Frets on Fire - PC Guitar Hero Clone [Archive]

01-19-2007, 09:07 PM

Alright, I think there probably was a thread about this a while ago, but I'll make a new one, since something this awesome deserves a thread at all times. It's somewhat old, but oh-so-worth it.

http://static.flickr.com/65/208839766_6c16e38049_o.png

Frets on Fire (http://louhi.kempele.fi/~skyostil/uv/fretsonfire/)

This is guitar hero. On your computer. You use the F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 keys as the guitar's frets and the enter as the pick button, just like you would in Guitar Hero. It's 33MB and it has high scores and the ability to edit songs and make your own. Contrary to Guitar Hero though, this lets you import songs, either ones you made or songs from a already growing database (link later). It's pretty low end, so pretty much any PC can play it. It comes with 3 songs, a somewhat easy one, a medium one and a hard one (each of these has a Easy, Hard and Amazing setting itself by the way). You hold the keyboard upside down, with the F buttons facing down. You can play without doing this, but it's tougher, less fun and generally fgty.

List of songs (http://keyboardsonfire.net/?songs)

By the way, do any of you know another database for this? With more songs? Have you made any?

Use this thread to post high scores and stuff too!

http://static.flickr.com/78/208839767_80b7fd5b4f_o.png

It's insanely fun, and like a modded Guitar Hero! Not that different from the real deal, so if you already own it you might want to skip this.

Effector

01-19-2007, 09:38 PM

If you register on the forums here (http://www.fretsonfire.net) you can get access to running submissions and people's personal archives under "Tune tradin'".

There used to be great repository here (http://songsonfire.co.nr/), but has since been taken down.

Anyway, Walan is seriously going to organize an OCR FoF song pack (hope I'm not putting him on the spot or anything), so keep eyes out for that.

Nice to see that a great open source game is getting the attention it deserves.

EDIT: Again, I see Dhsu's name up on one of the songs in the archive you linked - is that our Dhsu?

01-19-2007, 10:20 PM

If Walan does this, he'll be even awesomer.

And I don't know if that's Dhsu, but I'm downloading it anyway.

jmr

01-19-2007, 10:25 PM

You hold the keyboard upside down, with the F buttons facing down. You can play without doing this, but it's tougher, less fun and generally fgty.
Something tells me that it won't work so well with my laptop. :(

Effector

01-19-2007, 10:31 PM

Go find a cheap USB keyboard. Extra points if it doesn't have the "gap of death" between the F4 and the F5 key.

01-19-2007, 10:39 PM

That gap kills any song that uses the F5 key. Man.

parasoul

01-19-2007, 10:40 PM

A lot of people who are really into Frets on Fire get a Guitar Hero controller and a PS2 to PC adapter. I've heard you have to download a program to make your PC recognize the picking though. I can't imagine there's a better way to play the game than this.

FiremanJoe

01-20-2007, 12:31 AM

I'm tempted to download this.. but after playing StepMania (that's not a game, it's an addiction!) I'm not sure I want to... These kinds of games get me hooked to the point where I can't do anything else... =/
And, my keyboard has that 'gap of death'...

Effector

01-20-2007, 01:45 AM

About 90-95% of keyboards have them, and I haven't seen a PS/2 one without it.

My hope is that Harmonix will ditch the wireless (never thought I'd say that) for the 360 so it will make it easier to use that controller for FoF.

Sadorf

01-20-2007, 03:45 AM

Well since everyone else seems really lazy and doesnt wanna share songs.... i did my own searching and came across a good page with working links

http://www.oricom.ca/luc1337/sof.htm (http://www.oricom.ca/luc1337/sof.htm)

there u go, enjoy etc...

bye

Dhsu

01-20-2007, 05:45 AM

Sadorf

01-20-2007, 05:59 AM

The gap isn't that bad you weenies. I think the main problem with FoF is no hammer-ons or whammy bar, unless they changed that recently. I'm just waiting for a StepMania-quality clone to come out, with a decent editor. Then I'd start tabbing those OCR tunes like nobody's business...

