Tune of the Spirit
A simple rhythm game where you play as a pacifist monk, parrying his opponents into submission.
Some gameplay from earlier in the game's development against the second opponent, Goro.
What is Tune of the Spirit?
This game was one of my first times working with 3D modeling in games, and in order to account for my inexperience with modeling faces, all of the characters in the game are wearing Japanese Noh theater masks (even the monkey), which are all based on real Noh mask archetypes.
What role(s) did I serve on the project?
I was a solo developer for Tune of the Spirit, and made it over the course of about ten weeks of development time. The game was made on Unity, with supporting assets made in Autodesk Maya.
The design philosophy of Tune of the Spirit
Tune of the Spirit is designed to experiment with the basic rhythm game formula of notes traveling down a slider, with the player having to input the right button when the slider reaches the right point to perform a ‘correct’ input.
The game has four separate levels, each with their own gimmick. To add a simple but unique twist to the typical rhythm game formula, some notes on the slider will be black, and as such not telling the player what button they need to press. In exchange, the telegraph for the button that the player needs to press instead is shown through the opponent’s actions.
The gameplay of Tune of the Spirit
The first level has a relatively simple opponent who can potentially fake out what attack they’re going for, training the player to pay attention to the enemy as well as the note slider in order to determine what they need to respond with.
The second level introduces a monkey henchman who’s there to distract the player while the actual opponent gets to work, clapping off-rhythm and eventually placing a tree branch over the slider that gives the player less time to react to incoming notes.
The third level has the player dodging bullets shot at them by a sniper, making the notes harder to see coming due to the lack of an obvious tell between attacks. It also requires the player to find where the sniper has run off to while also keeping track of the note slider.
The fourth level is the final boss, which is the simplest in terms of mechanics, but also has two stages, the latter of which leaving the player with little in terms of health due to the cursed blade that the final boss wields.
