Spotlight Guitarcade: Hurtlin' Hurdles and day 36

Hurtlin' Hurdles

Hurtlin' Hurdles is a game in which you use Tremelo to cause a robotic runner to outrun an approaching robot destroying spiked roller of death.  It is a sort of relay race where you change robots when you change strings.  To keep ahead of the spike roller you have to collect certain power ups that will increase the distance between you and the death roller.  I felt like a picture did not accurately show what the game was like, so I included a video above.

There are two games that this Guitarcade calls back to.  The first is a blast from my personal past called "World Class Track Meet".  There was an old addition to the original Nintendo Entertainment System called the "Power Pad" and it came with a game, the only game I ever played that used the thing, called World Class Track Meet.  You "ran" on the pad and "jumped" to avoid hurdles in the track meet.

The second game that this calls to was Base Wars, a baseball game where they players were changes to robots.  Similar robot games also came out where they took sports and replaced the humans with robots and added power ups and such.  You mix Base Wars with World Class Track Meet and you get Hurtlin' Hurdles.

I do not play this game as much as the others.  I'm just not a tremelo person, but I can tell you that if you need to build up familiarity with the base technique, this game will do it.  If you need to build up the muscles that let you play tremelo for long periods of time, this game is a must, and this game will do it.  It is entertaining to watch, but very stressful to play.  The graphics, music, and style fit the influences perfectly and again, whoever put the time into making this game did a great job and really looks and feels like something they were passionate about.


Day 36

Today I worked on getting my "rock" tone better in Rocksmith.  I started with a JCM800 marshall amp, this is pretty much a standard in Rock.  I got the overdriven sound, but felt like it needed a little something extra.  I ended up putting the OCD clone pedal(Custom Overdrive I think it is) in front of the amp at a lower gain boost setting and that sounded pretty good.  There was something missing, and I couldn't quite figure it out.  I think what I realized is that my stereo's speakers are just weak in the treble.  I'm not a trebbly kind of person.  I prefer motown bass sounds and crunchy distortion in general, but when I put that treble booster in the signal chain, it made the sound come alive.  So it is something I would not use in real life through my amp, but it compensates for whatever is missing in my stereo speakers.  So when you're doing some tone shaping in Rocksmith, try out things you normally would not think you'd want to use.  I'm about 75% satisfied with the sound.  I had to put a noise gate in there because the treble boost is also a "junk" boost.

I have just about gotten "play effortlessly" in the easy, medium and powerchord version of Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd.  These are not Rocksmith categories, I'm learning this from watching youtube, but the skills to play this song are something I learned in Rocksmith, and that I am actively practicing in Rocksmith's Guitarcade and lesson practice tracks.  Next I need to start coming up with how I'm going to do my 1-2 minute "can you play Simple Man?" sample version.  This means I have to listen to the song in its entirety each day...  I have to reiterate that I'm not a huge Skynyrd fan lol.  This was simply to work on my technique.

I know that Simple Man and Everlong have featured a lot in these posts.  I am deliberately trying to be "light" on learning songs during this 60 day challenge.  I'm focusing on what I feel I am weakest on, and that's technique.  I feel like if I get diverted by learning 5-6 Beatles songs, 5-6 Black Sabbath songs, etc etc; that I will slack on my pure technique practice.  Sometimes I find songs that seem perfect for practicing the technique I'm working on, and that's the ones I feature here a lot.  Everlong helped me on Power Chords, timing practice, song section changes, and stuff like that.  Simple Man is teaching me chord changes, the balance of power chords with regular chords, and improvisation inside chord structure.

Tomorrow though... I'm thinking of investigating the basics of funk strumming.