And yes, that's my Awe of She tab.

i didnt try it with keyboard at all, i decided that if i gonna try this, i plugging gh controller in to usb adapter and will only play it if that works, and sure enough, it did.
the one thing though that annoys me though, is the lack of whammy bar function...i keep tryin to use it..but nope..they need to make it work damnit

Murmeli Walan

01-20-2007, 02:51 PM

I always mention this in an FoF thread: go to the mod section of the FoF forums and download RF-mod 2.0. It adds to the game:

~the ability to put songs into folders
~a pause feature
~multi-track support for Guitar Hero II songs
~a number of optimizations to make FoF run better and with less CPU usage
~themeable fret colors (change the fifth fret to orange if you want)

The next version hopes to add things like career mode for GH/GHII, Hammer-on's/Pull-off's, and multiplayer.

It makes the game so much better.

As for the mentions of an OCR FoF pack: I'm still putting the idea together, but expect the official announcement/interest/song suggestion thread in the coming weeks. Until then, you posters just think about what you'd like to rock out to the most. :)

Effector

01-20-2007, 03:53 PM

Walan, you just get better and better. Good call on the RF-mod.

Yeah, yeah, we get screwed because no HO/POs, although I could live without them because they weren't an integral part of my GH experience... However, the whammy bar was. I'd love that, but I'm not sure it would be easy to implement with the actual distortion because a lot of people without lots of audio mastering experience just copy the guitar.ogg to song.ogg as the same thing, and that would sound odd (distortion on the same song layered over the original... can't be good).

01-20-2007, 04:02 PM

All Game Over songs should be in it.

EDIT: Also, where can I get Queen songs?

01-21-2007, 05:22 PM

Bumping this.

I find the lack of posting on the subject of Frets on Fire appalling!

Murmeli Walan

01-21-2007, 06:37 PM

I've haven't seen any Queen songs past Killer Queen from GH.

You could try the FoF Spanish community at www.fofspain.com. Of course, it's harder to browse around when you don't know Spanish, but registering and finding the GHI/II packs aren't too hard to do.

Also, this site (http://my-css-lab.com/fof-labels/) has the largest collection of tape labels for FoF songs. There's still some GHI/II labels that are missing/crappy, so I'd like to see some of the Photoshoppers here fill in those blanks.

01-21-2007, 06:46 PM

I was there right now. I'm Portuguese, so Spanish comes naturally. I've seen some stuff I wanted to download, but not on this PC. As far as the labels go, I remember there being a Mute City song on the link Sadorf provided and it had a label with GX Falcon on it. And it was from FoF.Spain. Nice stuff.

DjSammyG

01-21-2007, 07:39 PM

Murmeli Walan

01-21-2007, 08:35 PM

If the OCR song pack is really in the works, I would like to humbly suggest to Walan to get the seperate guitar and song tracks from the original remixer. I can't tell you how annoying it is for me to miss a note and to have the entire song stop (or the guitar continue) because there's no real difference between the song and guitar files other than volume. Just my two cents.

That's actually the whole concept of my OCR song pack. I already have on this PC the seperate guitar and song tracks for Hangarmageddon by EvilHorde from DSoP. Believe me, I want this song pack to be as professional as possible and not a slap-together job.

01-21-2007, 08:45 PM

That's actually the whole concept of my OCR song pack. I already have on this PC the seperate guitar and song tracks for Hangarmageddon by EvilHorde from DSoP. Believe me, I want this song pack to be as professional as possible and not a slap-together job.

<3

Aw man, I can't wait.

Effector

01-21-2007, 10:13 PM

Murmeli Walan

01-21-2007, 10:20 PM

What about supporting RF Mod: Alternate parts for bass, rhythmn guitars?

I think it's a given that there's going to be labels, though...

Am I getting ahead of myself? Shouldn't we wait for the (more) official thread?

so many questions. so little post.

I know. The response has me really excited, too. But I want everything organized before I jump the gun.

I do want labels, and I know people here are more than able to provide. I've thought about bass/rhythmn sections, too.

I swear (more) official thread will come soon. Just try to remain calm.

DjSammyG

01-21-2007, 11:03 PM

<3

Aw man, I can't wait.

