Rhythm game - Games for Music

Rhythm game

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This glossary entry is a draft. You can help by editing it or discussing in the comments

A game where actions must be performed to the rhythm.

Usage

Generally, in a rhythm game you don't necessarily have to make sounds. Actions to the rhythm may be silent, there might also be an external sound source playing a track for you to synchronize with. Central mechanic of time synchronization is more popular with video games than analog/tabletop because of checking the performance success is much easier with computers when electronic signals come from players. Pressing buttons used to dominate as player action, but nowadays the diversity of controllers for such games is huge and includes actual musical instruments.

In theory, precision should be the most important success factor for a rhythm game and player's in-game actions should be neither too late nor too soon, but perfectly on point. It is possible to play non-electronic games premised on such a requirement, but you need specific type of instruments (clear attack) and relatively high skill of participants for this to work well, or at least a skilled facilitator as a judge.

Much more often note placement will be approximate all the time, and the rhythm game is analogous to a time-tracking game (e.g. with a sand timer), but with a much shorter time span for player's action (e.g. a 1-second window).

Games in the library

Go to rhythm tag for full set of rhythm games on the wiki (including ones embedded within other content and not in the library).

External games

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Rhythm Blox	Wes Crawford	sold	A rhythm game with notation cards and backing tracks
Tasty Score	Kosmologym	2021 free	A larger spatial piece of found sound, rhythm, and recipes
A Clave de Candombe	Emanuel Sánchez	2012 rare	A rhythm game with traditional South American inspirations
Zombie Crisis: Party Edition	Anthony Gill	2009 rare	A rhythm game played to an audio track
Flail and Wail	Dave Rockenbaugh	2005 rare	A rhythm game with a CD and a transparent maraca with a dice inside
Biff Baff		2015 sold	A rhythm game where you drum on the box
Onk-Onk	Jean-Baptiste Fremaux Thomas Luzurier Paul-Adrien Tournier	2013 rare	As sea lions clap in rhythm, observe cards, and react
Tempo	Francisco Gallego Arredondo	2021 sold	A rhythm game where a player marks the beat and gives to others syllables to perform
PARTYtura	Katarzyna Cioch Wojciech Wiśniewski	2020 sold	Polish music-themed rhythm game with a quite loose synchronization
Nebuta Beat	Nagisa Kujira	2019 rare	A rhythm game with elements from a traditional Japanese festival
FiveLines	Takashi Saito	2019 sold	Music-themed rhythm game played to a backing track (now as: Hey Yo)
Drakkar Tum Tum	Alexander F. Francisco	2020 sold	A rhythm game done in sync to recitation, with a rowing boat setting
Rock the Beat	Gabriel Ecoutin	2008 sold	Gesture rhythmically to "We Will Rock You!" body percussion