Guitar Hero Rumours...

[LizzyCamizzy]

Hi!

I heard a rumour that Guitar Hero started out on the DC. Is this true? If it is, any thoughts on the game-play? If not, has anyone tried making it happen on the DC?

[RMD]

For some reason I doubt this. Disk space seems like it would actually be a limiting factor in GH on Dc since the way the audio is stored its not compressed heavly. It has to be able to load tons of notes at a press of a button so i'm pretty sure they're stored as wavs just like on Beatmania IIDX.

[Quzar]

By that logic DDR wouldn't be possible on the DC .

The DC controller interface has the proper inputs to make a guitar controller possible too.

[LizzyCamizzy]

So... it's possible! I mean, the DC has a crack-ton of capabilities if tampered with right....

[|darc|]

For some reason I doubt this. Disk space seems like it would actually be a limiting factor in GH on Dc since the way the audio is stored its not compressed heavly. It has to be able to load tons of notes at a press of a button so i'm pretty sure they're stored as wavs just like on Beatmania IIDX.

Erm, why would this not be possible? Games like Feet of Fury are the exact same thing as Guitar Hero. Feet of Fury lets you play with the D-pad or controller buttons. The only difference is you're not using a big ass plastic guitar.

[LizzyCamizzy]

If that's the case, it would be insanely easy to extend the wires, or simply use a relay, and put it in a plastic guitar. What do you guys think?

[GyroVorbis]

I was screwing around one day with my PS2 to DC converter and I made some sort of simple Guitar Hero thinger for DC. The only thing that wouldn't work was the whammy bar and tilting. When you hold the buttons and strum it would play a note. It was more like a sound effect demo with the GH controller. But it is possible to make a GH clone with a PS2 to DC converter.

[LizzyCamizzy]

sounds like a fun project... I think it can be done! maybe I'll give it a shot after my car is done

[GyroVorbis]

There's no doubt it can be done.

A the background music or band could be an ogg. That's a few megabytes there. The notechart is a few kilobytes. Then the guitar COULD be a streaming .wav. The DC can stream music. You could also just make the Guitar track an .ogg (like the 360 does) and load it into RAM as well.

[BB Hood]

The South Park episode last night got me thinking about how cool it would be if someone had made a homebrew version of Guitar Hero for the DC. I was thinking about it all this morning. Then I see this thread. Coincidence?

[LizzyCamizzy]

The South Park episode last night got me thinking about how cool it would be if someone had made a homebrew version of Guitar Hero for the DC. I was thinking about it all this morning. Then I see this thread. Coincidence?

No! It's FATE!

[Skynet]

For some reason I doubt this. Disk space seems like it would actually be a limiting factor in GH on Dc since the way the audio is stored its not compressed heavly. It has to be able to load tons of notes at a press of a button so i'm pretty sure they're stored as wavs just like on Beatmania IIDX.

Erm, why would this not be possible? Games like Feet of Fury are the exact same thing as Guitar Hero. Feet of Fury lets you play with the D-pad or controller buttons. The only difference is you're not using a big ass plastic guitar.

Not to mention I have Guitar Zero on PC. While it lacks all the backgrounds/characters/stages that GH has, I have all of the songs from GH1, GH2, GH 80s and a bunch of downloaded songs. The whole thing takes up 1.5GB and plays exactly like Guitar Hero except on PC and with less graphically intensive backgrounds. Take out 2 of the GH game soundtracks, as there are 3 lots of game music on there, and add in the appropriate characters/stages/etc. and there's no reason why disc space would be a factor.

Also, I dunno about Guitar Hero, but Guitar Zero (and Frets on Fire) don't use a ton of wavs, it stores a guitar track of the song being played on guitar. So long as the button presses keep happening, the ogg file keeps playing. Check out Guitar Zero or Frets on Fire, although GZ is pretty much a straight PC clone of GH, to see what I mean.


EDIT: If Frets on Fire is a good enough clone for people and the UI can be modified to give the look and feel of GH, this could be ported to DC possibly. I don't know what language it's written in, but I know there's a windows and linux port of it and I'm sure it's open source, but not entirely sure. I would suggest porting Guitar Zero, but AFAIK it's closed source.

[BlackAura]

There's no doubt it can be done.

A the background music or band could be an ogg. That's a few megabytes there. The notechart is a few kilobytes. Then the guitar COULD be a streaming .wav. The DC can stream music. You could also just make the Guitar track an .ogg (like the 360 does) and load it into RAM as well.

Better - use a multi-track .ogg file. Have the band as one (stereo) track, and the guitar as a separate (stereo) track. The DC easily has enough CPU power to decode that. You can just switch the guitar track on and off as required. That could be streamed directly off the disc.

Frets on Fire is written in Python, I think.

[GyroVorbis]

There's no doubt it can be done.

A the background music or band could be an ogg. That's a few megabytes there. The notechart is a few kilobytes. Then the guitar COULD be a streaming .wav. The DC can stream music. You could also just make the Guitar track an .ogg (like the 360 does) and load it into RAM as well.

Better - use a multi-track .ogg file. Have the band as one (stereo) track, and the guitar as a separate (stereo) track. The DC easily has enough CPU power to decode that. You can just switch the guitar track on and off as required. That could be streamed directly off the disc.

Frets on Fire is written in Python, I think.

Whoah, that is a damn good idea. Didn't even think of that.

[LizzyCamizzy]

Snap! You two are geniuses!

[Skynet]

There's no doubt it can be done.

A the background music or band could be an ogg. That's a few megabytes there. The notechart is a few kilobytes. Then the guitar COULD be a streaming .wav. The DC can stream music. You could also just make the Guitar track an .ogg (like the 360 does) and load it into RAM as well.

Better - use a multi-track .ogg file. Have the band as one (stereo) track, and the guitar as a separate (stereo) track. The DC easily has enough CPU power to decode that. You can just switch the guitar track on and off as required. That could be streamed directly off the disc.

Frets on Fire is written in Python, I think.

Whoah, that is a damn good idea. Didn't even think of that.

What's the difference between that and what I said?

[GyroVorbis]

The difference (from what I see) is that BA is proposing both the band and the guitar are a single ogg file rather than having the guitar as its own ogg file. You both said that it should be turned off when the characters miss a note. The difference is that if the guitar has its own ogg file, the band will have to be preloaded into RAM so the the Guitar ogg can stream.

BA's way would just have one file being streamed for the band and guitar.

They're the same thing, really. It's just that BA is proposing to use one ogg instead of two.

[Skynet]

Oh yeah I see now. I didn't actually read the part about the multi track ogg

[NOWKA]

A guitar hero clone on the dreamcast would be awesome. Should be called DCHero.

[BlackAura]

They're the same thing, really. It's just that BA is proposing to use one ogg instead of two.

Exactly.

I think you could just about get away with decoding a 5-track (mono) Ogg file, and having 4-player mode, with each player controlling a specific instrument, plus a background track. Although obviously stuff written for Guitar Hero clones wouldn't work with it.