Rhythm games never really went away after the decline of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but it feels like they’re having a bit of a moment again. From projects like Clone Hero and YARG, to Fortnite Festival and Stage Tour (an upcoming title from Guitar Hero veterans at RedOctane), to indies with rhythm elements like Ratatan and People of Note, music games are still very much around. You can now add Beat Weaver to the mix.
This upcoming game from Echolox Interactive — solo developer Christopher Lerch — is inspired by pre-Guitar Hero Harmonix titles like Amplitude and Frequency. (Given the way that tracks twist and turn, the trailer also reminds me a bit of Thumper. Thankfully, this doesn’t feel nearly as ominous.)
As in Amplitude, you control a ship that barrels along tracks. You’ll need to hit notes at the right time to be successful, of course, though Beat Weaver brings some interesting complexities to the formula.
Each track is linked to an instrument and you can switch between tracks at will. However, you’ll first need to unlock additional tracks. If you play a sequence of notes (i.e. phrases) without a mistake, you’ll activate one. As long as a track is active, it will sip away some of your energy. If that drops too low and you make an error, all the activated tracks will be disabled and you’ll need to gradually unlock them again.
You’ll need to switch between tracks and complete more phrases to keep the full mix active. Songs can have up to 16 tracks, so you might need to stay on your toes. That said, you won’t need to hit every note dead on.
Lerch is aiming for more of a flow state feel and there are several difficulty levels. Plus, if an upcoming phrase looks overly complex for your current mood, you can stick to a track that has a simpler note pattern. Powerups that give you the opportunity to slow down and rewind tracks should help too.
Lerch originally started working on Beat Weaver as a hobby back in 2017. After receiving funding from Germany’s Press Start: Games Founding Grant program last year, Lerch was able to focus on Beat Weaver full time. The developer says the protracted development time “allowed me to experiment with audio playback systems and engine architecture to maximize the interactive music experience, as well as making maximum use of the third dimension with the dynamic note highway system.”
Details about artists who are featured in the game will be revealed later. Lerch composed much of the music personally. Players will be able to add custom songs, though they’ll need to load in separate audio files for each playable instrument.
Lerch is developing Beat Weaver in a custom engine without using generative AI. “For rendering it doesn’t use any traditional texture mapping in favor of generating colors, patterns and skyboxes with shader code, noise functions, raymarching and mathematical expressions,” Lerch wrote. “Its comparatively low performance demands and dependencies allow it to run on older machines.”
This game just looks really neat. It’s nice to be excited about neat-looking things. Beat Weaver is slated to hit Steam (with support for Steam Deck) later this year.
