What goes into creating a VR Karaoke Game? With Songbird’s recent launch on Quest, we interviewed the creative director to learn more.
Developed by Always Blue Games,
takes a different approach to karaoke games. You’re required to perform on various stages in order to bring harmony into the Nestopia world. You can’t miss out on the 33 songs available to you at launch. Each stage has three levels of difficulty. Henderson has a long history in the Guitar Hero series and Bandfuse Rock Legends. He was also involved as a producer for Songbird. His passion is immediately clear, stating he’s more interested in creating a fun experience than sales.
“Having shipped so many games, the metric for me is not units sold, but if this game makes some people happy. I don’t care if it sells one copy or anything at all, I just want one person to pick up this game and go, “I experienced something on this platform, and it brought me joy.” That’s something that we experienced with Guitar Hero, and that feeling is infectious.”Unplugged Air GuitarEveryone at Always Blue Games has a musician background, and Henderson believes music games are often used as therapy or “some sort of competitive cudgel” that tests your skills against someone. He considers adding competitive elements to such games challenging, stating how everyone’s relationship with music is entirely different.
“We as humans created harmonic structure. We made music. These parts were assembled because they are what we want, and because it is good for us. We need it to keep us moving, alive. Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated by the vast potential of VR. Even then, I was like, you can sell the experience of somebody who can never conduct an orchestra to experience that feeling.”
Henderson’s been interested in VR ever since reading
as a kid. He joined Unplugged much later in the cycle of development, but this gave him a lot of insight into what VR is all about. The expectations of console gamers are quite different than what people have for VR. I learned a lot about what people expect, what they gravitate towards, and I tried to apply it to this project.”
Commenting on the “gamification” of VR, Henderson informed me he’s less interested in porting pre-existing titles and more interested in exploring new mechanics. After leaving Vertigo he created Songbird, as he believed people would enjoy a VR game such as this “if presented correctly.”Mondo 2000He believes that VR is still in its infancy and we are in the “Nintendo 64 era”. The platform will not grow if we as developers stop trying and innovating. We end up stagnating, and I don’t want to be like that. In my role as a software developer, I like to push the envelope. It doesn’t have to work. At least I tried. I’d like to hear people singing. “I want to see the people coming together with this game.”
When designing Songbird, the design team wanted to ensure that it was accessible to a wide audience. You can’t fail songs.
“If I sing my heart out and get two or three stars that’s a suck. This discourages me, because I feel like I’m a bad singer. I therefore wanted it to be a bit more relaxed. I wanted to encourage people to play and not feel that it was a mirror of everything. We wanted it to be a bit more forgiving.”
There’s no movement, so things like hearts or stars you’ll need to catch come to you while singing. The songs are not fail-proof, but there is an option to earn more points by dancing and playing air guitar. Each song can be unlocked right away. Like a punk group formed by other punk groups over time, we’re similar to that. We fought against the specter doom-and-gloom, Microtransactions and NFTs. All of these things are something that developers absolutely hate. We get to apply all the design theories because we control the whole project. You sing when you begin the game. There’s no X button, you just sing.”
Touching upon previous flatscreen karaoke games, Always Blue Games aims to go beyond staring at a lyrics board. Henderson says that’s reflected in the world design, stating the team wanted to make Nestopia a welcoming environment through the use of bright, warm colors, while the world’s critters are your audience.
Noting that the game only supports single-player gameplay beyond physically passing your headset to someone else, I queried whether multiplayer was ever considered. Henderson believes the game lends itself to a social structure, and I’m told that it’s “very much in our plans moving forward” if they can find the intended audience.
“You’ll be able to sing with somebody in Austria, while your other bandmates are in Canada and Japan. You’ll all come together to pull your scores together.”
While it’s not a game designed only for kids, the intention was to make a game where you could pass the headset to everyone. The team had a long list of songs that they thought would be appropriate for Songbird. I’m told there are various approaches.
“You could go for hits that will look great on the back of the box, but maybe they’re not super fun to sing or great to sing on repeat. Our goal was to define what makes for a great Songbird song. It was important to ask, “Does this make you happy?” It moves you on an emotional level? It’s a strange time when everyone is feeling a lot of pain. It had to be easy to sing and, for the most part, give you some sort of satisfaction.”
Given the nature of licensing, it’s unsurprising to learn that not every requested song made the cut. However, further monthly song packs are coming and while he couldn’t detail specifics, focused artist packs are on the cards.
“Putting out a song pack seems like the easy way out, so how can we make it special? Add new characters to the mix, create themed packs that are licensed, or do theme packs with original environments. It’s important to us to create an occasion, and I will keep this secret, as we know what’s successful in the gaming industry. Every single month, when we start spinning up the DLC every month, that should be an event.”
Always Blue Games doesn’t intend to slow down anytime soon. Henderson says that alongside these monthly song packs they will continue to tweak the game and make quality-of life improvements in order to build community. It’s hard not to smile at his resolve.
“I would rather go broke as an indie studio, telling everybody we love them early on while building this, instead of just sitting around counting installs and looking at the metrics for everything based on what the returns will be financially.”
Songbird is available now for $24.99 on the
platform.
