Rhythmic Pop'n is a music, or rhythm based simulation of Konami's Pop'n Music, but for free and in English. While the game will offer the fullest experience of all the games on Aqua Bunny thus far, it needs to be tested by many, many users to make sure that the game can be fine tuned for maximum playability and enjoyment. That's where this demo and you come in. This game will probably end up a downloadable from here on out, instead of an online game.
Download the game here:
http://aquabunny.creativeworlds.net/downloadables/RPDEMO4.rar
Once downloaded, just drag the executable out of the RAR archive and drop it wherever you want (preferably not the Recycle Bin ha-ha). Again, the contents are password protected, new password.
MAC USERS:
Unfortunately the game is an exe. Still holding out hope that I can make a Mac equivalent...
Because work is still being done on this game as you're probably reading this, updates to the demo will be dynamic, so check this page and the home page for updates. This also gives you the advantage of realtime fixes to the game thanks to reports from you.
What's New:
Rhythmic Pop'n Demo v4:
- Added The Polygontal Energy and L'amour et la Liberte. Beware: Liberte 9BTN is the hardest song in the demo. And it's based on the Normal chart from Beatmania, which means I'm really going easy on you all.
- Probably the last demo unless something is really screwed up.
Rhythmic Pop'n Demo v3:
- Fixed synching for Twoside
- Fixed synching for asian573 5BTN
- Fixed score for asian573. It used to be possible to get 100,000 points even if you missed a few times.
- All BGM in higher quality. Let me know if this causes a problem. It hasn't for me, but again, have not tested on the laptop. Still, feels good to play songs like Transparent Manicure and asian573 with better audio, it improves the experience overall.
- Fever/Miss transitions now use a blinds effect as opposed to processor heavy alpha fading. Better all around.
- New artwork for the Fever 1 background. You'll know it when you see it, the other one has been used since I started making this game.
- Executable window does not close when the focus is shifted.
- Button feedback added. Lets you know when you push the button on a Great/Good/Bad, as well as any other keys at the time (such as if you make a mistake and press the wrong key). Again, you'll know it when you see it.
- Everything else that v.2 brought along that hasn't been negated above.
Rhythmic Pop'n Demo v2:
- Demo is now a single executable file instead of (a) SWF(s).
- Demo based on Flash Player 10 as opposed to 9.
- Altered how the Miss and Fever window transitions fade in and out. This combined with the above two points means...
- Better performance overall.
- Fixed oversight where player can exit out of Arcade Mode after starting Stage 1.
- Fixed oversight where Character Select defaults the cursor to Riri after a Game Over.
- Electric Tooth Brush shortened, as I felt it was too long. It is now 1:30, same as 151. This makes Electric Tooth Brush even easier than it already was. Score and G.Gauge variables have been adjusted.
- Speed 9BTN and Twoside 9BTN have had their charts modified to be easier.
- Speed in general has Poppers resynced.
- The colored columns in the 9 Button background are aligned, rather than appearing a pixel off here and there.
- Increased sound quality of everything except the gameplay itself, seeing as the menu music/etc is inconsequential.
What's Next:
- Resynching if songs seem to fall out of synch. Otherwise, that's all, folks, until the final version.
This Is STILL Important.
Here's what I need from you, the player.
- Report any bugs, glitches, or oversights you find directly to me. My email can be found in the MAIL/SUBMIT section of this site.
- Let me know if the game hangs up on you. Loading should not be an issue because you are playing the game on your hard drive, but if it is, let me know.
- Very important: Let me know how the game runs on your computer. Because everyone has a different computer, everyone will have different results. Performance feedback is what's going to make or break the game.
This time, the executable runs the game almost perfectly. It stays within a range of maybe 55-60 FPS even on Popper intensive songs like Twoside. Alphas seem to be handled better as well. However, this was only tested on my desktop thus far. I have not checked the quality on my not-even-good-for-scrap laptop. Let me know if things are less than perfect, and I shall find ways to optimize further.
- Let me know if some of the songs are too difficult. Challenges are good, but if you feel a song just cannot be passed, even with practice, please let me know so that I can make changes. That said, I did make a couple of songs easier.
And just as an FYI, here are some other tips and points of intrest, especially assuming most of you are unfamiliar with Pop'n Music or any Bemani game (or any music game at that).
- Rhythmic Pop'n is mostly developed with the newbie to music games in mind. The final game will guarantee that the ending can be reached by anyone. However, all the extras will require a bit more from you, and these extras aren't all just more songs to play, but I can't say anymore.
- This demo contains less than half of the full game's number of unique songs. The songs chosen for the demo is meant to give the player an opportunity to test various difficulties and gimmicks (such as flip-flopping on the beat of Twoside and the ambience of Speed). I would prefer you go through as many as possible, and then let me know what works, what doesn't, if it's too difficult, and other things.
- One-Hundred Fifty One is the game's tutorial song, and is extremely easy. However, in the demo, you can openly select it. Electric Tooth Brush is also a learning song, meant to help you get even more used to controls, especially in 9 Button mode.
- 5 Button mode is for novice players, and 9 Button mode is for experience players. Learn to play both ways early, in that you'll need it for later...
- Caution Level is just this game's thematic way of of giving you a difficulty scale. It ranges from 1 to 11.
- Something that's true to Bemani based music games is that if you increase the High Speed, the notes that fall will become more spaced out, allowing you to read them better and hit more accurately. However, because the speed increases, you have less time to react. So don't adjust the High Speed too much, unless you want a challenge... (I admit, though, it becomes hard to play these games at a speed of 1.0 after you realize what a boon the High Speed setting is, even if you only increase it .5).
- There are some things that are unselectable in this demo. They will clearly have text/symbols darkened, or marked by "???". Free Play mode, for example, is not in the demo. Beginner mode in Arcade also does not exist (if only because the demo's sandbox play style mixes beginner songs into Normal mode anyway).
- The Password to the RAR file is "popmusic".
- A fun intermediate level song to play, in my opinion, is Silly Psyduck, so give it a try.
- Be sure to start with How to Play if you're absolutely new to this.
- Get comfortable with key settings in the Option's Key Configuration setting. You can test a variety of keystrokes there to help you find the best way to play.
- The demo does not save any scores and settings upon closing the window, but does save your settings after a Game Over (regardless of how you reach it). The final version will save all your progress.
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