“It’s choreography with your hands,”
May 11, 2018 7:43 PM   Subscribe

‘Floor Kids’ is Kid Koala’s video game tribute to breakdancing [Engadget] “But he is not a game developer. Like many, he grew up playing Super Mario Bros., and back then if you'd told him one day he'd work with Nintendo, he'd never have believed you. His latest project is Floor Kids, a rhythm game that's a celebration of breakdancing culture. It's something he worked on, one way or another, for over ten years. The game was released last December for Nintendo Switch as part of the company's "Nindies" program. When San and creative partner Jonathan "JonJon" Ng were first approached by Nintendo, neither had any idea what a Switch was, but agreed anyway. "Nintendo was like some company from outer space that created this awesome game," he said. "It was a no-brainer for me."” [YouTube][Game Trailer]

• Scratching Beneath The Surface Of The Floor Kids Soundtrack With DJ Kid Koala [Nintendo Life]
“We wanted the music in the game to travel through the different eras of break battle music. From '70s funk grooves and '80s electro to '90s 12-bit sampler tracks and beyond with the modular synth beats. Depending on the venue, I would just try to use era specific recording techniques. In The Arcade venue, which was more of an '80s vibe, I used a lot of Commodore SID chip synths and based EPROM drum machines. For The Studio and The Corner venues, which was more of a '70s vibe, I played drums, upright bass, guitars, saxophone and keyboards. I would record them with ribbon microphones and cut them to vinyl on my record cutter. Then I would scratch things back together on turntables. It added a few extra steps to the recording process but I wanted to get that dust and crunch in there! For the Peace Summit, I would break out all the newest modular synth gadgets to make some future funk stuff that would feel like a final boss battle!”
• Kid Koala waxes nostalgic on Floor Kids [Montreal Gazette]
“Because Floor Kids is a video game, San’s productions had to be malleable enough to react to any breakdancing moves the eight characters hand-drawn by Montreal animator Jonathan Ng (Jon Jon) might pull off. But San also had real breakdancers in mind when he dug up dusty ’80s samplers to recreate the sounds of his youth. “I was just trying to capture the energy of break battles based on my experiences,” he said. “That music had to feel a certain way.” He’d even go so far as to say it’s the first Kid Koala album someone can dance to. “Those early ones were more inspired by Monty Python than being about the beats,” he said. Koala’s latest tour, a Floor Kids edition of his popular Vinyl Vaudeville variety show, promises a mix of the new release with puppetry, dancers and oversized props. He compares it to “an episode of The Muppets, if each Muppet had a turntable.” His equivalent of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is a large workspace in Rosemont filled with colourful plush items, like a giant drum pad in the middle of the room. San records upstairs, and said the crunch before Floor Kids’ December release meant a few sleepless nights getting the music and Jon Jon’s fluid animations just right.”
• Floor Kids: breaking the mould [Metro]
“The most important point to get right here was ensuring the game is interesting to people whether they have any interest in breakdancing or not, and that’s something that Floor Kids has no problem with. Not only is the gameplay instantly accessible – and familiar to anyone that’s played a rhythm action game before – but the charming art style makes it even more inviting. The animation is actually fairly basic, but the pencil-sketched artwork is so engaging it manages to overcome that limitation all on its own. Although it is, first and foremost, a music game Floor Kids is structured more like a fighter, since you’re almost always locked in a dance-off against someone else. These battles are organised into different sections, with the simpler breakdown sequences working just like a traditional rhythm action game – in that you’re trying to hit the buttons at the right time by following icons on the screen.”
• All About the Crew [ookpixels]
“One of the other more interesting aspects of the game is its gesture control system. Building upon the gestures they designed in their original prototype, the team wanted to develop an even deeper set of gestures that could translate the rhythmic movements inherent in break dancing – mimicking the feel of “dance” through the player’s fingers with taps and swipes. To help solve this, they enlisted the help of JoDee Allen. With a 15-year background in break dancing as well as experience in gesture interfaces, she acts as Floor Kids‘ movement and gesture designer. For JoDee, she wants to figure out a way to “make the player feel like they’re dancing with the character”. Because of her long history with break dancing, she intimately knows how these moves feel in real life. Translating them into taps and swipes is a matter of trying to boil down the moves to their very essence. For example, she cites the controls for “Top Rocking” (a move where the character is dancing up and moving their feet) as more about rhythm which translates into a more tapping rhythm. Connecting speed to the music also plays a part in emphasizing this finger “dancing” by mapping the speed of the moves to how they feel in real life.”
• The Switch’s New Hip-Hop Game Is A Welcome Surprise [Kotaku]
“It’s hard not to find yourself bobbing your head if not just to stay in line with the rhythm. The game can feel a little intimidating at first but if you memorize the right moves and string together the right combos, you can pull of some pretty amazing transitions and get the crowd going to boost your overall score. As a music game fan, I found the little rhythm sections within each song a little lacking but they don’t last too long. I just wish they asked a little more of my coordination besides tapping one button to the beat. Floor Kids is a cool surprise that feels right at home on the Switch. It reminded me of a type of game I didn’t realized I missed until now. I hope we see more of this moving forward. Now if we can just get a reboot of the Def Jam Vendetta franchise...”
• Floor Kids Animated Short Film [Inspiration for the Video Game] [Vimeo]
• Kid Koala - Build Your Crew (Music from the Floor Kids Original Video Game Soundtrack) [YouTube]
posted by Fizz (15 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh hells yes—not personally interested in the gameplay, but I definitely will listen to the OST on repeat once I get my filthy little hands on a copy. Kid Koala is a treasure.
posted by not_on_display at 8:16 PM on May 11, 2018


This is extremely timely and relevant to my interests!