QFE.
(10characterlimitlulz)

atmuh

01-22-2007, 01:17 AM

Is there a way in this game to have it so you can only strum the first note and just fret when the notes have an all white top like in Guitar Hero? If there isn't I see no reason to playing it since I need to do that to play on hard/expert (mostly expert) and I have yet to find the option.

Murmeli Walan

01-22-2007, 02:00 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FVRAfDSYJE

Take a look at this. Some guy rigged up a Wiimote/Nunchuk to use with FoF.

Looks hard, but also fun.

Effector

01-22-2007, 02:06 AM

Eh. I was almost really impressed because I thought the position of the remote controlled what fret he was playing. Oh well, the uber awkward five-fingers on less-than-five-buttons doesn't look comfortable or easy to control.

Either way, it'd be impossible or nearly impossible to do chords.

Sir_NutS

01-22-2007, 03:04 PM

I'm downloading this now, hope it lives up to my expectations.

Murmeli Walan

01-22-2007, 04:32 PM

I'll tell you right now: there's no hammer-ons or pull-offs yet, and whammy bar looks almost impossible to implement, but all the Guitar Hero basics are there.

Sir_NutS

01-22-2007, 05:14 PM

I'll tell you right now: there's no hammer-ons or pull-offs yet, and whammy bar looks almost impossible to implement, but all the Guitar Hero basics are there.

I'll have to point out that I've played guitar hero just a couple of times (SHAME ON ME! OH THE SHAME!) so I'm not that familiar with it. I was going to buy GH2 now though. My expectations are basically that I can have a good rock experience and lots of fun at the same time :p

parasoul

01-23-2007, 01:42 AM

I found a Frets on Fire song by Ailsean. He has done several remixes for this site but this song wasn't released on ocremix. The actual song can be found on his personal website. The Frets on Fire version is found here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5ZK2Y4F3

The song is called Surfing on the Blocks. It is a Tetris remix on medium difficulty and is pretty fun and mostly accurate. Sorry if you don't like megaupload.

I don't listen to many remixes on this site other than the major full game releases but if I find another one I'll post a link.

Sir_NutS

01-23-2007, 02:54 PM

I played FoF yesterday. AWESOMENESS!
getting guitar hero asap now.

Murmeli Walan

01-23-2007, 03:24 PM

Look for a PS2/USB converter on the net so you can play FoF with the GH controller. Also, if you're going to import GH songs into FoF using the importer, expect it to take a HELL of a long time.

Sir_NutS

01-23-2007, 06:32 PM

Look for a PS2/USB converter on the net so you can play FoF with the GH controller. Also, if you're going to import GH songs into FoF using the importer, expect it to take a HELL of a long time.

Yeah sadorf already told me that it can be done :D

does anyone has any song recommendations for a noob like me? I do well in medium already (only played it yesterda, so I can't hit awesome yet, the f4-f5 gap is killing me =( ) so i need more songs in the easy-normal range.

Zoola

01-23-2007, 09:56 PM

There is a torrent out. I used that because it took so long.

Murmeli Walan

01-23-2007, 09:57 PM

Absolutely all the GH/GHII songs. In the FoF Tune Tradin' forum, find the thread made by cama. His English is awful, but he's posting the highest quality GHII songs.

Sadly, most of the fan-made songs, as I've mentioned before, are usually way too hard. Some song makers are getting together to make organized song packs with all difficulties, though.

parasoul

01-24-2007, 03:41 AM

Sadly, most of the fan-made songs, as I've mentioned before, are usually way too hard. Some song makers are getting together to make organized song packs with all difficulties, though.

Yeah, many of the song creators don't realize you can't hit 10 notes a second in this game cuz of lack of HO/POs. Several songs I've tried are downright impossible, even on Medium.

Murmeli Walan

01-24-2007, 04:00 AM

Yeah, many of the song creators don't realize you can't hit 10 notes a second in this game cuz of lack of HO/POs. Several songs I've tried are downright impossible, even on Medium.

