Update: osu! Mod implemented and work in progress, see http://beatsportable.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=334
Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game - 1.5b osu! Mod Gameplay [Android]


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Hi all,

My name is Keripo (Philip Peng) and I'm one of the two developers behind the Android game "Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game". Beats is a clone of StepMania (a DDR simulator) written from scratch and for the Android platform. You can see a YouTube example of the gameplay at below (actual gameplay starts 1 min into the video) or just check out the website at http://beatsportable.com



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). I just downloaded and installed osu! a few mins ago and tried out a song ("Kurosaki Maon - Memories Last (TV Size)" since it was at the top of the list). Familiar enough gameplay though a bit difficult with a mouse. I could imagine it being a lot better and easier on a touch screen such as an Android device.

I'm just curious on what the osu! community's actual interest is in seeing an osu! port to the Android. Haven't looked much into the game structure itself, but assuming the data file parsing is simple and straightforward like StepMania's sm file, adding support for the format to Beats would be trivial. As for imitating the gameplay a simple single-player clone is definitely feasible. Basic taps would be simple to implement and slides I can imagine would be a bit messy but is definitely doable. Spins would be something new that I don't completely understand yet just from inspection (and having not played the game really at all). Exact imitation of game mechanics may be tricky due the fact that, unless I'm misunderstanding, osu! is freeware but still closed source.

Yes, I saw an Android thread a bit further down here, but it looked pretty abandoned. I may be interested in writing a clone (or a port if the source code is actually available and not a mess like StepMania's is) if it seems there's enough interest here, but no guarantees. Just a curious visit.

~Keripo

I have seen quite a few people interested in osu! being developed onto the Android. Sounds like a nice idea and would be cool to have a main developer working on this (as you said the other thread isn't too active these days). You might want to try and get hold of peppy to see if you can get any opinions/advice from him.

Best of luck~

Beats was one of the first apps I downloaded when I got my phone.

I think there would be a lot of interest for an Android port, and not just within the osu! community- having it on the Android Market would attract people who would never have found it otherwise.

The beatmap files are relatively straightforward (plaintext, and fairly readable), and there's a reference sheet somewhere (maybe hidden from normal users?) that explains it all.

As for mechanics, I don't think perfect replication would be a top priority. Unless you plan to integrate it with the online high-scores, which doesn't seem as critical since small touch screens seem more suited to casual play. If you do want to use the high-score tables or want to know some more specific details, peppy will probably be willing to provide information.

osu! is closed source yes, but any interested developers simply just have to contact an osu!dev themselves (usually peppy) and bits of the source which they need for various things are usually given to them.

if you really are interested in porting osu across to android then go ahead and give a dev a PM

I want an Android smart phone. D=

So I hacked around with Beats a bit yesterday and got quite a nice osu! mod implemented. Pretty much instead of having the notes scroll down as arrows in normal StepMania-style, the notes appear as tap-able circles in random locations on the screen. The circles fade in with a focusing ring around like in osu!. Tapped notes will turn into a explosion/shout-box image while a missed note will turn into a red X. Fading in/out has been pretty much perfected so it all looks smooth. No slides yet (its just simple timed taps) but I may try to implement that later by hacking up what is used for StepMania-style holds. Here's a few sneak peak screenshots, will upload a video later probably.







Note that the locations of the beats are all randomly generated as they come from StepMania 3.9-formatted .sm files, which, obviously, do not contain any beatmap co-ordinates info. I have not looked into the .osz format but if anyone is willing to provide details on how to extract the time, beat, note-type/colour and location info from the files, I can probably easily integrate things. For the time being, what you see will just be a mod of the normal Beats gameplay - a "osu! Mod" setting. No plans on actually creating a full fledged port of osu! as of the moment though - too much school work and Beats work as is xD

I must say, however, tapping away on my phone in different (random) locations is quite fun and challenging! ^_^

~Keripo

Here and Here

The other informations you may need are mostly self-explainatory as people already wrote. You can open a .osu file with the notepad and a lot of informations are listed neatly.

I now do too. And a much more impressive/developed one

Beats, Advanced Rhythm Game - 1.5a osu! Mod (Work in Progress!) [Android]




As the video's description says, no, I did NOT create a port or clone of osu! - I have instead modified my current Beats game engine to present StepMania stepfiles as randomized beatmaps (the other Beats dev, Matt, is currently working on arc-based pattern generation so there'll actually be patterns rather than random madness).

That said, the structure/backbone is there and close to ready for an actual osu! clone. I still haven't looked into the .osz format but reading Card N'FoRcE's links, they should be easy enough to parse. The major barrier would really be me not actually understanding what I'd be parsing - for that, I'd have to play osu! a bit more

The current discussion thread on the BeatsPortable forums can be found here:
http://beatsportable.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=334
For those who are curious and anxious to test things out on their own Android phone, you can grab the latest development build from the BeatsPortable thread above.

~Keripo

Here's two screenshots of the work-in-progress pattern generator:


Matt is currently working on improving the arc ranges as well as maybe adding linear patterns (instead of just arcs). I'll be working on add on number counts. Once those are done, 1.5b will be available for final testing (through the Google group), then officially released.

Complete randomization, however, will still remain as an option, for the lolz.


~Keripo

Double post! :O

The tap fixes bugs were also fixed and accuracy windows adjusted such that getting an A on a song is actually possible. Background filtering has been turned off by default (you may have to turn Reset Settings on once) so your background image may be a bit more pixellated, but your FPS will easily exceed 40 (thus, smoother gameplay).

But more importantly, numbers and explody-rings!



Get the latest development build from the Google group!

~Keripo