Rhythm Gaming

2023 September 30

Rhythm games happened when someone decided they had enough of fighting monsters and demons, instead setting their sights on music itself. One con of them is that they have a soft requirement of the player being young, for two reasons: they need a lot of time and they need your body, usually the upper part, to withstand a lot of stress. Both things that kids can do. Of course, it's not limited to them, but you will not usually see anybody above 25 dominating the leaderboards. In the osu! community, for instance, older players are lovingly referred to as "grandpa", which I think reinforces my point.

My stint with rhythm games wrapped itself up when my left hand started tingling whenever I'd try to play at the limit of my abilities. Cursed to only be able to enjoy such games when playing fast songs and not settling for slow, methodical, and accurate play instead, this turn of events essentially promoted me to a spectator role. Some time has passed since then, and I have reflected on this preference of mine. I can't help but wonder if my desire to go fast stems from a need for recognition from other people. The logic goes something like this: discerning high level gameplay takes knowledge and experience of the game. You can only know how good someone is if you are good yourself, or at least good enough to recognize skill. But fast songs are visceral. It's immediately apparent that someone is good at the game if they can navigate the flurry of notes, which might as well look like dodging raindrops to the uninitiated eye.

Then, being fast rather than accurate will earn me bragging rights, because I would be able to show my highlights to anyone out there and they would be impressed, right? Yes, if the person cares about me in the first place. I've done it a few times in the past. It feels good to be validated, after all. However, all of this can also stem from the fact that when it comes to rhythm games, I look up to people who can be fast. This whole paragraph might have just been me coming up with justifications for a subjective preference.

The game I became the most intimate with is Beat Saber, so I want to give some perspective on what happens behind my eyeballs when I'm playing fast songs. Beat Saber is a VR game, so you will be wearing a headset and wielding two controllers as your play. In-game, the controllers turn into sabres that you have to use to slice blocks that are approaching you in time with the music. Here's a screenshot:

If it's too small, you can click the image to open it separately.

It may look overwhelming at first, but you only really need to understand three concepts to be able to parse the game. They are the circled numbers in the image:

Number 1 are the blocks. They come in two colors, are positioned on a 3x4 grid and have 8 possible orientations. The orientation of the block, denoted by the white arrow on one of its edges, tells you which way to cut the block. In the case of the blue one that is closest, a cut towards the upper right with the blue sabre is required.

Number 2 are the sabres. They also come in two colors and you swing them at the blocks of matching color. The right hand is the blue sabre, while the left hand is the red sabre. The tip of the sabres produces a visual trail that looks cools, but otherwise they are straight.

Number 3 is the scoring. Each block yields up to 115 points when cut, and the score in this game is calculated as a percentage of how many points out of the total possible you've earned. The 115 points are a sum of 100 from the wideness of your swing (you need to perform a wide move of about 160 degrees for maximum points) and 15 from how close your cut was to the geometric center of the block. For reference, a score of 97% means that you earned 112 points on average, which is really impressive. A 100% is incredibly difficult and only possible on very easy and short songs.

With the basics out of the way, here is a clip, slowed down to 10%, of about the fastest I could go in this game:

Even at this speed, it's still a lot to take in. But let me break down what is going on here. To get it out of the way, performing this like is the result of practice. Steam says I racked up over 300 hours of Beat Saber. All this time freed up my head to not worry about the basics such as how to handle the sabres or how to cut blocks. Like speaking your native tongue, you don't fumble when expressing basic ideas because you learned those when you were still a toddler.

The second ingredient is in the map itself. Consider that the game allows anyone to grab a song, slap some notes over it, and upload it for others to play. The quality of maps is very volatile from one to the other. But it is also quite simple to make a good map, even with no prior experience, as long as you always keep the anatomy of the human arm in your head. In the community, this regard for the anatomy is called 'flow', and can be summarised as orienting blocks of the same color in an alternating manner. That is to say, if the first blue block will make your hand go upwards, then the following block should move your hand downwards. I strongly believe that even if you've only played the game for 5 minutes and you find yourself making a map, as long as you remember the flow, you will create something that people will enjoy. For harder maps, it is almost a necessity that flow is respected, as otherwise real injuries can happen due to unnatural moves. Recall the image I showed you earlier: all the blocks that are close by, are facing opposite directions compared to other blocks of the same color. Flow is respected.

The third ingredient is using wrists to swing, rather than the whole arm. If you think about a real life sword, you would naturally want to put weight into your swings, to deliver stronger blows. A steel sword is a heavy, physical object that demands momentum to be effective. On the contrary, VR controllers are very lightweight and the sabres are a virtual projection. They do not need momentum, as they cut blocks equally well if they're near static or if they're treated like a real weapon. To reach the speeds necessary for the high BPM songs, the wrists must be used almost exclusively, since they can move a lot quicker than the whole arm. This is also where the game becomes very demanding on your body. Here's a YouTube link of a top player showing this very well. Notice how during the note-dense sections, his elbows only move side to side to allow his wrists to do all the heavy lifting.

With all this being said, let me offer a full speed video that also contains the earlier clip, so I can brag a bit and once again justify the hours spent in game (😁):

Every now and then, I like to look back at the plays I've achieved and admire them. The beginning of my Beat Saber journey was intertwined with admiring the people pushing the skill ceiling, and yearning to be in their spot. While I didn't manage to be part of the elite raindrop dodgers that come home dry on a rainy yet, I could achieve some plays that leave me in disbelief at my own droplet-dodging abilities that allowed me to return home mostly dry.