The rhythm-action genre is huge. Fact. It’s one of the reasons for the rise in social gaming, and another reason why Activision continue to blow their own trumpet. Although, whatever you think of playing along to some of your favourite tracks in games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, there’s always that niggling feeling for the hope that someday the same intensity and dexterity of note charts will be available to play for any number of songs in your library of music.
Games like Audiosurf have shown a rise in trying to replicate the feel of tracks through algorithms based on tempo and style, although we’ve rarely seen developers wholeheartedly attempt to re-produce whole denizens of actual tracks for users, without having to pay extra.
However, today InstantAction announced their browser-based, embeddable, “console quality” rhythm action game Instant Jam, that will allow users to play along to thousands of songs from their very own library of songs, with USB guitars also fully supported. And although they have some way to go, the developer is promising to add dozens of songs each week to what they have already accumulated, with “thousands” of top quality note tracks already in the game. As Amir Rahimi, Executive Producer of Instant Jam, points out “we’ll we continually adding support for new songs, [plus] major features such as fully customisable avatars, and more social elements based on feedback from our community”.
Being shown this week at Gamescom, and available in a Facebook beta program, InstantJam will be launched in the coming weeks through their website (www.instantjam.com), and will then be available to embed “as easy as a YouTube video” for blogs, sites and in Facebook. Take a look at gameplay videos which show an already impressive demo of the 3D rhythm-actioner in action.
Instant Jam will be available initially on the PC, with MAC and Flash versions to follow shortly thereafter.
For more information, or an opportunity to access the beta, visit www.instantjam.com