A downloadable game

TL;DR

Beat Labs is a free and open sandbox for fiddling with different gameplay mechanics and ideas for rhythm games in VR. It’s powered by BeatSaver - a database of over 70 000 community-made song beatmaps for Beat Saber.

It currently focuses on the mechanics of Beat Saber but eventually there will be various modifications to the way the game feels and plays.

We’re doing it in the open so come and join the discussion on our Discord!

LINKS

DETAILS

So I've been in love with Beat Saber ❤️ for more than a year now and I still can't get enough of it, especially since I started playing custom songs. The ingenuity of some of the maps created by fans made me realize that this game has almost infinite replayability but also a great potential just waiting to be unleashed. Simple (but not simplistic) rules and somewhat constrained gameplay mechanics brought to light a lot of talent and creativity among the mappers community. Hats off to them! 👏

After I got somewhat good at the game, my playing sessions got longer and longer. During those sessions I started experiencing increased activity in my brain, which shouldn't come as a surprise as I was actually doing moderate cardio workouts, with heart pumping more blood and providing more oxygen. My mind was going into this "flowing", creative state. It would generate one idea after another, how I could either improve the gameplay, tweak a mechanic or even change it altogether. 🧠

That's how I developed this itch that I've just recently started scratching. I decided I would like to create a rhythm game of my own. Actually, rather than committing to one single idea for a full-fledged game, I was thinking more of a playground, a test bed, a sandbox for all those ideas I've been having. Central theme, of course, would be the rhythm, or music in general, which I also care about deeply. 🎼🎶

Another aspect that I would like to put a strong emphasis on is physical activity, general fitness. In Beat Saber, getting a cardio workout comes as a side-effect of playing, which is awesome but gameplay could be designed so that it more purposefully drives players' moves in order to improve their body awareness, mobility, cardiovascular function, muscle endurance and maybe even strength. 🕺💪

I myself have been working as a software developer for more than a decade, mostly doing business applications (lately focusing on eXtended Reality - VR/AR/MR) but what really got me into programming, when I was around 10, was game development - something I've been quietly dreaming of doing full-time ever since. I am currently at a place in my life where I can devote a significant amount of time to a gamedev project. Hell, yeah! 🔥

Beat Labs is still in very early stages. I did, however, start writing some code, so it's not like I only have a bunch of ideas without means or capacity to execute on them 😉 The reason I am talking about it now is that I don't want to repeat my mistakes of the past. Specifically, I don't want to isolate myself in a proverbial garage, working for God knows how long, trying to implement everything by myself only to finally burn out and/or completely miss the mark with the project 🤷‍♂️

This time around I hope it will be a collaborative effort, so if you would like to: