What is Holodance? Holo obviously was inspired by Holodeck, so imagine "dancing in the Holodeck". Of course, "dancing" just means tuning into the rhythm and freely moving with the music. There are orbs arriving perfectly in sync with the music that you need to catch, and curves you need to follow. But no, we're not gonna tell you how to move because we consider dancing really a free expressive movement of rhythm and joy.
Holodance was the first VR rhythm game shown to the public, mid 2015. Since then, it has evolved from "Dancing with Dragons" with only a few songs specifically produced for the game in its environmentalism themed Story Mode, to also letting you play your local music library as well as any of the 60,000 hand-crafted high-quality ranked maps for osu! for more than 12,000 different songs in Holodance Free Mode.
Play in almost 20 diverse environments, ranging from a tropical beach or underwater environment with dolphins and whales, to trippy abstract tunnels or asteroid fields.
Whether you follow our friendly dragons down the rabbit hole of a potential dystopic future, and get to fistbump Pritvitej along the way, or prefer challenging yourself with high-intensity beatmaps in a Zero Distraction environment and get a nice workout while you're at it - Holodance has you covered. The game even lets you catch those orbs with your head - and if you already have Vive trackers, you can catch them with your feet, too, Kung Fu style.
Credits
While there are currently only four people working on the game full-time, it is actually an international collaboration with talents from across the globe. For the full credits, check out our Press Kit.
Mixed Reality, Vive Trackers, Streamer Mode
Holodance has full support for Mixed Reality, using the regular SteamVR quadrant view, MixCast (which requires a subscription but has the nice benefit of doing compositing in-game), and also native LIV integration.
Vive Trackers are not required to play Holodance but if you have two and attach them to your feet, you can catch orbs with your feet. Up to 7 Vive Trackers (3 recommended) are support by the Holodance Avatar system which lets you breathe life into various forms, from Animé characters to sci-fi soldiers. The Avatar system ties into Streamer Mode, which is designed to let spectators watch players from various 3rd person perspectives that can even be switched automatically by the game, perfectly on the beat.
Story Mode: 12 Songs with Several Tracks Each
The Story Mode of Holodance will come with 12 songs in the electronic / techno / dancehall style. However, over time there will be other musical styles added via paid-DLC musical theme packs (if you're an artist and want to have your music on Holodance: contact us!) Each song has several tracks, like a bassdrum, the hihat, a bassline or some synth playing a melody. As these tracks have different rhythms and complexities, there's a natural progression of difficulty within each song. Once you have touched a minimum of notes per track, the next more difficult track within the song becomes available. Once you have all tracks of a song completed, the next song becomes available which will be longer and more difficult.
How to Touch those Notes
There's different ways of "touching" notes that match the instrument of a given track. For percussive instruments like drums, the notes come flying towards you in the form of orbs that you just need to touch with the right timing. Notes for softer instruments as well as very fast instruments will come as paths that you need to follow with just the right pace. Finally, there will also be stationary orbs that you can tap in any sequence - you just need to get the rhythm right. Find more details about the Holodance gameplay mechanics on Wikipedia, and details on how scores are calculated in Holodance in the Guide on Steam.
Collaborative Multiplayer (not quite ready, yet)
Holodance has a collaborative multiplayer mode where you can play songs together with friends or strangers (who will then become friends). The score is added up, so the more people you have in a session, the more maximum score is available. In this symmetric multiplayer mode, which is tied to the story of the game, you can have up to four players per session. We will also have an asymmetric multiplayer mode (in fact, probably this will arrive first), where one player "throws" the orbs, while the other is responsible for catching them. The thrower won't have to worry about timing because we will use the beatmaps for that ... and don't think you can cheat by having the thrower simply not move - we track the distance covered and that has an effect on your score.
So when will you shut up so I can give you my money?
If you don't mind playing an Early Access title that is not completely finished, yet, and if you do have an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift with Touch Controllers - go right ahead and:
Buy Holodance at its Early Access price on Steam
Holodance is currently being developed full-time by Jashan Chittesh (game-design, coding, music production) and Samuel Hajek (concept art, modeling, animation). We also have more artists like Finn MK (musician), Efe Tozan (musician), Roy van Dorn (set-design), Anne Stokes (concept art for the blue mother of all dragons) and Gary Haus (modeling) helping on a project basis. Be sure to register your email or register on the site, join the discussion in our forum and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and join our group on Vimeo to follow this project's progress.
We can't wait to holodance with you!
For Arcades and Parties / Demos
We have built-in several features into Holodance to make it work well in demo / party / arcade scenarios. If you enjoy doing demos, or run an arcade, make sure to talk to us.