Development

After tons of work into adding new features and optimizing to reduce/remove lag and increase framerate, Beats 1.5b is finally ready! Beats 1.5b has TONS of new features, as described in the Changelog. Some of the most important features include: osu! Mod and scroll up game modes various new tapbox layouts much, MUCH faster now and with less lag (even faster than 1.3b!) lots of nifty shortcut buttons on the main menu Russian, Dutch, and Italian translations (looking for translators, see here) Not sure what this new “osu! Mod” game mode is all about? Check it out in the new …

One thing I’ve noticed many of my users requesting/mentioning is support for osu! files or a separate osu! port/clone all together. I’m a big fan of rhythm-based music games (mostly StepMania, Beatmania IIDX, and DJ Max) but I actually haven’t tried much osu! style games (I tried Elite Beat Agents a few times on a friends’ DS but thats the extent of things). After downloading the latest version of osu! and trying out a few beatmaps, I convinced myself that modifying Beats some bit could definitely lead to a new Ouendan-style gameplay. Eventually, I could make a proper, full-fledged osu! …

One of the most requested features for Beats is different tapbox layouts (aka the area where you tap to hit falling notes). Ever since Beats 1.0a, notes always fall down from the top of the screen to the arrows at the bottom, with the tapboxes being invisible rectangles on top of the arrows. This is akin to the Beatmania/DJ Max “reverse” scroll where notes fall down and the same setup I’ve always used when I play StepMania (for which I usually play with 3.0x, Reverse, Notes+ and Dark modifiers). The majority of new users, however, are only familiar with DDR-style …

Warning! Long, random, technical rant ahead! Read at your own risk! I may also misuse a few words incorrectly here and there – I apologize in advance for any incoherence within my rant

Small update with a fix for the rotate-reset issue as well as a link to the new gameplay video: Beats 1.4.2b – Changeset [237] – fixed a rotation-restart issue – gameplay video link in Info settings category And here’s the new gameplay video! (The Demo page now links to this video while the Tutorial page links to the old tutorial video.) (Direct download) As always, if you find any other pressing/immediate bugs or would like to help out with testing (particularly the lag and touch-screen issues some users are reporting), please PLEASE contact me (Keripo) via IRC or MSN (see …

There were tons of positive feedback on Beats 1.4b as well as numerous requests and suggestions for a new release. While we are already working on the next major release (Beats 1.5b), here’s a small update with a few minor fixes and tweaks that were most demanded based on Beats 1.4b feedback: Beats 1.4.1b – Changeset [233] – orientation-based main menu layout – re-added adjustable Accuracy Level setting – reverted accuracy weightings to 1.3b’s scheme – fixed multi-touch install restriction? – fixed minor notetype parsing issue – fixed a few odd crashes With Beats 1.4.1b, the installation/disappearing-from-the-Market issue some users …

For the PennApps Mobile 2011 hackathon, I teamed up with fellow STWingers/classmates/friends Albert Kwon, Gianni Chen, and Seth Shannin to form Team CJT and create the Android app, “hypup”, described by Seth as “Stumbleupon, but for local events.”. The official description was as follows: “HypUp aims to present a previously unexplored paradigm in social networking. While services like Facebook and foursquare approach social networking through people and locations respectively, we decided to try a different approach. HypUp is an event-based look at social networking.” The app went through many revisions, feature additions, and changes and we managed to just finish …

For PennApps Mobile 2011, I was invite to present a tech talk on how to get started with Android development. The talk gave a general overview of what Android was, how the app layers worked, what you needed to get started, a live/follow-along setup+Hello World demo, a small stopwatch app demo, the basics of debugging, and then finally next steps for app publishing. Finally, the talk ended with a quick blurb of Beats as an example of what your project could become. Here are the links and slides. Announcement: Android, iPhone, WP7 Tech Talks! Facebook event: Intro to Android & …

After almost two months of development, Beats 1.4b is finally released! There has been MANY improvements and changes, based on your feedback, and plenty of new features to check out as well!

This is a repost from the PennApps Mobile 2011 website prior to the start of the hackathon. Background: Due to my success success with Beats during the very first PennApps 2010, I was interviewed and asked to give advice to new hackers/participants in the upcoming PennApps Mobile 2011 hackathon. ====== Interview by Justin Meltzer from the Interactive Media Group. I took some time to interview Philip Peng, a junior studying Computer Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. As the lead developer of a mobile game called Beats developed on the Android platform, he and his team transformed a concept hastily …