MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Ahem....I see Geo Wars has had a big influence.....

> For a couple days now I've had the inspiration...
>
> What if they took a game like this, but it was controlled with a guitar? I'm not sure
> how it could all work - but the neck of the guitar would be the distance you have
> left to right on the screen, the places an object appears would be where you'd have
> to place your hand or fingers on the frets (and this is where it gets complicated)
> the notes could correspond to the color or shape of one of the objects(?)... using a
> pick on the strings would fire. If you've played the wrong note then the shot
> wouldn't affect the object.

Technically, it's feasible. You can get a hex pickup for a guitar which is basically six independent pickups that each work for a single string, and output through a special 13-pin cable. From there, you would just have to do pitch detection to tell which fret was being played.

The only roadblock would be that you would probably need some sort of custom interface for the guitar. Hex pickups are normally used with a dedicated synth or a pitch-to-MIDI converter box. You would need something more like an audio interface to bring in the six audio signals and handle the pitch detection in software.

> It might not work out to well. Since different objects could be fired at at will -if
> the key was to (say) play a song or something, and with there being too many possible
> combinations of how to go about finishing a wave/stage....

If all of the targets were pitches in the same scale, the notes could work in any order and the player would have some leeway to create a unique melody depending on how they tackled the stage. It would be tricky to make it work, but it could potentially be extremely cool.