Be-Pachi Music Gets The Freq Beat
Via somewhere in the vicinity of the DDRFreak forums, we spotted a new update of a neat Beatmania PC clone called 'Be-Pachi Music', which comes in both 'mini' ("a full-featured game using a limited window size") and full-screen, newly updated versions.
Both apps play the 'BMS' format of Beatmania-'style' music files for the PC - check out the relatively old BM98 FAQ over at JPopMusic.com for more information on this, but the format allows for completely original songs and song data to be put into a Beatmania-type format.
Interestingly, the full-screen version looks a lot like a certain Harmonix title, at least visually, with author Alis commenting: "I was trying for the 'FreQuency' 3D style of game play and power-up system, including multipliers and Auto-Play. FreQuency's 'selectable multiple instrument play' might be implemented sometime in the future, I don't know exactly when." Gameplay cloning issues notwithstanding, this is pretty neat stuff.
Comments
Hmmm...interesting...I'll check it out!
-Robotkid
Harmonix Music
Posted by: Robotkid | February 20, 2006 5:05 PM
Oh yeah, I forgot at least one of the Harmonix folks reads GSW! Well, I don't think you'll find it that impressive, but at least somebody cares :)
Posted by: simonc | February 20, 2006 7:49 PM
This is definitely one of the better new simulators out there. If you're interested in this kind of fan-made stuff then you should go to http://www.bemanistyle.com and check out their Beatmania Simulation forum.
Posted by: Catastrophe | February 22, 2006 9:12 AM