Apoplectic

I built every fight around the songs' shared 120 BPM timing. Attacks spawn on the beat, and their behavior continues to follow it after they appear. Circles shrink, projectiles bounce, and patterns change direction in time with the music.

Each rehearsal follows the same larger structure. The opening introduces that musician's three main attack patterns one at a time. The breakdown gives their instrument the spotlight. The finale then ramps up by combining all three patterns the player just learned.

Seyaro composed the main song, menu music, and dialogue music. Levin Lorlei rearranged the song around each musician's instrument. That shared foundation let every fight sound distinct while following a structure the player could recognize.

Dzydsy's concept art established the band's personalities and gave me the inspiration to build from. I expanded those ideas through dialogue and combat: Journee's restless movement, Amari's showmanship, Caroline's deliberate control, and Madie's forceful hits.

I designed each musician's attacks around their instrument and those character cues. The rehearsals introduce movement and visual patterns that return in the final performance, where several familiar attacks can overlap. The player gets to know the band through the fights as well as the conversations.

The jam limitation was “Your score serves a purpose,” so I built the game around both meanings of the word. The musical score sets the timing and structure of combat, while the player's performance score measures how well each rehearsal went.

A rehearsal grade combines the player's remaining health with the green notes collected during the fight. Green notes are optional risks placed inside the attack patterns: reaching one restores a point of health and improves the grade, so pursuing a higher score can also help the player recover.

Those grades accumulate on the band's record rather than disappearing after each song. At the end, their average determines whether Grace can break Luci's contract. Meeting the requirement frees the band; falling short makes the contract eternal.

I wrote both endings around that result. In the bad ending, Luci strips the band members of their colors as she takes them away. In the good ending, the band breaks the contract and chooses to keep playing together.

I wrote all of the game's dialogue, from recruitment and the conversations between rehearsals to Luci's contract scenes and both endings. Dzydsy's concept art inspired the personalities I expanded through those exchanges.

I wanted players to care about keeping the band together before they reached the ending. The conversations between rehearsals gave me room to develop their relationships, so the final performance would matter beyond getting a good grade.

Dzydsy created the concept art, expressive portraits, and battle sprites that defined the game's look. I built the in-game effects around that artwork. The grayscale sprites let me apply color in code without needing separate colored copies.

The characters change color during different parts of the fights, with smaller color shifts continuing throughout. I used those changes alongside trails, flashes, and arena pulses to keep the effects moving with the music.

I connected the portrait expressions to dialogue and added procedural hair to Grace's battle sprite. Her ponytail follows her movement during gameplay; a separate hair sprite handles cinematic scenes.