Yeah. Some people are planning for the future, though. HO/POs are planned for future versions of the game and mods of it. I'm still a GH n00b, so I don't play past Easy much (but I try).

By the way, my OCR song pack thread is coming really soon. I just need to hear back from a few key people, then it's on.

Sir_NutS

01-24-2007, 04:42 AM

Yeah. Some people are planning for the future, though. HO/POs are planned for future versions of the game and mods of it. I'm still a GH n00b, so I don't play past Easy much (but I try).

I play the three FoF default songs on medium, most songs I've found I have played them on easy though, they are extremely hard specially when they use the fifth button, because the gap between f4 and f5 in my keyboard is HUGE.

By the way, my OCR song pack thread is coming really soon. I just need to hear back from a few key people, then it's on.
I am eagerly waiting for that. Is there some Goat in there? there should be! I really hope :p

Mewtation

01-24-2007, 05:06 AM

Is there some Goat in there? there should be! I really hope :p
I second this. goat is a god.

parasoul

01-24-2007, 01:45 PM

I play the three FoF default songs on medium, most songs I've found I have played them on easy though, they are extremely hard specially when they use the fifth button, because the gap between f4 and f5 in my keyboard is HUGE.

FoF Medium is the equivalent of GH Hard and FoF Easy is the equivalent of GH Medium. If you haven't played much GH it's best to stay with Easy I guess. I beat all of GH on Hard and all but the last 2 normal songs and 3 bonus songs on Expert so playing FoF on Easy is fairly boring to me. Plus, you can't fail songs in FoF so even if I'm playing badly on Medium it's still fun unless the songs are poorly designed and/or impossible.

Sir_NutS

01-24-2007, 03:45 PM

FoF Medium is the equivalent of GH Hard and FoF Easy is the equivalent of GH Medium. If you haven't played much GH it's best to stay with Easy I guess. I beat all of GH on Hard and all but the last 2 normal songs and 3 bonus songs on Expert so playing FoF on Easy is fairly boring to me. Plus, you can't fail songs in FoF so even if I'm playing badly on Medium it's still fun unless the songs are poorly designed and/or impossible.

I can play on normal just fine on all FoF songs. And I would be able to play the GH songs on FoF's normal if it wasn't for the gap =(. Hopefully my GH guitar will solve this when it arrives.

EdgeCrusher

01-26-2007, 07:42 PM

I really wish Guitar Zero would have been released, but thanks to jerks on another site threatening the guy that made it, I guess now we just have FoF :(

Effector

01-26-2007, 11:12 PM

The alpha was released, IIRC. There's a big disclaimer now in the original scorehero thread threatening a ban for asking someone who got it before it was taken down to send it to them.

But yeah, I want to try it now. Did anyone get it before it was taken down? Or know where we could get it?

EdgeCrusher

01-26-2007, 11:23 PM

Murmeli Walan

01-28-2007, 07:27 PM

People I talked to that played it said the lag was bad on it, but it was an alpha anyway. Either which way, it was retarded for the people at kokuto or whatever it was site to post a blog review of something that was alpha, and something they knew nothing about. All it was in context was someone jealous that they couldn't make something like that, and then deleted anything positive anyone posted about it as comments to the blog. What a bunch of homos.

I agree. What bothers me the most is that the people who were negative and being harsh about it didn't even seem to understand that it was a friggin alpha version, and nowhere near complete. Plus, it makes the GH fan community look bad as a whole.

EdgeCrusher

01-29-2007, 01:43 AM

I'm just happy that I've worked my way halfway through the expert mode on GH2.

EdgeCrusher

02-05-2007, 10:40 PM

Rumors are great.

http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-new-info-on-the-killer-app-red-octane-is-working-on-29626.phtml

Mewtation

03-05-2007, 04:24 PM

This topic needs a bump. How's it coming, Walan?

Murmeli Walan

03-05-2007, 05:31 PM

Well, I have two songs split up into separate tracks so far: EvilHorde's DSoP remix, and a song from Game Over's second album. I just don't have the time to fret these out myself, and the FoF community doesn't seem to have any interest, either. If there's anyone here who thinks they're decent at making FoF/Freetar songs, let me know and I'll pass the songs on to you.

