I want to talk about an idea I had for a video game called Maestro. If you try and use this idea I will sue the pants off you, besides I could do it way better than you could so why don’t you just let me. Basically, I’m thinking of a take-off of Pokemon, but the whole game is based on musical theory. The player walks around and captures creatures, all of which fall into one of five families. The families are brass, string, woodwind, percussion, and voice. Each family has unique strengths and weaknesses and each creature has a certain melody that must be played to capture it. These melodies are won in battles, purchased, or found around the world.
The goal of the game is to compose the ultimate symphony with your creatures, and the game is split into three themes – the overworld, battles, and recitals. The overworld is where the player walks around interacting with characters and going about his quest. Occasionally, a battle will occur, either with another Maestro (the trainers) or with a wild Instruma (the creatures). Battles are fought by stringing together notes to make chords. For example, say it is your Guitarn’s turn, and you have it play the A, C, and E notes. This would create an A chord (I think, but bear with me), which does, say, a lightning attack. Creating a B minor chord could poison the enemy. The player can have up to three Instruma in battle at once, and creating a scale or melody with their chords will have special properties, such as dealing extra damage or healing the party.
Recitals are a part of the game where the player must use his or her Instruma to create music. They can assign different patterns to the various Instruma, and will receive a rating based on how much musical sense it makes. They’ll receive basic musical theory instruction, like what chords sound good after playing an A, and how time signatures work. The eventual goal of the game is to defeat the current champion in both a battle and a recital, thus becoming the Master Maestro. The goal of the parents buying the game, of course, is to teach their children musical theory in a fun way. Kids have been memorizing Pokemon and their corresponding attacks for more than a decade and imagine how talented they’d be if they spent all that time soaking up theory. It is genius, no?
