten! Depending on the amount of free time I have over the summer, Beats 1.6b may either be implementation of new features or a complete rewrite with a much more stable and flexible engine (e.g. less prone to lag/miss bugs, support for BPM changes, customizable skins, etc.). Of course, everything on the ToDo page will be on the agenda!
Til then, spread the rhythm and have fun with Beats!
Check out Beats’ Facebook page and connect with other Beats fans!
Keep up with progress and find the latest development guilds via the Google group!
~Keripo
Post your comments and feedback in the forum thread here!
