by YVG Staff
Karthik Bala, CEO of Vicarious Visions Reveals Details of Guitar Hero: On Tour to Yahoo! Games.
WATCH THE GUITAR HERO: ON TOUR PREMIERE
It's easy to see why Activision would want to see Guitar Hero come to the Nintendo DS, matching up a best-selling franchise with the best-selling handheld. However, when was it you figured it could actually work as a portable game?
We began prototyping ideas for Guitar Hero on DS in early 2007. We quite frankly didn't know whether it would be possible to bring the core essence of the franchise to handheld and have it actually work. How the heck would we make the guitar portable? So we built prototypes - a lot of them. It was 20-something gameplay prototypes that were built - all trying different mechanics and uses of the hardware. Some were pretty cool, others were total disasters!
At some point, we hit upon the idea of creating a peripheral that would have the fret buttons plugging into the GBA slot of the DS. We ripped apart an old GBA cartridge and did some electronics work on it to rig up a prototype device. As awkward and crude as that prototype was, that's when we knew we were onto something.
Were game designs considered without the attached device? Early on, was there a notion that it'd be too odd to see someone shredding a guitar controller on the subway?
Actually, most of the prototypes built were designed without needing a peripheral. But none of them ever gave the tactile sense of rocking out which was critical to the success of Guitar Hero on the console. Without the peripheral, the rhythm/beat matching game is far more abstract and not as much fun.
We figured that attaching a full-size guitar or even a mini-guitar would be too awkward to play on the road, hence the design of the more compact Guitar Grip, which gives you the tactile sense of the fret buttons, with the touch screen depicting the strings of the guitar (instead of a strum bar).
What were some of the things that didn't end up working? Also, what was it that led you to the version of the controller that we see today?
We built this awesome cardboard guitar that had a DS taped onto it. Yeah, that one didn't work very well. It was hard seeing the screen, but it was hilarious seeing people trying to play it.
Does the game support the touchscreen, and if so, how?
Absolutely. The touch screen is used for strumming. The game comes with a custom guitar pick stylus that you can use to strum with.
Posted: 19 Mar 2008
