Who’s the real Guitar Hero? The living room rock star, or the delightfully androgynous protagonist of Fret Nice, who takes to the streets in order to rid the world of black and cloudy music that is – well, is it evil? Who knows? It’s not rock, that’s for sure.

Marten Bruggermann of Pieces Interactive walked us through the current version, which is already available for download on their website. The game was nominated for Design Innovation at last night’s IGF Awards because of the way they use a guitar controller as input for moving the main character around the screen.

Fret buttons towards the end of the neck make you run left, while the ones on the strum bar side move right. Strumming makes you go a little faster. You can also climb by moving up or down on the strum bar and fling yourself off bars after strumming like mad to build up rotational speed. Nothing is terribly complicated, but takes a moment to wrap your head around how to coordinate all the moves.

Combat with the non-rock music is more clever than just shooting lasers. You need to compose a suitable riff depending on the physical characteristics of the clouds. For instance, a baddie with an eye and a mouth will just need two different notes, while one with two eyes, two tentacles, and a mouth will need two of one note, two of another, and one of a third.

Tags: design_innovation, fret, guitar_controller, guitar_hero

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