Rhythm Game

Most Rhythm Games follow a simple premise: The game will flash commands, and you have to input the same. This may sound easy and familiar, but Rhythm is where the trickiness comes in; the commands have to inputted in time with the music, within a certain timing window which varies from game to game. If the input is made too early or too late, the player misses. The size of the timing window can hugely impact the game; for example, both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band have one "hit or miss" timing window, but RB's is much smaller, demanding better timing. Some games like Dance Dance Revolution have multiple timing windows, giving the player a different score depending on timing accuracy. To summarize: hitting all the buttons as fast as you can is a surefire way to fail as fast or faster than doing nothing.

Traditionally the commands are represented with little markers, such as arrows or gems. Over time, the markers scroll toward a target zone. If the correct input is hit with good timing as the marker passes by the target zone, the marker disappears or blows up indicating success. Missing is usually represented by the marker drifting past the target zone unharmed.

This highly involved game of Simon has seen a particular boom in recent years. The actual device used for input also varies; there's the famous Dance Pad, a "buttons on the floor" setup which requires a quite a bit of physical activity on higher levels, then there's plastic versions of musical instruments, actual musical instruments, full-motion cameras, and even *gasp* a regular controller or touch screen.

As a game style, they're similar to Bullet Hell, in that they are very much about practice, and often feature extreme difficulty curves with very high skill ceilings, so a wide range of difficulties spanning from Easier Than Easy to Harder Than Hard is the norm. Similarly, Gameplay Grading exists in almost every rhythm game alongside the conventional Life Meter, so perfectionists can differentiate themselves from those with looser playstyles. Like bullet hell, there are (at higher difficulties) countless things flying around the screen in a manner that looks like chaos to the uninitiated. Unlike a Bullet Hell, in which the object is to avoid all those things, you have to catch them all here.

Not all rhythm games use a conventional interface of discrete inputs. Singing games usually use lines that go up and down with pitch, with the goal of singing with the same pitch as the line passes through the target zone. A new wave of dancing games have no markers at all, instead providing flashcards and animations to cue the player on what to do.

Because of songs' tendency to repeat a part of themselves, the rhythm equivalent of That One Attack can occur multiple times in the same song.

Most full rhythm games (as opposed to Unexpected Gameplay Change rhythm minigames) feature licensed soundtracks. Most companies apply Cultural Translation when bringing the games to the US, serving up a soundtrack of mostly popular hits.

In rhythm games, Syncing the audio, video, and gameplay altogether is very important, and lag in either the audio or video is very noticeable to long-time rhythm game players, and can frustrate new players as well. Fortunately, modern games have calibration control to make up for this. The small downside to calibration for experienced players is that the TV still won't know if you were successful in hitting a marker until after the fact, so the marker will explode too late and past the target zone, but at least it'll give full points. The downside for casual players is that setting it up is hard, though some games like Rock Band have controllers that have light and sound sensors that attempt to find the calibration for you (fan opinions vary wildly on how accurate these methods are, but for casual play it's usually good enough). Older CRT setups with built-in speakers (or simple speakers with no middle-man device) are the best in this regard, though most don't go so far as to Break Out the Museum Piece since the audio-visual quality is generally lower.

When you can plug your own music collection into a Rhythm Game, you have the unique form of playable crack known as a Music Player Game.

Compare Exergaming.

Notable games in this genre:

 * Audiosurf
 * Audition Online
 * Beat Hazard
 * Beatmania
 * Beatmania IIDX
 * Beatmania III (which is really just Beatmania with extra effector options and a foot pedal)
 * Bit Trip
 * Dance Central
 * Dance Dance Revolution
 * Step Mania, the open-source version
 * In the Groove
 * Mungyodance
 * DJMAX Online
 * DJMAX Portable
 * DJMAX Technika
 * Donkey Konga
 * Flash Flash Revolution
 * Fre Quency
 * Amplitude
 * Gitaroo Man
 * Guitar Freaks
 * Drum Mania
 * Guitar Hero
 * DJ Hero (spin-off)
 * Rock Band (Spiritual Successor and rival series)
 * Rock Revolution (Konami's attempt to cash in on the phenomenon)
 * Frets On Fire (the open-source version)
 * Power Gig Rise of the Six String (another rival series which touts a real guitar for a controller)
 * THE iDOLM@STER
 * THE iDOLM@STER 2
 * Jam With the Band
 * Just Dance
 * Karaoke Revolution series
 * Performous, an open-source version (with bits of Step Mania and Frets On Fire thrown in for good measure)
 * Keyboardmania
 * Mad Maestro
 * Minubeat
 * Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (Nintendo DS)
 * Elite Beat Agents (Nintendo DS)
 * Osu (a freeware version)
 * O 2 Jam (a Massive Multiplayer Online Rhythm Game)
 * Para Para Paradise
 * Dance Masters
 * Parappa the Rapper
 * Patapon
 * Pop'n Music
 * Pump It Up
 * Re Rave: a rhythm/action game for iOS.
 * Rhythm Heaven
 * Samba De Amigo
 * Sequence
 * Space Channel 5
 * Synthesia (a rhythm game/piano learning tool)
 * Taiko Drum Master
 * Donkey Konga (Taiko Drum Master with the Donkey Kong Country license slapped on.)
 * Theatrhythm Final Fantasy
 * Vib Ribbon
 * We Cheer

Games which contain rhythm elements:
 * Asura's Wrath. No, really. Special Quick time Events called Synchronic Impacts utilize the timing aspect of Rhythm games to do powerful Cutscene based attacks. Skipping them is a choice, but you loose points for not doing them, and even uses Good, Great, and Excellent rankings, just like an actual Rhythm Game.
 * Brutal Legend
 * Bully(music class minigame)
 * Donkey Kong Country (The GBA port of the first game has a rhythm minigame)
 * Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
 * Kingdom Hearts II (The infamous Atlantica world is entirely made of a rhythm minigame.)
 * Reappeared in Birth By Sleep at Disney Town in the absurd form of "Rhythm Ice Cream Cones".
 * Lockjaw, a freeware Tetris clone, which has modes that drop pieces to the beat of the music
 * Lumines, a game somewhat like Puyo Puyo where matched blocks don't disappear until they get passed by a line that sweeps from left to right over the playfield every 2 measures of the music
 * Mario And Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (one of the arm minigames)
 * Mother 3
 * Nightmare Before Christmas Oogies Revenge (Boss battles have optional (except for the final boss) rhythm sequences For Massive Damage.)
 * Princess Debut
 * QWOP
 * Rayman: Raving Rabbids
 * Sonic Chronicles
 * Toejam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron
 * Tokimeki Memorial 2 Substories: Dancing Summer Vacation, a Visual Novel containing the Dance Dance Revolution Tokimeki Mix, which is a Game Within a Game serving as the center of DSV's main storyline and as DSV's mini-game.
 * The Urbz: a Spin Off game from The Sims. (One of the mini-games)
 * Zack and Wiki Quest For Barbaros Treasure (as an optional minigame)

Licensed games:
 * Hatsune Miku: Project Diva
 * Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd
 * Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Extend
 * K-On! Houkago Live!!
 * Looney Tunes Cartoon Conductor
 * Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
 * Michael Jackson The Experience
 * Happy Feet