While I was at work the other day I thought of the idea of a Rock Band style game. I figured out the main part of the game, which would be the concerts, where each band member (Vocals, Guitar, Bass, and Drums) has to play their own mini games. The twist is that despite doing different tasks, they have to do them with the same rhythm (to replicate a band playing playing together). Nobody can do anything unless everybody is doing something. To make the stakes higher, your band only has 30 seconds to complete their games.
Now this part I was able to flesh out pretty well, the problem I was having was what else should be in the game? I thought of adding money and fame so that at the end of each concert you earn money and fame equivalent to how well you did at the games. I was thinking money could be spent to buy new instruments (more expensive instruments would add a boost to the amount of fame you would get each concert), hire techs to help prevent against random events such as your instruments breaking, and (maybe) record albums for extra cash.
Fame, on the other hand, would allow for you to play bigger shows which would earn you more money and fame. I was also considering adding things like contracts/sponsors, who might provide you with nice custom gear and an up-front amount of cash, but take a portion of your money after every show.
Random events could happen in between shows that could be positive (running into an established rock star and receiving a fame boost) or negative (instruments breaking, causing that member to be unable to play the show and hurting your fame and money gain).
The problem with all of this is that I thought it might seem a little "grindy". I feel like it would get boring and that you would end up doing concert after concert just to try to get enough money/fame to do something else, rinse and repeat. The other problem would be ending the game. When does it end? Do I have you build up to doing a certain show that requires a lot of fame to do? If so, isn't that just encouraging players to grind for that fame amount?
I plan on making some basic cards and such for it so that I can test it with friends and see if it is actually is boring, but in the meantime, what do you think? Opinions? Ideas?
The scoring would be done after the 30 second "concert" is done and would be based on how many cards in your deck you got through (each mini game is card based). Because you all have to play at the same time, you probably won't score too well at first as you struggle to get your timing down but, like a real band, you would get better as time goes on and would hopefully be able to eventually fly through the games before the 30 seconds is up. Of course, you could also trade roles with people every once in a while, to keep things fresh.
These were my current ideas for mini-games:
Vocals (the most thematic one in my opinion): The singer's deck contains cards with sounds printed on them, such as "Woo", "Dah", "Lah", etc. and must make the sound before moving onto the next one. The other idea is to make them random words, which might be more amusing.
Drums: The drummer's deck contains cards with a symbol and a color (or pattern) on them, such as "triangle" and "green" or "square" and "blue". They must sort the cards into piles where each card must have a matching characteristic with the previous card (a green triangle can't go on a blue square, but could go on a green circle or red triangle). However, the drummer can only create a maximum of four piles.
The guitar and bass were the two that I was having the most difficulty designing a game for and they could definitely use some work. Here's what I came up with.
Guitar: The guitarist's deck of cards all have numbers (1 through 6) on them. The guitarist separates their deck into six piles (they don't have to have the same number of cards in them) face up. They roll a D6 and try to match the number to one of the piles of cards. If they have a match, they can remove that card. If they roll three 6s in a row they get a "guitar solo" and get to remove 5 cards from any combination of piles.
Bass: The bassist's is basically the same except with only 4 piles and a D4. If they roll two 1s in a row they get to remove 3 cards from any combination of piles.
I want the guitar and bass games to be similar but I don't want either of them to be easier than the other and I would like to eliminate the use of dice completely.
These mini-games aren't hard, but the point is that they're going to be a little more difficult when you are all trying to do them in unison and get a rhythm going.