It’s almost hard to believe that it’s already been one year since the launch of Rhythm Doctor onto Steam Early Access.
On one hand, the year has flown by, and we’re still working hard on future Story Mode content and juggling various different things the best we can.
On the other hand, the game somehow feels like it’s been around forever. The overwhelming pace of fanart, tweets, livestreams, videos, custom levels, discussion, speculation, fan projects, and more have Paige and Ian feeling like old friends who we’ve been sharing with you for years. We cannot thank you enough for all of the kindness and generosity you’ve given us, and all the outpouring of enthusiasm we’ve seen from players.
It’s heartwarming to see the game resonate with people, whether it’s because they’ve clicked with the gameplay, enjoy making custom levels, or love spending time with the characters. Thank you so much.
To celebrate our One Year Anniversary, we wanted to share some announcements of new and upcoming updates!
Japanese Localization
Rhythm Doctor is now available in Japanese! We’re a small team, so every new language requires a lot of time and teamwork. We’re very excited to have Rhythm Doctor easily available to Japanese players now! Let us know in the comments of this post if you encounter any bugs or errors while playing in Japanese.
Hello everyone! Have fun, and thanks for playing!
Decorations Tab
This new feature for the Level Editor is something we’re hoping is going to give players a lot more freedom and flexibility in creating their own levels. Using the Decorations Tab, players can now freely add image assets to their level with various options.
In the past, your only options to add assets were to add them as a playable character row, a background image, or a foreground image asset. Now, using the Decorations Tab, you can freely add and control image assets in your level without needing to use those workarounds.
We can’t wait to see what creators are able to pull off with it!
Steam Deck + Full Gamepad Compatibility
It’s almost hard to believe that the Steam Deck is already here! If you ordered one, you’ve probably been wondering if Rhythm Doctor will be compatible for playing on-the-go.
The answer is Yes!
We're working hard on getting that green Deck Verified checkmark by patching the game for full button controls, testing the game on Steam Deck, and meeting all of Steam Deck’s requirements for running smoothly. If the game doesn’t already show up in your library as Deck Verified with the latest update, then we’ll hopefully have it sorted out within the next few weeks after Valve finishes reviewing it.
Now you can take Rhythm Doctor to your friend’s house so they can watch you beat 4-2N with an S Rank. Or you can just stay home and play at your desk with a controller!
Achievements
The game now has Achievements! The icons were created by our artist Winston. You will receive achievements for things you already accomplished on your save file. After making sure your Rhythm Doctor game is up-to-date, it may take one or two tries of launching the game for all of the achievements to be detected. Not much else to say about that. Good luck, and enjoy!
Coming Soon
Accessibility Updates
We have more accessibility features coming soon to Rhythm Doctor! Although we’re a small team, it’s important to us to make the game as accessible to players as possible. One main focus for us, as a game based on music and audio cues, is working towards making the game more accessible for visually-impaired and blind players throughout Early Access development.
Below is a short clip of a narration feature we’re working on.
This feature allows the game to send messages to a few of the most commonly-used screen reader programs, which can then speak the text aloud. It will allow the player to traverse menus and listen to dialogue present on the screen. The player will control the speed of the narration using their screen reader configuration.
This update will be the first step in a long and exciting process. Because of the magnitude of this effort, we will start by releasing an early version soon with some of the core features to make the game as playable as possible without needing to see the screen, and then we will be improving it over time by taking player feedback.
Rhythm Doctor is a rhythm game that focuses largely on audio cues and internal focus. Because of this, it’s our hope that in the future we can add enough options to make the game accessible to blind players.
This update will be our start towards that, so we hope it will help you.
Videos
You might have noticed that we put up a new trailer! Take a look.
We also have a talk given by our Lead Programmer / UX Designer Giacomo, which he initially recorded for WePlay. It’s all about how we designed the UI in Rhythm Doctor, and the decisions that were made for it to support the aesthetic of the game and the narrative of the game. Enjoy!
Thanks for a year of support, thanks for playing, and we’ll be back in the near future with updates on the accessibility features.
Our fans run a Discord server where you can talk about our games and the level editor: discord.gg/rhythmdr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhythmdr
Website: https://www.7thbe.at