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In the shadow of Gamescom: Germany's game scene struggling to grow up
Germany hosts the world's largest annual gaming convention, Gamescom, which last year drew 340,000 attendees and 635 exhibitors from 40 countries. Gamescom kicks off again this week in Cologne for what is sure to be an even bigger, sardine-packed public weekend. For these few days, it feels like Germany is the place to be for video game developers – and then the show leaves, exhibitors return home, and German studios large and small face the realities of operating in a country still in game development puberty. Germany's video game industry is finding its footing economically and socially, and there's a quiet undercurrent of discontent among developers. Things are getting better – states in Germany offer a handful of programs for studios to find funding, though these trail behind the support seen in countries such as France, Finland, Sweden, Canada, the UK or the Netherlands. "The German government is clearly not doing enough to support our industry," says Timo Ullmann, CEO of Dead Island 2 developer, Yager. "But our local governments – Berlin, Bavaria, Hamburg – are much further ahead of things and have identified our industry as an important partner. However, there is always room for improvement. There are simply not enough projects being run in Germany to support a greater number of studios and developers. And that is what we would need in order to have a more flourishing scene. Eventually we will get there over time, but I am unsure how to fix it."
Beatbuddy paddling, grooving its way to iOS in September
Beatbuddy's rhythmically-accented adventure will follow along to iOS' beat in September, developer Threaks announced this week. A related press release notes the version has been "completely redesigned for touch," but judging from the above demonstration, it looks like the logical extension of the Steam version's follow-the-cursor gameplay. If you've yet to swim through the journey's channels, Beatbuddy's musical world of Symphonia is plagued by the vain, detestable Prince Maestro. In order to ensure his nails-on-a-chalkboard-tier music spreads through Symphonia, Prince Maestro kidnaps Melody, a spiritual being from which a component of Symphonia's life-sustaining music stems from. Beatbuddy is faced with undoing this injustice and knocking Prince Maestro down a peg, solving puzzles that incorporate the game's soundtrack along the way. To get a better sense of just how vital music is to Symphonia and the Beatbuddy experience, you can read our review. [Image: Threaks]
Beatbuddy breaks down its gameplay
Even if this Beatbuddy trailer neglected to describe the game as "an epic music adventure (with music!)," you'd be able to tell it was just that. The voiceover alone is a solid indicator of the game's epicness. Beatbuddy is due out on August 6 for PC, Mac and Linux from developer Threaks, and it features music from a number of high-profile collaborators, including Journey composer Austin Wintory and electro-jazz artist Parov Stelar, with writing by Tomb Raider scribe Rhianna Pratchett.
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians busts out August 6
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, AKA the artist formerly known as just Beatbuddy, is booked to perform on PC, Mac, and Linux on August 6, Threaks tells us. Tickets for the rhythm-based 2D platformer by the Hamburg-based outfit will be available on Steam for $14.99. Threaks describes its jam as "an action-adventure that takes you into the world of a song." Accompanying players on this musical journey are a number of collaborators, including Journey composer Austin Wintory, and Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett. But if you're curious about Threaks itself, take a look at what the German team gets up to when it's not laying down sweet beats.
Beatbuddy breaks out the turntables this summer
Beatbuddy has been jamming on its own for far too long, and it's finally ready to share some sweet tunes with the world. Beatbuddy is coming to PC and Mac this summer, but first it's stopping off at PAX East, in booth 1048, to show some hands-on demos.Beatbuddy is a musical platformer, featuring levels and enemies synced to the individual rhythms of entire songs, all of which are manipulated as you travel throughout the worlds. One level is put together by Grammy-nominated Journey composer Austin Wintory.Play the demo on Steam, for free, if this news alone doesn't set your toes tapping.%Gallery-183260%
Journey composer Austin Wintory lends a friendly hand to Beatbuddy
Beatbuddy is a platform action game in which all of the on-screen elements are musical – the arrangements of the enemies and other things that make up levels each sync to part of a song, Sound Shapes style. One of those levels will be set to new original music by Grammy-nominated Journey composer Austin Wintory."When Threaks first reached out to me, I couldn't wrap my head around what the game would be like, but I couldn't help but be incredibly intrigued," said Wintory in the announcement of the collaboration. "Very quickly thereafter I came to realize what Beatbuddy could be and I had to be a part of it. It is a chance to explore a type of music I'd never touched before within a gameplay style I'd never worked with, and that combination is a dream."To understand how Beatbuddy works, check out the free demo on Steam. The game is set to be released on PC and Mac this year.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Beatbuddy
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, the boys from Threaks talk about the early indie success of music-mixing, action-adventure title Beatbuddy. What's your game called and what's it about?Beatbuddy is an action-adventure that takes you into the world of a song. You take control of our main character Beatbuddy and navigate him through levels where everything you see, the enemies and challenges you encounter, are synched to the music and rhythm of the individual tracks that make up a particular song, which you can manipulate and basically re-mix through your interactions.The game will feature licensed music that you will be able to move freely through, assembling and disassembling the track. We're planning to feature a great line-up of popular artists and songs and have developed a proprietary sound-filtering technology, which allows us to create levels matching each song with animations that are right on beat.What was the IGF experience like – entering, waiting for finalist announcements, and getting an honorable mention?Well, we here love to compete, so it was extremely cool especially to get the honorable mention. Getting the version ready to be entered was of course a bit of a crunch, as we tried to put as much into a short demo level as we could. Ahead of the announcement, we all got pretty nervous – I think none of us could sleep. Getting the honorable mention felt like a real milestone, especially considering the calibre of talent that was in the competition this year.To be in the company of games like Fez, Tiny and Big and all the others, is a special thrill. We're looking to maybe do that extra step to a nomination with the game next year, when it's finished.
Beatbuddy bustin' moves on digital platforms, thanks to Reverb
Beatbuddy, a quirky rhythm-based action-adventure game from indie studio Threaks, already has a cozy game page on Steam – in fact, you can download a demo right now. Soon it will be available through more digital distribution channels. Reverb has announced it will publish Beatbuddy, though no exact platforms beyond Steam have been mentioned.Developer Threaks, a small German outfit, has been working on Beatbuddy since 2009. The team said it plans on bringing Beatbuddy to "a wide variety of platforms," and when those exact platforms are announced, we'll be sure to relay the info.
