I’m going to start this with a backstory. When MarioKart 7 released on the 3DS, one of the most popular tracks to be featured was Music Park. It was an instant smash hit, from driving up and down xylophones to the major scale, to flying past eighth notes bouncing in time with the music, and everyone’s favorite head-bopping pirhanna plants. It was a masterpiece of game design, and in today’s world of MarioKart 8, Music Park remains as one of the most spectacular tracks in the game.
The Question
With the backstory out of the way, let me ask the question: Can a music-themed game on ROBLOX succeed, and if so, what game features would appeal to the younger audience that the platform caters to?
Why?
Since I recently started composing for developers here on the DevForum, I’ve noticed a wide variety of games being created, from tycoons to basketball simulators to some really weird stuff in general. I did not, however, find any game centered specifically around music. So I want to know if the community thinks it’s possible to be successful with such a concept, and how they think it could be best pulled off.
What am I looking for?
I want to know exactly what game concepts tend to appeal to a young audience(Simulators, obviously, but what else?). I also want to know if you can think of any ideas for how to add in music concepts into these features.
There would be lots to choose from music wise to games. Firstly I would advise that you look at current composers on Roblox and see what games they approached.
Of course, I haven’t seen many music-themed games on Roblox recently, so choosing that path when creating a game is definitely an option, as I see there is some gap in that game genre at the moment, being able to fill that gap will definitely bring you some audience.
Music is everything to a game, they would not feel the same without the music. So having a game revolving around music just makes it even better.
See, that’s what I want to do, except I lack the skills development wise to do it myself. I currently am writing two OSTs for games atm, but when I finish with that I was thinking I may put together a team to create a music-centric game. Before I did, though, I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas for gameplay concepts.
See how the two OSTs go, if they fit the game and the games do well, maybe carry on down that path. It is generally about finding what your most comfortable with and what is right for you. Composing for a simulator may be better than composing for a tycoon as maybe your skills slant more towards simulator type music. I would just see how things go on the 2 OSTs then go from there.
Rhythm games, like robeats, are the most popular kinds of music games, but I feel like these cater to an older audience as they are a lot harder to play.
There’s also some casual games, like musical chairs, guess that song (although this wouldn’t be a viable option), etc. These would cater to a younger audience.
Few things to keep in mind if you want a successful music game:
You will need to target an older audience - Vesteria for example is a complete work of art in many ways, but 8 year olds dont care about amazing music and breathtaking scenes.
It needs to be playable without sound - Sounds dumb for a music game, but I rarely use sound when playing roblox and id find it very confusing If you could only play with sound on since I would have no idea what was happening.
You need to take something popular, say a puzzle game, but center it around music. Puzzles are music related. Maybe you press buttons in a sequence according to the music played. But, you don’t want to go to far with it because it can get to the point where you have to have music theory to play. A good example of a music puzzle would be, like I just said, pressing buttons in a sequence according to the music played. A bad example would be to press a sequence of buttons to write out sheet music according to the music played. Sorry if this is vague.
Wow. These are all fantastic tips! This is great! Thank you all so much! I was also thinking about the age targeting. Would an older audience be enough to carry a game through time?