Origins of the Rhythm/Music Genre

[NeoZeedeater]

I have been playing a bunch of rhythm games lately. Guitar Hero III really clicked with me this year and I have been loving older ones in my collection like Space Channel 5 Part 2 more than before. It's certainly not a genre of expertise for me but since I try to be a well-rounded gamer, I have been researching and attempting to trace its origins more thoroughly than existing articles on the internet.

Parappa the Rapper (1996) is generally seen as the birth point for modern rhythm/music games. Its popularity (and obviously other games after it like the various Bemani games) have made it its own genre instead of being thrown under terms like "reflex", "puzzle", or "miscellaneous".


So this thread is devoted to pre-Parappa games that contributed to the genre.

Where to start is certainly up for debate. Given the comparisons to the children's game Simon Says that the genre often gets, you could say its evolution goes as far back as gaming's first console, the Magnavox Odyssey, launched in 1972. One of the included games was video Simon Says. This was the TV overlay for that game -


I can't really think of other video games worth mentioning from the '70s off-hand. Due to technological limitations, most video games back then didn't even have background music. Atari had a Simon Says-like arcade game called Touch-Me in 1974 and Milton Bradley released their Simon toy (by Odyssey creator Ralph Baer) a few years later but those weren't actually video games.

The early-mid '80s and the rise of personal computers lead to music programs like Dancing Feats and Kawasaki Synthesizer. These weren't exactly games, though. They were interactive toys and electric instruments.




An early game that mixed action and music elements was Melody Chase for the Mattel Aquarius computer. It has a 1982 copyright although didn't come out until 1983 when the system launched. An ad describes it as follows: "The player is under the clock to shoot diamonds out of a rapidly moving pattern that is scrolling across the screen. Make music by shooting the diamonds out of the pattern..."


As breakdancing gained mainstream popularity, games based on it followed. 1984 saw at least three breakdancing games for the C64, Epyx/Beck-Tech's Break Dance, Creative Software's Break Street, and Interceptor Sofware's Break Fever. While Break Street and Break Fever were more attempts at being sims, Break Dance was a Simon Says-type dance game making it an ancestor to modern rhythm games.


There were other music-themed computer games around this time like Taskset's Jammin' and CBS Software/Dovetail Groups's Halftime Battlin' Bands but they don't really strike me as predecessors to modern rhythm/music games; they seem more like odd action games to me.

Over in Japan, in wasn't long until the Famicom was showing signs of what was to come. The system had a microphone built into its controller, and Taito's 1986 release, Takeshi no Chousenjou (a big success for sales but considered one of the worst games ever in Japan), had a part where you sing into the controller. Commercial -


Also for the Famicom in 1986 was Bandai's Family Trainer peripheral which was a step pad mat controller much like DDR's years later. It was released by Nintendo in North America a couple years later as the Power Pad.



Exus released something similar for the Atari 2600 in 1987, the Foot Craz Activity pad. Here's Video Reflex for it (not a rhythm game but I think worth a mention due to similarities).



1987 was a big year in the evolution of rhythm/music games. The Family Trainer got Family Trainer: Aerobics Studio in February, and exercise/dance game much closer to DDR than the running game previously available for the peripheral. It was released domestically for the NES as Dance Aerobics in 1989.


Around a week after Aerobics Studio, Tokyo Shoseki released Ikinari Musician for the Famicom. It was a piano sim but also had a versus game mode to play against another player or the computer to see who's better. It was later followed by Family Composer.


Shortly after that, ASCII/SEDIC had Otocky for the Famicom Disk System. This obscure game has got a bit more attention in recent years as it was made by Toshio Iwai, the creator of Electroplankton for DS. Otocky's not quite a rhythm game as it's more of a shooter where you hit notes (which is why it gets compared to Rez) but it was a unique music game, letting you have some creativity over music creation in an action game. It reminds me a bit of Musical Pilot for the Atari 800 since they both involve flying and hitting music notes although that game's pretty crude in comparison.


In July, Bandai released Karaoke Studio for the Famicom which came with its own microphone. This is one of the few FC games I have yet to properly experience but supposedly the game detected the accuracy of your singing to some degree. It's the ancestor to games like Karaoke Revolution and SingStar although given how obscure karaoke was in the West in the '80s, it's not surprising it was left in Japan.


More info -
http://www.famicomworld.com/Doodads/Karaoke_Studio.htm

1990's Miracle Piano Teaching System by Software Toolworks was certainly significant. It was an educational tool for NES, PC, Amiga, Mac, Genesis, and SNES. It included its own keyboard and had included a few rhythm games in the "arcade" section of the program to practice piano with.




I'm having trouble thinking of other stuff from the 16-bit era. There was a rise in music themed games. Sega CD had those "Make my Video" games for bands like INXS and (barf) Kriss Kross and Marky Mark. Having famous musicians in games dates back to those Journey games in the early '80s but these games don't really have rhythm gameplay so I didn't bother including all those licensed musician games. Even ones like Moonwalker that sort of incorporate music into the gameplay don't do it in a way that's similar to modern music rhythm games.

I guess Toejam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron (Genesis, 1993) has a sort of rhythm mini-game although the main game itself is a platformer.



Your additions and thoughts on the subject?

[mannerbot]

You should be writing articles for the main TNL site.

[YellerDog]

No love for C+C Music Factory?

[Dyne]

Simon Says looks like an instruction book for pedophilles.

[rama]

i was just reading an inteview with rodney greenblat in this zine i picked up over the weekend. it's made me want to go back and play parapa and i'm looking forward to that wii game that's in development with his characters. major minor i think it's called?

anyway, i had NO idea this kind of game went back so far. i mean...i guess it makes sense since it SEEMS like an easy thing to base a game around.

[James]

Warning on Major Minor- while the idea is pretty fun the gameplay at E3 was basically broken. Setting the march tempo was simple enough, but using the wand to tag spectators to join the parade was a subtle art that only the Majesco people could master. I know it's possible, I saw them do it reliably time after time, and as near as I can tell nobody at E3 could figure out how they were doing it. That was months ago and the game is still a ways off, though, so hopefully that's been taken care of.

And yeah, these history posts have always been good enough to be front-page articles.

James

[Geen]

Great topic starter as always, Neo.
Not sure if we want to keep this pre-psx or not, but I'm a big fan of TechnicBeat on the PS2. Seemed like the type of game that would do great with a Rock Band-type music shop.

[Port]

The Famicom Family Trainer was released in the US as the Family Fun Fitness Pad. Nintendo liked the idea and bought it from Bandai and all the FFF pads were recalled and the Power Pad was born. The Bandai game Stadium Events was also purchased and turned into World Class Track Meet.

[Jason]

it's nice to know there was a time when a video game could be titled "touch me" without causing a big uproar. Anyway, cool thread... I always wanted to try the Miracle for NES, never got around to it.

[Seik]

I feel like the first post of this thread should be on TNL's homepage.