Orfeo

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Orfeo is a music game. Not a rhythm game in the style of Guitar Hero, but a game where you actually have to make music. In Orfeo, you play a lyre using your mouse, and in order to defeat each level, you have to elicit a certain emotional response such as fear, anger, happiness or sadness.

Orfeo uses a simple algorithm to understand your music and the tutorial walks you through the details of how the game differentiates between sadness and anger. The strength of the note, the rhythm of the strokes and the staccato of plucking the strings all effect the various emotions evoked by your playing. The emotions involved are displayed on a very simple status display above the lyre. It’s a very simple abstraction, considering the source is playing free-form music, and it’s very manageable.

The main game consists of the myth of Eurydice and the tale of bringing her back from the Underworld, the same myth used in the previously featured Don't Look Back. At one point you fight Cerberus using a lyre. I don’t know much about the mythology here, but it’s a pretty interesting concept for a game, using music to overcome your obstacles.

Why You Should Check This Out: If you’ve ever dreamed of playing free-form music in a game, Orfeo has you covered. Of course it’s a millennia-old instrument of limited notes, so you’re probably not going to be banging out Led Zeppelin on this bad boy. But the use of music as a tool to evoke emotions, even if they’re a computer’s algorithmic sense of an emotion, is a novel idea that’s surprisingly satisfying to play.

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Comments

This looks very cool, and the download eventually worked after crashing my Firefox. Can't wait to give it a try.

Gotta say that your description was more interesting than actually playing the game. Certainly a novel idea, but using the mouse to strum the strings is rather imprecise. Or perhaps it's just that I'm not use to using my mouse for rhythmic purposes.

garion333 wrote:

Gotta say that your description was more interesting than actually playing the game.

I don't really have anything else to add.

I had so much fun playing this casual single player flashed-based JRPG. It's got inspired enemies, upgradeable weapons and armor, lots of stuff to collect, and lots of screens and secrets to explore. The game chars have lots of funny comments they make and the game is very self aware. All the art, story, writing, and programming were done by a single dude from...England!

I hadn't played a JPRG since FF 7, and really enjoyed this. There are hours of game play, fun combat, a bunch of minigames, and it's all well balanced. Check it out.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/kupo...

Apparently Orpheus was overrated as a lyre player, all he did was mash the strings.

Latrine wrote:

Apparently Orpheus was overrated as a lyre player, all he did was mash the strings.

Dude only played the same four chords, over and over.

Lovely classical art style.

And for those of you doubting dude's four-chord musical writing abilities, kindly recall, it only takes four chords.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBVnMf2t7w

Nice idea, implementation needs a lot of work. I failed the Cerberus song and can't be arsed to try again.