1. The Time Harmonix Made a Non-Music Game
“Our most challenging development experience”
The Time Harmonix Made a Non-Music Game
Eric Malafeew
Director of Engineering

2. Rock Band
Karaoke Revolution
Guitar Hero
Dance Central
The Beatles
Frequency
Amplitude

3. Race by land, air, or rail
Camera-only input!
Big world physics
Avateered character
(Dynamic orchestration)
Released in 2004

5. Instancing and Culling
Object Scripting
Collision Detection
Level Builder
Physics
NEW ENGINE TECH AI
Background Loading
Could reuse basic rendering and character animation and OS from KR
Dynamic Camera
Instancing and Culling

6. IMAGE PROCESSING Wrist bands Pattern Recognition Camera FOV
Background subtraction
Interframe differencing
Pattern Recognition
Adaptive search
IMAGE PROCESSING
Wrist bands
Steering, tricks, acceleration/braking, jumps/ducks, grabbing targets, flying
Lighting Conditions
Background noise
Camera FOV

7. PLAYER CONTROL Steering Fly Tricks Jump/Duck Recentering Grab Targets
Gas/Brake/Slide
Steering
Tricks UI
Fly
PLAYER CONTROL
Jump/Duck
No Visual Feedback
Grab Targets
Recentering
Hands off-screen

8. Artists aren’t designers
Camera lag
Slower than gamepad
Overlapped race modes
LEVEL DESIGN
U cross-sections
Artists aren’t designers
Curvy not angled

9. PERFORMANCE 300 Mhz 60 fps 32 MB Long Visuals Camera Overhead
Dense Worlds
PERFORMANCE
Unconstrained Travel
Camera Overhead
Other Racers

10. Lulled by internal adeptness
Difficult repros
Lots of room
Physical skill
TESTING
Don’t use gamepad
Perfect lighting
Lulled by internal adeptness

11. SCHEDULING 18 people (5 coders)
One year of development
18 people (5 coders)
SCHEDULING
First time we had other projects in parallel

12. LEGACY First game to profit Lasting engine buildout
Best seller before Guitar Hero
First game to profit
LEGACY
Deep foray into camera control
Lasting engine buildout
Strengthened our approach to “alternate controllers”