Dhsu

03-06-2007, 02:02 AM

Send it to tokenasian@gmail.com and I'll see if I can't come up with something.

I dunno if I'll do the lower difficulties though...I usually don't bother with anything below Expert.

Murmeli Walan

03-06-2007, 02:39 PM

Send it to tokenasian@gmail.com and I'll see if I can't come up with something.

I dunno if I'll do the lower difficulties though...I usually don't bother with anything below Expert.

This is perfect, because I can't do Expert.

You do Expert, and I'll easy-ify it for the lower levels. Sound good?

Dhsu

03-06-2007, 03:46 PM

Yup, that'll work.

zircon

03-06-2007, 03:58 PM

Rumors are great.

http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-new-info-on-the-killer-app-red-octane-is-working-on-29626.phtml

Haha. Marcus Henderson rules. He's a nice guy in person.

Rainman DX

03-13-2007, 12:14 AM

Since we can't submit copyrighted material to the official boards, here's my first submission for y'all to try out.

Gitaroo Man's "The Legendary Theme" (http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg226y/songs/legendarytheme/) Just copy the files into a directory entitled The Legendary Theme in your "data" directory of FoF.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

jbjsmartguy

03-14-2007, 12:37 AM

I'm not that good at FOF, but this mix was awesome! It's tough, but the tempo is slow enough that you can actually see the notes coming at you :wink:

Benjamin Briggs

03-14-2007, 02:17 AM

so many songs I have to make

so many fucking songs

Rainman DX

03-27-2007, 09:18 PM

Yarr... Nikki Learns a Song (http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg226y/songs/nikki/) from the Chrono Cross OST. Enjoy.

RealFolkBlues

04-16-2007, 06:42 PM

bump: synonyms-budge, displace, move over, remove, shift

So has anybody else plugged in their X-Plorer? It's freakin' awesome.

Also, can somebody please do a better Master of Puppets? The only one I've seen is fucking pathetic, and it's rated as Amazing.

Dhsu

04-22-2007, 01:59 AM

Heh, here's a video someone playing my Awe of She tab.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPR9KeShM8Y

Pretty good!

Citris

04-22-2007, 04:03 AM

Rumors are great.

http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-new-info-on-the-killer-app-red-octane-is-working-on-29626.phtml

!?!?!?!?!

OMG! What if it doesn't come with a controller at all? What if they're trying to figure out a way to use a real electric guitar as a controller?

BigBoss

04-22-2007, 04:16 AM

is this as glitchy and unorganized as stepmania is

Ramaniscence

04-22-2007, 04:29 AM

Perhaps you're playing a different stepmania than I am

Cerrax

05-01-2007, 12:11 PM

Perhaps you're playing a different stepmania than I am

QFT. I haven't had any problems with stepmania.

Also, my newest remix from Shadow of the Colossus has been uploaded to Keyboards on Fire and should be availible soon. Its actually quite fun to play. It has Easy Medium and Amazing difficulties on it.

Murmeli Walan

05-03-2007, 03:40 PM

http://www.fretsonfire.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=4934

BrainCells - Live at the Sandopolis from Project Chaos

In other FoF news, that game has been updated to include hammer-ons and pull-offs, but the system isn't perfect. keep your old version for now and install the latest version of RF-Mod (version 3.5).

sephfire

05-03-2007, 10:40 PM

The fact that this game doesn't work on pre-Intel Macs pains me deeply. :(

Cerrax

05-04-2007, 06:03 AM

The fact that this game doesn't work on pre-Intel Macs pains me deeply. :(

Actually it does. I'm running it on my G5.

You must have a 1.1x version of FoF.
Right click on Frets on Fire and click "Show Package Contents"
Go to Contents/Resources/data.
Delete the default.ttf font file.
Replace it with another True Type Font (.ttf). The FoF forum recommends Chalkboard.ttf, but I'm pretty sure any .ttf font will work.
Rename the font "default.ttf"

It should work. Kinda weird that one stupid font could screw up the whole thing.

OmegaDonut

05-04-2007, 07:07 AM