Dynamic Beat

Built with Java using Java Swing and Java Zoom libraries. The objective of this game is to press the respective key at which the note is dropping at the right timing to earn points.

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Overview

Name: Jiwoo Lee
Last Update: May 13, 2018
Latest Package: dynamic_beat_17

Note: This game may not run properly on Mac platforms as Java Swing is built primarily to run based on Windows platform's look and feel.

The tracks, images, and sound effects are all retrieved from copyright-free sources.

Descriptions

A study repo to build a rhythm game in Java as a personal project to learn Java programming during summer break; followed online tutorials provided here.

There are a total of 3 tracks in this game, and the player can choose the music and difficulty they wish to play the game with. The objective of this game is to press the respective key at which the note is dropping at the right timing to earn points.

This game uses the Javazoom external library provided here to implement music files, and uses Java Swing GUI widget toolkit (which is a part of Oracle's Java Foundation Classes (JFC)) to develop the GUI component of the game.

A Short Demonstration of the Game

How to run this project

Prerequisites

  • Eclipse (or any other Java editor)
  • Java JDK/JRE installed on your local machine (I used JavaSE 1.7 for the JRE System Library for my project; other versions (especially the later ones) may not be compatible to use the Javazoom library)
  • Javazoom external library (I have it uploaded in ~/DynamicBeat/lib)

Instructions

Features

1) Screens

  • There are a total of 3 screens in this game:
    1) Intro: with title and start/quit button
    2) Main Menu: this is where the players can select their music and difficulty level
    3) Game: this is the game screen where the player's selecte music will play fully and the notes will drop so that the players can begin the game

2) Buttons

  • There are many buttons in the game that help the user fully make use of the GUI
  • First of all, on the rightmost side of the menu bar located at the top of the screen, there is a small X button that allows the user to quit the game at any time. This button is present in all 3 of the screens described above
  • In the Intro screen, there are two buttons:
    1) Start: changes the screen to Main Menu where the players can select their music and difficulty
    2) Quit: terminates the game
  • In the Main Menu screen, there also are two kinds of buttons: 1) Track Navigation Buttons: depicted in left and right arrows, these buttons allow the users to navigate through the track list to select their music to play the game with 2) Difficulty Buttons: allows the user to choose their difficulty level (easy or hard). Upon pressing one of these buttons, the screen will change to the Game screen
  • In the Game screen, there is the Back button which allows the users to go back to the Main Menu screen at any point of the game

3) Tracks

  • There are a total of 3 tracks:
    1) Cool - Tobu
    2) Dreams - Joakim Karud
    3) We Are One - Vexento

4) Difficulties

  • Players can select either easy or hard for each track
  • The hard mode has more notes dropping at a faster rate

5) Notes and Keyboard Events

  • There are a total of 7 notes dropping in a game; each note is controlled by the following keys: S, D, F, Space Bar, J, K, L
  • The notes dropped reach the judgement line (the red line at the bottom of the game screen) in 1 second
  • The user is the press the respective key at the exact time the note falls into the judgement line to earn points
  • When pressed, S, D, F,J, K, and L keys make a symbol sound and Space Bar makes a snare drum sound

6) Judgment of the Note

  • There are a total of 6 categories of note judgements with corresponding points granted:
    1) Early: 5 pts
    2) Good: 20 pts
    3) Great: 50 pts
    4) Perfect: 100 pts
    5) Late: 5 pts
    6) Miss: 0 pts

7) Score

  • The game keeps track of the overall scores the player achieved throughout the game
  • This is placed at the very bottom of the game screen

8) Combo

  • This game keeps track of the number of combos the player acieved throughout the game
  • Combos are granted if the note judgment is one of the followings: good, great, perfect
  • If the note judgment is early, late, or missed, the combo is resetted to 0
  • This is placed at the very bottom of the game screen next to score

What I learned

Overall, I think this project served its purpose well--from going through the tutorials and working on the game from the bottom up, I've learned lots of valuable skills not only in Java but also practical programming in general. I've came to really appreciate how Java classes work and interact with each other to form a final product, and how efficient this method of program organization can be. One of the most important things this project has taught me is problem solving skills and perseverence. Although the tutorials are very well made with detailed background information, there were many aspects of the code/setup that didn't really worked on my local machine, so I had to constantly go through troubleshooting/debugging/refactoring processes to get it working. I've learned to make use of google and Stack Overflow (Although I've used this website several times, it's my first time to post my own questions. Some of the posts I made for this project can be found here and here), which is a valuable skill needed in my programming career. From this experience, I can say with confidence that it has taught me enough to continue learning Java programming and develop another GUI application on my own.

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