Note Flash is a simple card game designed by Malaysian students for a local fundraising event. This is certainly not a gamer’s game, which means this is not of interest to 99% of the readers of this blog. For me, it is interesting to see people who are not gamers design games because they will come up with ideas which are different. They have fresh eyes which I do not have.
Note Flash challenges you to identify musical notes accurately and quickly. This is a solo game which can also be played competitively between two players. You have a time limit of 4 minutes and a stack of 46 cards. The front side of a card shows a musical note, and the back shows what note it is, i.e. the answer. Before you start a game, you set up seven columns, C, D, E, F, G, A and B. Once the timer starts, you start assigning cards to the right column as quickly and correctly as you can.
The game ends when you assign all cards, or when the timer runs out. You have a base of 50 points. You earn more points if you beat the clock. You lose points per card remaining if you run out of time. You also take a heavy penalty for each incorrectly identified note. To check whether you get all of the notes right, you simply flip them all over. Each card back is coloured based on what note it is, so you can quickly check correctness at a glance.
If you want to do a two-player game, you use the other side of the column header cards. The time limit is shortened to 2 minutes, and each player gets 23 cards instead of 46.
This game is a good exercise for music sight-reading. It serves an educational purpose. It is certainly something different from what gamers usually play.
I have started work on one game design which is related to music. It is a real-time game about beats. I never got very far with it. I worry it might be too complicated for the average casual gamer who does not know music, yet too easy for anyone who knows music. It's certainly an interesting topic to get into - designing a game related to music.
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