Rock Band creator launches music-driven pet sim BeatNiks

By Danny Cowan November 10, 2015

BeatNiks Official Trailer - Meet the BeatNiks!

Rock Band and Guitar Hero creator Harmonix taps the mobile market for its latest release, leveraging its experience in the rhythm genre for a new music-driven virtual pet simulation titled BeatNiks for iOS and Android devices.

The free-to-play BeatNiks grants players in-game bonuses and outfits based on tracks in their mobile device’s music library, putting a uniquely personalized spin on the classic Tamagotchi formula.

BeatNiks begins with players designing and customizing their in-game pet from a variety of available presets and body types. From there, players interact with their pet on a daily basis, alternating between affection, play, and cleanup as situations demand.

Throughout the course of the game, a player’s BeatNik will evolve and grow new body parts based on interaction and unlockable items that can be earned either through gameplay or via in-app purchases. Clothing and accessories determine a BeatNik’s personality, and its home can also be customized with appropriate rockstar furnishings.

BeatNiks also boasts a collection of minigames, ranging from a Doodle Jump-like platformer to rhythm games that recall Harmonix’s efforts on consoles. Minigames award in-game currency and items, giving players an incentive to return on a daily basis to collect new rewards.

Developer Harmonix has branched out into new creative directions after the rhythm genre reached its peak in popularity several years back. The studio released its first shoot-’em-up, A City Sleeps, in 2014, merging arcade-styled gameplay with musical elements that determine the player’s rate of fire, among other key mechanics.

Recently, Harmonix released the Wii Sports-like Beat Sports for the fourth-generation Apple TV microconsole. The package features a series of sports-themed minigames that incorporate unique rhythm-driven mechanics, including unique takes on tennis, volleyball, and golf.

BeatNiks is available as a free download via the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Gaming

Fortnite Nitro Drifter: locations and how to destroy items

fortnite nitro drifter locations destroy items

Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 2 has come packing a variety of new locations, items, and features for fans to check out, from an exciting new cyberpunk city to explore to thrilling melee showdowns with the Kinetic Blade. You'll find a lot to get into on the freshly revamped map, and some of it may even be a part of the season's weekly quests, such as the Week 1 challenge "Destroy objects while drifting or boosting in a Nitro Drifter." In this guide, we'll tell you where you can find a Nitro Drifter racing car to knock out this challenge quickly and easily.
Fortnite Nitro Drifter locations

With the addition of multiple new vehicles in Chapter 4 Season 2, you'd be forgiven for not knowing precisely which one is a Nitro Drifter (pictured above). This colorful street racing car can be found in multiple spots around the map, but it's most plentiful in and around Mega City -- which unfortunately isn't one of the best places to land in Fortnite, due to it being a hotspot. If you don't want to deal with all of the competition you're certain to face in downtown Mega City, your best bet for finding plenty of Nitro Drifters is by landing at the racetrack to the north of the city.

