“Music is all about emotion, and that’s what Audiosurf is tapping into with players.”
An unsuspecting indie title, Audiosurf made a quiet debut on Valve’s Steam platform in February of 2008. However, the music/puzzle game quickly erupted into a legitimate phenomenon, eclipsing all other games on the popular digital distribution platform and becoming the top-selling Steam game of February 2008 (selling even more than best-seller The Orange Box). The music puzzler offered a unique and arguably revolutionary twist on the genre, allowing gamers to import their favorite MP3s in the game and essentially ‘play’ their music. This provided an unrivaled musical interaction that hasn’t been offered from the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and makes for a pretty darn good time as well.
GameZone recently got the chance to ask the game’s creator, Dylan Fitterer, and ask him a few questions about the game’s huge success, as well as where he’d like to take it in the future.Question: What was the inspiration behind the creation of Audiosurf?
Dylan: The inspiration was wanting a music experience that could pull you into a song and keep you immersed there. Existing music visualizers were cool, but I never really wanted to watch one for an entire song. Rez pointed the way - combine gameplay and music.
Are you surprised by the runaway success of the game?
Dylan: My dream sales target for the year was passed in the first two weeks!
What were some of the biggest challenges when creating Audiosurf?
Dylan: Building the music analysis system to the point that it works well for any song took quite a bit of time. Another big challenge was getting Audiosurf to teach itself to players. For most of the project I assumed that it was a simple enough game to just drop it in a player’s lap with minimal instructions. When Elizabeth started running usability tests it quickly became clear that we needed more. We ran many many iterations of a tutorial using an included song before finally realizing that even the tutorial needed to allow the player to pick their own music. With that in place the initial experience got good fast.
What kind of an impact do you hope that the game will make on the rhythm game genre? Do you think that custom soundtracks will be the future of the music games?
Dylan: Custom soundtracks may not be a fit for all rhythm games, but it works great for Audiosurf. I’m hoping that people who haven’t gamed for a while (or maybe not ever!) are drawn into gaming by Audiosurf. Music is all about emotion, and that’s what Audiosurf is tapping into with players.
What do you personally feel could’ve been done better in Audiosurf?
Dylan: I wasn’t prepared for the amount of people who would be playing the game during the first week, so the servers got pretty hammered. Kattare Internet Services was a big help and saved the day a few times (even calling to help one time on a Friday night at 11:30). In hindsight I would have hired someone to do more server optimization work before launch as opposed to after–it’s all turned out great but it was a little bumpy.
What do you see as your next project?
Dylan: I’m not sure yet. I want to bring Audiosurf to more audiences and platforms, but I also want to further explore some of my side projects - possibly something with artificial life. Maybe I’ll bring bestgameever.com back up speed and release a free game every Friday to explore some ideas.
What music tracks do you like to play on Audiosurf?
Dylan: I just rode Sabotage (Beastie Boys) a few times and had a blast. I even took the top spot on the Elite scoreboard for Sabotage - let’s see how long my reign lasts. Gauntlet thrown!
