Performous is an open-source rhythm/performance platform that contains singing, guitar/bass playing, drumming and dancing all in one game. The project began as rewrite of the UltraStar singing game in October 2006 (first commit on 15-10-2006 11:52 AM UTC ), using C++ and targeting Linux. Adding more elements to the game was planned for several years and in 2009 first band game features were added and published on
Assembly game development competition. A few months later work on the dance game feature began and even though it is not yet complete, the feature is already available on the development version of the game. The project was originally known as UltraStar-NG, but the name was changed in version 0.3 in anticipation of adding other instruments and to avoid confusion as the game is not a
fork of UltraStar. Also, since version 0.3 the graphics rendering is based on
OpenGL for high performance even on slower machines, with full effects, as long as any OpenGL support is available. Various background video formats are supported using
FFmpeg.
Singing game This part of the game is essentially karaoke, but with scoring and realtime feedback. The gameplay is similar to
SingStar: the game analyzes each singer's pitch and gives scores based on how precisely the song was performed. As a reference, the lyrics, the notes and the singer's pitch are displayed on screen as the song plays.
Performous does not attempt to clone
SingStar but rather has unique features such as scrolling notes and precise singing pitch display as a wave drawn on screen. These allow players to sing without interruptions and to correct their singing pitch to hit the notes precisely.
Performous does pitch detection with
fast Fourier transform (FFT) combined with a sophisticated post-processing algorithm. This system is able to operate well in extremely noisy environments, even when using very cheap microphones. On Linux the game autodetects any connected
SingStar microphones and uses them automatically. On other platforms and with other types of microphones (e.g. webcams or analog microphones connected to sound cards) a best-effort detection is done. Songs need to be supplied in
UltraStar or
Frets on Fire format.
Performous comes with a tool named '
ss_extract', for converting
SingStar DVDs into
UltraStar format.
Band game The gameplay is similar to
Guitar Hero or
Rock Band: a guitar controller is used and the player will need to match the notes. For guitar and bass the game tries to figure out the intention of the player rather than just comparing the nearest available chord, making it easier to play fast passages.
Hammer-ons and
pull-offs (HOPOs) also consider player's intention. If the player intends to pick a note in a regular fashion but happens to HOPO it by accident a moment before, the pick will undo the HOPO and no mistake happens. These little gameplay tweaks in favor of the player make the game much more enjoyable as playing correctly will no longer produce mistakes when the timing is slightly off or when the player chooses not to use the HOPO feature. Timing accuracy is still considered in the scoring so that hitting all notes does not always give the maximum score.
Performous detects any connected
Guitar Hero or
Rock Band controllers automatically. Additionally, a PC keyboard can be used as a guitar controller. Songs need to be in Frets on Fire format.
Dance game The gameplay is similar to
Dance Dance Revolution or
StepMania: the dancer will have to match the steps displayed on screen on a dancing mat as precisely as possible. Songs need to be in StepMania format.
Assembly Summer 2009 '
Performous Band', a stripped-down version of the game, containing only the band game (guitar, bass and drums) took part in the game development competition. The game was displayed with a pre-recorded presentation video, but there were significant audio-video synchronization issues with the video even though the game itself had no such issues. Due to copyright issues and the lack of freely usable songs at the time, part of the demonstration was done with the music completely muted. The game finished on the 12th place with 642 points.
Releases On 2014-11-01,
Performous released its 1.0 version containing a new engine based on SDL2, the ability to create playlists, and a lot of bug fixes. On 2016-01-23,
Performous released its 1.1 version containing mostly bug fixes. On 2022-03-27,
Performous released its 1.2 version. On 2023-09-01,
Performous released its 1.3 version. On 2023-11-24,
Performous released its 1.3.1 version. == See also == •
Boogie •
Karaoke Revolution •
Lips •
List of open source games •
Xbox Music Mixer ==References==