Gaming

Marvel Snap’s Friendly Battles set a new bar for its post-launch support

marvel snap friendly battle mode impressions key art

I’ve been hooked on Marvel Snap ever since I gained access to its beta in May 2022. The core, fast-paced gameplay has allowed the card game to sustain itself on just one match type and very few game-changing updates outside of the Token Shop. That feeling probably won’t last forever, though. If Second Dinner wants to keep the Marvel game relevant after a strong launch period, it needs to keep expanding and spicing it up in exciting new ways. The new Friendly Battle is a solid first step for that.
MARVEL SNAP's NEWEST Feature | BATTLE MODE | Play With Friends Now!
Marvel Snap’s developers teased a Friendly Battle mode that allows players to create private games with friends for a long time. The mode finally arrived on January 31 and lived up to expectations. In fact, playing it whetted my appetite for the future of Marvel Snap as I think about how the game could expand and improve with more social systems and modes to keep players coming back for years to come.
The strengths of Friendly Battle mode
Marvel Snap’s Friendly Battle mode utilizes the same six turn, location, and card ability-based formula Digital Trends has praised thoroughly. What’s different is the length of the fights and who you can compete against. Typically, matchmaking is random, but Friendly Battle allows players to Create and Join matches via a generated Match Code. This means there is finally an easy way to play Marvel Snap with your friends, showing off your deck or testing new strategies with them.
These aren’t just one-and-done matches like normal, though. Instead, each player takes one of their decks into a round-based battle where they start with 10 health. Whoever loses each round will also lose health equal to the Cube Value. This keeps going until one player runs out of health, with higher Cube Value stakes from Round Five and onwards, ensuring that Friendly Battle retains the speediness of the default game mode. The health-based setup is an enjoyable variation of Marvel Snap’s core formula.
It gives another purpose to snapping during a match outside of account progression. Meanwhile, the round-based setup allows players to stretch their strategic muscles as they adapt to each new round, finding the opposing deck’s weaknesses and trying to avoid their own. Plus, even when I was joining games using codes players posted on Marvel Snap’s Discord, there was a greater sense of community in discovering what decks other players were using and communicating with my opponent more via the in-game messages and emotes.

Seeing the strengths of Friendly Battle mode, it has become evident what elements of the game the developers need to focus on and expand going forward.
Setting a precedent
Looking at games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, their communities are what have allowed those card games to stand the test of time. Marvel Snap may be just as good as those from a gameplay standpoint, but it needs interested players to continue supporting it over the long term if it wants to be more than the mobile gaming fad. With players getting increasingly mad at its microtransactions and progression, it is a critical time to renew interest.
Friendly Battle is an excellent first step for that. This new mode finally gives Marvel Snap players a more direct way to connect and potentially set up tournaments that can keep the competitive scene alive. Second Dinner still needs to add more social features in-game, though. Second Dinner teased that it considering the addition of Player Guilds last year, and being able to join a Guild or at least Friend another player’s account would encourage players to stick around and play and socialize with their friends more.
Being able to trade cards with other players is a feature I’d like to see because of how odd Marvel Snap’s progression is. For something like that to work, though, Guilds or an account friending system are necessary prior additions. The necessity of a dedicated social community of players also means that the developers must add more new modes so veterans have a reason to stick around and new players have new reasons to join.

Gaming

Avatar: Generations reemerges with new release window, preregistration

Free-to-play Avatar: The Last Airbender mobile RPG Avatar: Generations has reemerged under a new publisher, as the game now has an early 2023 release window and is available for pre-registration on Android.
Avatar: Generations is a turned-based RPG like Marvel Strike Force or Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes that lets fans play through the stories of various Team Avatars. At launch, the focus is on Avatar: The Last Airbender's story, although the press release for this announcement teased that Avatar: Generations will eventually get updates that feature The Legend of Korra stories and characters, as well as never-before-seen Avatars.
Avatar Generations - Official Gameplay Trailer - Coming Soon to Mobile!
As players progress through the game, they will collect various heroes and companions based on characters from the franchise, and then upgrade those characters and build a squad that's best fit to complete a given level. Those who pre-register for the game will receive hero Avatar Aang and companion Appa free of charge. Although it's not the AAA console game Avatar: The Last Airbender fans are yearning for, Avatar: Generations is shaping up to be the most thorough Avatar game yet.
Interestingly, this announcement also confirms that Avatar: Generations publisher is now Crystal Dynamics -- Eidos Entertainment, a subsidiary of Embracer Group. Avatar: Generations was initially announced by Square Enix last year, but it appears that the Square Enix London Mobile team that was handling the game was part of Square Enix's western studio sale to Embracer Group last summer.
Even though Embracer Group shut down Onoma, a mobile studio it acquired from Square Enix, it still seems interested in Avatar: Generations, likely due to its existing relationship with Nickelodeon and the fact that Avatar: The Last Airbender is a well-known IP. Avatar: Generations is developed by Navigator Games.
Avatar: Generations will launch on iOS and Android in early 2023.