Planck Version Zero (v.0) is a prototype game that lets you interact with original music through shmup mechanics. Although it plays like a familiar top-down scrolling shooter, every in-game action is interpreted through a timing and beat-matching system, turning your play into the song you hear as you traverse the level.

One of the questions we’ve been getting about the Planck v.0 video is “looks neat, but what is really going on there?” It’s true that conveying the mechanics through a video isn’t ideal, and while I do have a short explanation I wrote up about how the game translates play into music, I thought it would be better to describe not just how it functions today but the path we took to get there over the last few months. Please click on to read the first of a multi-part series about how Planck v.0 works and how it came to be.

Part I of this series on the prototype “musical shooter” Planck v.0 dealt with how we try to interpret musical events on a granular level with quantization: the timing of discreet events, such as individual rhythmic hits, as they relate to gameplay. There’s more to music than that, of course, and there’s more to Planck than that as well. As we left off, I’d been put in contact with Brenton Woodrow, a student in his senior year of the game design baccalaureate program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

In the last installment, I described our first attempt at a complete experience constructed from the musical gameplay mechanics that we had developed. Finishing the Gravy Train level took Planck v.0 out of theory and into practice, allowing us to gather useful feedback from our friends and colleagues.

The Independent Games Festival 2010 finalists have been chosen, and although Planck v.0 was not selected (this year, at least), the IGF was overall a positive experience for us. The hard entry deadline forced us to get our demonstration level to as much of a polished place as we could (in case you missed this cautionary tale about a nightmare world without deadlines, it is recommended reading) and the feedback we got helped both to convince us we are on the right track and to gauge how much further we have yet to go.

Late Friday afternoon, we sent out links to download an in-progress version of Planck v.1 to our friends, family, and a few select others we felt might be able to offer us feedback and gameplay suggestions. While it’s always a little scary to put your work in front of others for the first time, the responses so far have been both valuable and encouraging. Please stay tuned for more playtesting opportunities.

We’re also working on getting screenshots and a trailer out so you can see what the game looks like now. In the meantime, feel free to stop by our brand new forums and say hello.

We just uploaded ten screens from the Planck v.1 Playtest One build. Enjoy!

Check out Planck in motion! Here's the full trailer for the Planck v.1. Playtest One build. Let us know what you think!