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Is America ready for a trance/dance music themed video game?


8BitBliss
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With all of the recent auto-tuned songs and basic trance beat hip hop/pop that's out there right now. Kids might not even realize they are listening to trance beats when they listen to the pop songs they love.

The lame trance beats

(at 1:24)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocif0HitnOQ

(this one upsets me the most... cause this song is so huge and everybody's favorite part is at 2:00 when the "beat drops" yet it's the most basic trance beat EVER!....these are the same people that say "I hate that techno crap"...grrrrrrr)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F444CELomo

The Ripoffs

(the best is when somebody says "Kanye makes the bests songs... wait what? whos daft punk?")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzSh_MLNcY

(this one makes be pretty sick to my stomach too)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSGPcEk4-Lk

Dance to Pop integration

the list goes on and on with lady gaga and katy perry and all the other pop/hip hop that's out there using trance and dance beats.

Do you think America is ready for a game with trance music as it's main background music theme? Do they need more time for integration? Or must they suffer with more of the same low quality trance beats, the auto-tuning and the four to the floor dance bass.

Personally I would love to answer yes to this question mostly because that would be epic and I believe it can be done because of the great trance remixes and artists that I listen to from this site everyday. Makes me wish the trance versions were the real versions.

If yes explain why or maybe what genre would be a good fit. If no also please explain.

Thoughts?

Edit: And when I say video game I'm excluding the rhythm game genre (DDR's and the Beatmania2DX's and the like)

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You say all this as if you are surprised; in my experience, anyone who listens to only mainstream music will bash anything that isn't mainstream, even though much of mainstream draws from alternative influences.

Albeit poorly.

Mainstream isn't as much a genre as a classification; and often the songs are classed as being something that anyone with a wider knowledge of music (like pretty much anyone who visits this site) can listen to a song and notice the different influences that the alternative scene has on the mainstream artists. So even though the sheeple of music might not have much idea about how "lame" their music is, I doubt they really care. Which is a shame, as the alternative scene (and I'd be inclined to say the alternative scene is bigger than the mainstream in terms of scope) has something for everyone if they'd bother to look.

As to an actual game, well, besides audiosurf, I doubt that will come to ANY country anytime soon. Except Japan. But they're awesome like that.

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d-lux, something like this: SINCE U BEEN GONE etc etc

...right? (cue starblaze's remix of it for maximum effect)

also, wasn't there already a dance game that had seen limited success in the USA already? Also wasn't there a lot of dance crossovers in the last 40 years? :?

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depends on the game. Without either being a puzzle game or something so abstract that trance just "fits" - trance wouldn't really work with many games as proper BGM. And designing a game around trance music for the sake of the music itself may not be the best idea.

From my experience trance tends to irritate those who aren't into it. You could show them all the hiphop and r&b tunes you want with trance leads and synth arpeggios but most people I know who aren't into trance hear it and react to it the same way the vast majority of the people on this site do to hip hop - with either disinterest or disgust.

It's not really good or bad - just is what it is...

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So..... a whole soundtrack like this?

http://www.zshare.net/audio/64295219ed27f6ce/

Did it in 10 minutes. Is Progressive Trance just a hip hop beat with a Gated saw running through the middle or what? Thats what all I heard on your examples.

I don't think it would be awful for a game soundtrack to do it, but it might have to be a really funky weird game like Vib Ribbon before an unusual soundtrack like that might work.

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also, wasn't there already a dance game that had seen limited success in the USA already?

I don't claim to be an expert on trance/dance music.

But there was frequency and its sequel amplitude.(from the makers of rock band)

i never really played amplitude (from the demo i played of it it seemed like more mainstream rock and pop)

I loved frequency it seemed to have more of a electronic dance(not that much trance though)

I also like that you don't have to buy an 80 dollar peripheral with it either.

I've only played guitar hero a couple of times when a friend brings it over and I'm actually better with a conventional controller than I am with the guitar.

what was cool to it has a remix mode too(which is pretty cool)

kind of an unknown game in the music game genre i guess

i suppose it was a little before its time

on a side note Activision is working on a game called DJ hero

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oh there was a ninja edit that i missed, you sneaky cop. but there was still Rez and its questionable controller, so i didn't entirely make a mistake. Also, the Ys 3 remake "Oath in Felghana" had high some very energy dance-rock arrangements of the original tracks. It's not really so much a question of "is the mainstream ready" as much as it is "are publishers willing to give dance/trance music a chance?" Because as we all know, the mainstream public will buy just about anything, regardless of quality, if they have been barraged with it enough (i should probably read zircon's blog more).

There really is no need for this 'integration' you're talking about, it's an organic process as what is considered mainstream continues to grow and change. Just look at how film scores and soundtracks have changed over the past 40 years for an example. In comparison, the video game industry started very late and didn't have the kind of budgets for soundtracks (nor the technology to support it until even later), but now with the game industry essentially legitimized and game musician as a profession quickly closing in, we're bound to see the kinds of changes that you're noticing... like i said, organic.

or maybe i'm just rambling incoherently. i'm going to go play tf2 because now my head hurts :\

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depends on the game. Without either being a puzzle game or something so abstract that trance just "fits" - trance wouldn't really work with many games as proper BGM. And designing a game around trance music for the sake of the music itself may not be the best idea.

Actually, I've had a video game idea for quite some time that might work - basically, a game revolving around the concept of a Blade Dancer. Someone lithe and supple who fights with a blade as if they were dancing with it, slicing and dicing apart any opponent with a multitude of quick strikes - contrary to the popular overmuscled fighter who kills with a handful of powerful blows. It builds on the concept that all dance stems from five main sources: mating rituals, religious rituals, agricultural rituals, theater/performing arts, and martial arts.

