Rhythm Land

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Overview

Rhythm Land is a Rhythm Heaven-esque rhythm game for the Game Boy, made for GB Compo 21, where it was shortlisted. martendo did the programming, music and sound effects, and Adrian-kwok the art and design.

In Skater Dude you show off gnarly skateboard tricks on the road by jumping in time. In Pancake you flip pancakes when they're just right; watch out, the small ones cook fast! Battleship has you fire away at incoming enemy speedboats without letting them get away, and in Seagull Serenade you squawk to the music while staying in tune with your seagull trio.

A fifth slot on the game select screen stays empty: there wasn't enough time to finish that game before the compo deadline. There is also a jukebox where you can listen to the tunes used in the game.

Made by: martendo
Released: 2021

Controls guide

Title and game select

Button and key	Action
A`X`/Start`Enter`	Go to game select; start the highlighted game
D-pad`Arrows`	Move between games; Left from the left column reaches the jukebox
B`Z`	Back to the title

In every game

Button and key	Action
Start`Enter`	Pause or resume
Select`Shift`+Start`Enter`	While paused, quit to game select
A`X`/Start`Enter`	On the rating screen, continue

Skater Dude and Pancake

Button and key	Action
A`X`	Jump (Skater Dude) or flip the pancake (Pancake)

Battleship

Button and key	Action
D-pad`Arrows`	Fire the left cannon at a boat on the left (any direction works)
A`X`	Fire the right cannon at a boat on the right

Seagull Serenade

Button and key	Action
Up	High squawk
Left/Right	Middle squawk
Down	Low squawk

Jukebox

Button and key	Action
Left/Right	Choose a song
Select`Shift`	Play the chosen song
A`X`	Stop or restart the music
Up/Down	Choose a sound effect
B`Z`	Play the chosen sound effect
Start`Enter`+Up	Mute or unmute sound channel 1 (Right, Down and Left toggle channels 2, 3 and 4)

Cheatsheet

Hit ratings

Perfect: Within about 5 frames of the beat, counts +1
OK: Within about 13 frames, counts +0.5
Bad: Too early or late, a wrong button, or a repeat press, counts -0.5
Miss: No press at all, counts -1

Final verdict

Bad: Below 60%
OK: 60% to 79%
Great: 80% to 99%
Perfect: 100%

Tips

A Bad press does not use up the beat: you can still press again and earn an OK or Perfect, so if you jump the gun, recover quickly instead of giving up on that note.
Once a beat has been rated OK or Perfect, pressing again for it scores a Bad, so avoid nervous double taps.
Pressing a button the game uses on the wrong beat counts as a Bad, while buttons the game never uses are simply ignored.
In Battleship the cannon side matters: the D-pad only hits boats coming from the left and A only hits boats from the right.
In Skater Dude, Perfect jumps play the clean jump sound and anything less plays a wonky one, so listen to the sound to tell how close you were.
A Miss costs twice as much as a Bad, so when unsure, press on your best guess rather than skipping the beat.