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Clone Hero

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Clone Hero
The phrase "Clone Hero" in white block letters.
Clone Hero logo.
Developer(s)Clone Hero Team
EngineUnity
Platform(s)Windows, OS X, Linux
ReleaseMarch 1, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-03-01)
Genre(s)Music, rhythm
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Clone Hero is an indie music rhythm video game created by Ryan Foster,[1] first released on March 1, 2017. The game is a clone of the Guitar Hero franchise, and as such, features nearly identical gameplay. The main draw of the game is its ability to play community-made songs, which has resulted in a large fan community around the game.

Gameplay

Against a black background, there is a black rectangle, foreshortened to look like a highway. At the bottom, there are five empty colored circles. Circular notes are falling down the highway and landing over the slots of matching color. Attached to the side of the highway is an x3 multiplier, and a blue meter, partially filled. A blue progress meter, a point counter, a star with a counter in it, a star completion bar, and an orange combo counter are held in a small clump of elements to the right side of the highway.
Screenshot of guitar gameplay, showcasing notes on the highway; song progression, star, and star power meters; point, star, and combo counters; and the combo multiplier.

Clone Hero, by design, features nearly identical gameplay to Guitar Hero. Specifically, the game is most similar to later entries in the series such as World Tour and Warriors of Rock, using GUI assets from those games.[1] Gameplay involves hitting colored inputs on a guitar or drum-shaped controller to play along to songs, although in Clone Hero these inputs can be mapped to a keyboard or any other input device.[2] Unlike the Guitar Hero series, by default there is no penalty for missing notes, aside from breaking a combo, making it impossible to fail a song, although there is an option to enable this.

For guitar, players must hold specific buttons that line up with combinations of five colored notes that appear on the screen on a "highway"; when the notes hit the bottom of the highway, the player must strum to hit the notes in time with the music. Notes can be singular, or multiple at a time, forming a chord. Notes can also be sustains, in which the player must hold the matching button(s) after strumming, the duration of the hold being indicated by a line following the note or chord. There is also an "open strum" note, represented with a purple bar, which requires the player to strum without pressing any other buttons. In addition to normal notes, there are "HOPO"s ("hammer-ons" and "pull-offs") and "tap notes", which both do not require the player to strum them to hit them, with the difference between the two being that a string of HOPOs must begin with a strum, and the player must re-strum if they miss a note. Certain notes may also be part of a "star power phrase", marked by a series of notes with star outlines. Successfully playing the marked section will reward the player with star power, which can be used to double the combo multiplier for a limited time. For drums, gameplay is similar, involving one less possible note; players must hit a corresponding drum or cymbal when a note hits the bottom of the highway. There is also a bass drum note, represented by an orange bar, which unlike the guitar's open strum can be combined with other notes. The game also contains a mode which emulates the gameplay of Guitar Hero Live, which is notably different from other games in the series, involving six guitar buttons instead of the standard five.

Clone Hero has the ability to play community-made songs, called "charts".[1][3] However, unlike games in the Guitar Hero series, these songs do not need to be original compositions, and can instead be any audio file a member of the community wishes to turn into a playable chart. This allows for any song to be made playable in the game, but also leads to many humorous and/or non-musical audio files being turned into charts,[1] as well as the creation of many intentionally impossible charts.[3] The freedom offered by the game's system has also spawned many charts that are created as brutal challenges to other players, far beyond the difficulty of anything in the standard Guitar Hero series.[4][5][3] While Clone Hero includes the main four difficulty modes seen in Guitar Hero, the vast majority of charts are designed for Expert mode.

Development

Clone Hero started as a small project of Ryan Foster's in 2011,[1] then called GuitaRPG, built in the XNA engine and bearing simple, 2D graphics.[6] Around 2015, the game's name was changed to Guitar Game to reflect its forking away from the RPG style, and had been upgraded with pseudo-3D graphics made with 2D graphics with warped perspective.[7] The project was later moved to Unity, and received its final name change to Clone Hero. Development continued until 2017, the game's first alpha release.

Reception

Clone Hero, along with Guitar Hero, was listed as one of Gamepur's top 10 best rhythm games.[8] Clone Hero has also made an appearance at Awesome Games Done Quick 2020.[5][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Stubbs, Mike (May 1, 2018). "The spirit of Guitar Hero lives on in a bizarre community-made clone". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  2. ^ "Clone Hero". clonehero.net. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Neilan, Dan (August 10, 2018). "Guitar Heroes never die, they just start playing Clone Hero". AV Club. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  4. ^ Winkie, Luke (July 24, 2018). "Meet the streamer making Guitar Hero cool again, one insanely hard song at a time". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  5. ^ a b Bennett, Connor (January 13, 2020). "Insane Guitar Hero performance goes viral after jaw-dropping "speedrun"". Dexerto. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  6. ^ Foster, Ryan (April 11, 2015). "GuitaRPG - Guitar Hero". YouTube. Retrieved April 3, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ Foster, Ryan (July 18, 2015). "Guitar Game - Bleed it Out". YouTube. Retrieved April 3, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ McPherson, Rebekah (January 22, 2020). "10 Best Rhythm Games". Gamepur. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  9. ^ Deschamps, Marc (January 13, 2020). "Undertale's Sans Appears in Wild AGDQ Video". Comicbook.com. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
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