Pentap: A Novel Rhythm Game with Innovative Acoustic Soundwave-based Input and Audio Recognition

Game developers constantly strive to make the player's experience more immersive by constantly innovating new ways to increase the level of interactivity of the player with the game. Different tools and methods of interaction have been innovated and developed such as motion controllers, different gamepad layouts, computer vision for body tracking and other specialized input methods. However, many of these methods come with a cost, either to the performance, accuracy or the sheer price to manufacture such a controller. Instead of developing a new hardware device, we have taken advantage of the sensors that are readily available on a mobile phone or computer device. By combining an implementation of noise cancelation and audio recognition, a possibly new revolutionary input method could be developed for rhythm games. The sounds that a player's action may make such as clapping, hitting a pen on a table or other actions are analysed through an algorithm in order to determine the input of the player. This input method that has been develop is perfectly suited for rhythm games as by nature of the rhythm game genre, sound is a crucial element for the game itself.