Now, true, it wouldn't be a fully trance-themed ST, because at least a few areas ingame would be old-fashioned and would therefore need more old-fashioned music. But I could see the majority of it easily being done in trance.

EDIT: That's just one example of a game I could think of that could work with mostly trance. But I'm sure there are others you can think of.

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depends on the game. Without either being a puzzle game or something so abstract that trance just "fits" - trance wouldn't really work with many games as proper BGM. And designing a game around trance music for the sake of the music itself may not be the best idea.

From my experience trance tends to irritate those who aren't into it. You could show them all the hiphop and r&b tunes you want with trance leads and synth arpeggios but most people I know who aren't into trance hear it and react to it the same way the vast majority of the people on this site do to hip hop - with either disinterest or disgust.

It's not really good or bad - just is what it is...

I agree wholly that it depends on the game. That's why I think that you have to make sure that the content the user will be playing matches what the music is doing, this way the user is more attached to the content. I feel like music is a key connector in a users gaming experience even if they aren't paying attention to it, they will enjoy the game a lot better during the experience and then afterward whenever they hear the song again.

We do the same thing on this site. We hear a song from a game we love and are instantly connected to a great memory even if at that time we weren't even paying attention to the music.

I honestly think songs that are heavy on the trance like bLiNd's - Jade Catacombs all the way to a more chill side like your IceCapped song, if matched to the right content could create an extremely awesome gamer experience, just like their respective original versions did.

So..... a whole soundtrack like this?

http://www.zshare.net/audio/64295219ed27f6ce/

Did it in 10 minutes. Is Progressive Trance just a hip hop beat with a Gated saw running through the middle or what? Thats what all I heard on your examples.

I don't think it would be awful for a game soundtrack to do it, but it might have to be a really funky weird game like Vib Ribbon before an unusual soundtrack like that might work.

That would work perfectly for a puzzle type game like bejeweled. I'm talking about branching out the mainstream listeners to more than just that and show them more advanced beats and progressions.

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Actually, I've had a video game idea for quite some time that might work - basically, a game revolving around the concept of a Blade Dancer. Someone lithe and supple who fights with a blade as if they were dancing with it, slicing and dicing apart any opponent with a multitude of quick strikes - contrary to the popular overmuscled fighter who kills with a handful of powerful blows. It builds on the concept that all dance stems from five main sources: mating rituals, religious rituals, agricultural rituals, theater/performing arts, and martial arts.

That actually sounds pretty fun, though it would probably be a controller-based rhythm-fest. (And what's wrong with that? :?)

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That actually sounds pretty fun, though it would probably be a controller-based rhythm-fest. (And what's wrong with that? :?)

Well, that's the major problem that I've had with the game idea in my head - I haven't quite decided how I'd want the control system executed. :| Right now, I'm thinking something like a Real-Time version of the control system used in Vagrant Story, that's rhythm and movement based. I'd even considered throwing in some sort of DDR platform to help control the movements of the character in battle - allowing you to dodge, jump, duck, spin, etc. with your feet.

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Actually, I've had a video game idea for quite some time that might work - basically, a game revolving around the concept of a Blade Dancer. Someone lithe and supple who fights with a blade as if they were dancing with it, slicing and dicing apart any opponent with a multitude of quick strikes - contrary to the popular overmuscled fighter who kills with a handful of powerful blows. It builds on the concept that all dance stems from five main sources: mating rituals, religious rituals, agricultural rituals, theater/performing arts, and martial arts.

Now, true, it wouldn't be a fully trance-themed ST, because at least a few areas ingame would be old-fashioned and would therefore need more old-fashioned music. But I could see the majority of it easily being done in trance.

EDIT: That's just one example of a game I could think of that could work with mostly trance. But I'm sure there are others you can think of.

I like the idea, and it sounds like it would work with a trance soundtrack. I'm just recommending keeping in mind what a niche genre trance is and how few people of the general population actually listen to / like it.

Games like Amplitude / Frequency did well because they had a variety of electronic adaptations of songs that weren't specifically limited to trance / house tracks. Personally, I like some trance, but I can't count the number of times I'd be listening to it and one of my friends would say something like "Turn that sh%t off! It's giving me a headache and it all sounds the same."

Then they go listen to hip hop...

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I like the idea, and it sounds like it would work with a trance soundtrack. I'm just recommending keeping in mind what a niche genre trance is and how few people of the general population actually listen to / like it.

This is true. Although, that's one of the wonderful things about a movie/video game soundtrack - if it's done properly, it can expose the general population to a genre - even something like a niche genre - in such a way that they won't even notice until later that they're listening to it and loving it. But it's just gotta make sense with the movie/video game.

Personally, I like some trance, but I can't count the number of times I'd be listening to it and one of my friends would say something like "Turn that sh%t off! It's giving me a headache and it all sounds the same."

Then they go listen to hip hop...

Don't get me started. :|

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I think you guys have the stuff mixed. The shit they play on the radio is definitely not hip hop. Hip hop artists have depth to their lyrics and kinda educates you while rap has no depth and it's mainly about money, sex, drugs i.e. the stuff you hear on the radio. Don't get me wrong though I completely understand where you guys are comin from because I don't see how people can listen to the stuff on the radio now and it's all trance influenced but then they listen to real trance and they're like I can't listen to this. But please let's not get hip hop and rap mixed up. While the beats of hip hop are heavy on sampling, they never front like they didn't rip the sounds from somewhere and if synths are used they're never any trance type sounds. You guys are smart, you'd be able to tell the difference, hip hop is actually worth listening to lol. My apologies for the wall of text lol.

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