Beat Bulwark

Beat Bulwark is a mostly solo-developed project, with additional visual art assistance and asset creation from Natalie Benton.

 

The game is an action platformer in which many actions (such as jumping and attacking) must be taken on beat with the music, akin to how games like Crypt of the NecroDancer or Metal: Hellsinger merge rhythmic elements into their respective genres. The somewhat turn-based gameplay that is created by having the enemies, environment, and player act on the beat was an interesting dynamic to work around, posing unique design challenges and possibilities.

 

Because of the focus on audio in the gameplay, extra attention had to be given to how the audio elements work together including having the music change dynamically with the game state. This focus also presented some interesting puzzles to solve. These puzzles were both technical (I.E. how to gauge the window when the player can act both before and after the beat) and artistic (I.E. what factors should influence the sound of the music, and what can change while keeping it intuitive for gameplay).

 

To use that last point as an example, the result that I ultimately arrived at was tracking some key actions in the game and storing a hidden combo-style value, which influences the variation of the music that is played through switch groups in Wwise. More layers are typically added as the player does well and progresses, but the combo value variations have a simple castanet pulse on each beat that is removed as they progress if they continue to play well. This serves to help the player act on beat at the beginning of a level or if they start struggling.

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The project was first shown off at the University of Arizona iShowcase for Fall 2024, where I gathered useful playtesting feedback to iterate on. It was shown again at iShowcase 2025 in a mostly-finished state. After some additional polish and addressing of feedback, the game is now in the process of being added to Steam.