How do you promote a video game about kids break dancing, which you've been working on for five years? If you're Kid Koala, you modify your vinyl vaudville show! I saw him last night, where this kid tore up the floor for reals (more from B Boy Ricky Jr. on Instagram)

[I'm out of the look with Kid Koala, because his Vinyl Vaudville show is now over 5 years old, but if you have a chance to see him and his entourage live, DO IT!]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:17 PM on May 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


OMG!? That kid was amazing! :D Loving it.

Also, the game just feels right. When you get a rhythm going and the beats are popping and you're moving your head and your fingers. It's a small bit of poetry in your hands.
posted by Fizz at 8:21 PM on May 11, 2018


For years (since Parappa the Rappa - I've wanted to see a breakdancing game). I pictured something called "The Hip Hop Olympics" and you'd have various breakdancing styles (in my mind it was 3d breakdancing - like a fighting game, using "chords"/combos and timing to pull off moves to the beats - played/scratched by your friend on the other controller.

Anyways...... When I saw this on the switch store I kinda squee'd - like I talk about it above, but it's the case where I'm legit happy to see something made that "I thought of first". Why be jealous? Let's see more varieties of breakdancing/hip-hop games, please!

(But maybe not with gimmicky "instruments" - just use the controllers you already got - like this game does!)
posted by symbioid at 8:39 PM on May 11, 2018


For years (since Parappa the Rappa - I've wanted to see a breakdancing game)

It feels like such an under-represented genre/market of gaming that has such great potential. The fact that this game was received with such pure joy is a testament to how much people want these types of games and are willing to give their time/money for such a thing.
posted by Fizz at 8:54 PM on May 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


I found out about this earlier in the week but this week has been bananas, so I haven't gotten a chance to play it, and it's late enough tonight that if I start a new game no matter how tired I am suddenly it's going to be 3:00am, and that's not what I need, because I am already exhausted. I'll give this a shot tomorrow.

For now I'm just going to fall asleep while listening to Moon River on repeat.
posted by aubilenon at 10:34 PM on May 11, 2018


I love your posts, Fizz, but it drives me nuts when partway through a block of text the author mentions someone by name without previously introducing them. As in what is a San and why should I care?
posted by Samizdata at 3:20 AM on May 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


As in what is a San and why should I care?

Yeah I get that, a side effect of whenever I blockquote text in the way I do, my humble apologies. Eric San is Kid Koala's real name.
posted by Fizz at 3:35 AM on May 12, 2018


> Fizz:
"As in what is a San and why should I care?

Yeah I get that, a side effect of whenever I blockquote text in the way I do, my humble apologies. Eric San is Kid Koala's real name."


Cheers. Just sort of a (overly blunt - I plead insomnia.) "make awesome news awesomer" thing.
posted by Samizdata at 4:16 AM on May 12, 2018


Kid Koala made a video game? Holy crap this might be the first thing to make me actually want to buy a Switch. I am no good at rhythm games but I'd still buy it just for this.
posted by ardgedee at 5:45 AM on May 12, 2018


Oh, and here's an 18 minute megamix of tracks from the soundtrack to the game.
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM on May 12, 2018


I just found out my ten-year-old DDR home rig with floor mat still works and you're telling me this does NOT somehow use an actual mat so I can learn to breakdance and I'd have to get one of them newfangled consoles to play it?! AAAAAAUUGH rhythm games y u keep breaking my heart doe

Things I did not know until recently: there are elaborate cosplay competition Just Dance channels on Twitch. And for those of you who lost track, a new arcade version of Dance Dance Revolution was released in the past few years.

Reconnecting with dance games this year has been an unexpected joy <3
posted by gusandrews at 3:45 PM on May 12, 2018


(thanks for the post, Fizz!)
posted by gusandrews at 3:46 PM on May 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


These games were the charming ones I used to play all the time in the early 00s, with Flash games. Just a really fun concept that was highly replayable and in-tune with funkiness and fun, a place where you can invite your friends and you all can clamor over to take turns to play. I dig this, I've been thinking about wanting to learn rhythm and find rhythm games, recently.

I'm really glad this guy didn't give up, stop making games, and become a backend developer like a lot of people I know. Everything is so slick and cynical, that it can be really hard to just remember what a good time is sometimes, and that a good time can be a good concept, and doesn't need other stuff to over-compensate for it.
posted by yueliang at 2:58 AM on May 15, 2018


JonJon and co-developer Mike Wozniewski showed off a tablet version of Floor Kids at their talk in GDC 2016's experimental gameplay workshop. I have been anticipating it since then.
posted by subocoyne at 10:38 AM on May 17, 2018


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