Frets on Fire
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| Frets On Fire | |
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| Developer(s) | Unreal Voodoo |
| Designer(s) | Sami Kyöstilä |
| Engine | SDL, PyGame, Python |
| Latest version | 1.2.438 |
| Release date(s) | 3 August 2006 (debut release), 2 April 2007 (latest version) |
| Genre(s) | Music video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD |
| System requirements | Windows: 256 MB of RAM, a fairly fast OpenGL graphics card (shader support not necessary, antialiasing support recommended), DirectX compatible sound card. Linux: SDL, SDL_ttf, SDL_mixer, 256 MB of RAM, a fairly fast OpenGL graphics card (shader support not necessary, antialiasing support recommended), SDL compatible sound card. |
| Input | Guitar Hero II 360's USB-equipped X-plorer guitar controller, Keyboard |
Frets on Fire is a music video game written as a clone of Guitar Hero. Frets on Fire was the winner of the Assembly demo party 2006 game development competition.[1]
Frets on Fire is written in Python and uses the Amanith library. Frets on Fire is free and open source software.
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[edit] Gameplay
The player emulates playing the guitar section of a song. Notes appear on the screen, synchronized with the song, and are played by holding the correct "fret buttons" (F1-F5, these are customizable) and pressing the "pick button" (Enter or shift, these are also customizable) at the right moment. Streaks of correct notes increase the point multiplier, but a single missed one resets it. While there is no actual goal to meet for any given song, scores can be uploaded to, and compared at, the official website. The game's distinguishing feature is its control system: the keyboard is meant to be picked up and held like a guitar, with the left hand on the fret buttons and the right hand on the pick.[2] As of February 2007 there are over 15,000 registered users on the unofficial forum, with 500+ songs created. In the March 2007 release of MikroBitti, Frets On Fire and the community of song makers it has spawned is listed as a high quality resource of free entertainment suitable for social situations, among other notable games such as Guitar Hero and StepMania.[3]
[edit] Features
- 4 difficulty levels (Supaeasy, Easy, Medium, and Amazing).
- A tutorial.
- A custom song editor.
- 3 standard songs, along with the ability to download songs made by others and/or make your own.
- Joystick support (NOTE: The official Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II Controllers are both fully compatible)
- Allows you to import Guitar Hero(tm) or Guitar Hero II songs from the disk if you have a DVD Drive and 500 MB of disk space.(This is only appearing in the latest version of the game)
- There is a community dedicated to the development of new songs for the game.
- The instant messaging service Xfire currently supports Frets on Fire.
- Modification support
- Compatible with the USB guitar for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. As of April 2007, the support for the 360's guitar controller is known to work with Windows Vista and Windows XP (SP2); support for other OS's is unknown.
[edit] Trivia
- Some anti-virus programs have been known to report false positives with Frets on Fire. This is because the game is compiled from Python source to an executable file using py2exe, which was also used to make the Backdoor.Rajump keylogger. Apparently an inaccurate virus description crafted from the keylogger caused anti-virus programs to misidentify the game as a virus.
- Hitting alt+D at the main menu screen will bring up all the debug info.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.demoparty.net/assembly2006/results.html
- ^ Mika Äärilä, Jouni Utriainen. "Assemblyn satoa (Assembly's harvest)", Pelit, 2006-09, pp. 76–77. Retrieved on September 11, 2006. (in Finnish)
- ^ Tapio Berschewsky. "Soita tähtien kanssa - Testissä kuumimmat bilepelit (Play with the Stars - The hottest party games reviewed)", MikroBitti, 2007-03, pp. 98–101. Retrieved on March 13, 2007. (in Finnish)
[edit] See also
- StepMania
- Freetar
