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Thought 31: Guitar Hero: Jam

So, noticed that they are running out of idea's with the old guitar hero, just more songs, themes, instruments, and now DJ Hero? Really I thought they could be more creative with this, so here we go plug in the amp and crank it to 11, because here's what I think would be cool for expanding this niche of games: The JAM. The idea hit while listening to the Grateful Dead and how no two concerts are really ever the same, which with any good band is the case. At some point in the middle of a well known song a great band will start to "JAM" that is they keep the music similar to the song, but alter, play with, and basically have fun with the music they're playing. This to me is why I'd go to a concert, any band that plays the same song as on the radio is well boring. And to some extent I think that's what is happening to the press the button with the beat genre. So, now it needs the infusion of randomness, just mashing the same buttons gets boring, so let introduce "The JAM". And here out it works:

Current A.I. technology has evolved to the point that given a few set of parameters it can generate music that sounds like something else, so why not apply this to something like a folk song, jazz, or even rock and roll. Take a song apply an algorithm to produce music and buttons to press in the middle of the song. Basically create a section in the song is always different, but very close to what is being playing. I.e. tempo, beat, notes, harmonies stay the same, but the music is altered. This would remove the ability to simply memorize an expert song, you'd have to adapt every time and that would be cool. Now you can toss in 8 minute phish songs that are missing the middle 4 minutes because the computer will generate them on the fly and you'd have to keep up.

The on the fly music alone makes this interesting, but I think we can push this even farther. Next we modify the guitar to have 15 - 20 buttons were in each set of 5 represents an octave, and can be used during normal button mashing time. Now when you hit the star power in the middle of "The JAM" it allows you to create music using the combination of the buttons and octaves, but keeps the notes sounding like part of the song the jam came from. Granted this would make it a bit more like a synth-keyboard-guitar thing, but still it's adding even more game replay ability. Now one more step beyond this is to take it a full song writing like application, where you start with the drummer setting up a beat, introduce the bass, and finally the guitar, each with the new note assignment. Now full songs/challenges could be create, and even possibly modified by the computer generated music. This "music" could then be shared/challenged online to create even more complex game play, like a song versus song mode or something.

And now for the new mode that becomes possible with the generated music: Endurance Mode. In this mode a song style would be chosen, and possible starting song(s). The song would start out normal then hit the jam mode, and simply keep getting more and more complex. Endurance mode ends when the player fails or if during "story" mode when a time limit has been reached, like 15 minutes or an hour or longer. Basically the songs over when your fingers can no longer move!

Anyway, thinking that Guitar Hero: JAM! would be possible given current tech, and would breathe new life in a genre that's starting to fade into mediocrity.

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