MOBILE RHYTHM GAMES AS LEARNING TOOL?

As we've covered before, music can and should play a pivotal part in the classroom. Not only is there science that backs up the fact that incorporating music in teaching other subjects helps students to absorb the material more easily, but it also helps to engage students even more and makes the learning process fun. It makes sense why a lot of children's programs constantly include music regularly, such as Peppa Pig and The Wiggles. Music tends to help develop a child's literacy by introducing new words to them in the form of song and helping to embed both the word and meaning into the child's mind. In this post, I'm going to be focusing on how certain music games can help children physically, specifically in terms of coordination skills and timing.

An interesting scientific article came out in 2017 in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience titled "Music Games: potential Application and Consideration for Rhythmic Training". The research sought to find if any popular music-based games helped significantly with training rhythmic, cognitive and language skills. They covered a wide array of different music game: dancing games such as Just Dance, singing games such as Everyone Sing, various console rhythm games such as Guitar Hero and DJ Hero, and various mobile tapping rhythm games. They used the mechanism used to record the response (i.e. the guitar for Guitar Hero, the Kinect/Wii remote for Just Dance) the scoring system in their respective games, and the gameplay in their respect games to gauge if such games would have significant impact on rhythmic skill acquisition. Unfortunately, according to the data, none of the game that they studies showed any significant impact. The researchers behind this study reasoned that this is because in most of these games, are lackluster in their gameplay for fostering any significant rhythmic skill improvement, which makes sense since these games, at the end of the day, are games and are meant for enjoyment. However, despite this finding, they noted that a certain type of game they analyzed could pave the way for successful rhythmic training: mobile rhythm games. According to them, mobile rhythm games "use tapping to the beat [and] provide the simplest solution to implement a rhythm training protocol." Though, they added that these games would need improvement to scoring systems to more precisely record rhythm precision.

When I first saw the title of this article, I was really excited to read it. I grew up with games such as Guitar Hero, Rockband and American Idol on the Wii, so these type of music games are really dear to me. I was hoping that I'd read this article, then show it to my parents to show them that all that time I'd spent on those games in my childhood wasn't for naught and that it was actually helping me develop certain skills. Though I was a bit disappointed with the article's findings, I was happy to hear about the potential applications of mobile rhythm games. While console rhythm games characterized my childhood, I am currently a huge fan of mobile rhythm gaming and would spend much of my free time on them. Given these scientific findings, I thought that I would share two of my favorite mobile rhythm games and why I believe that they can help with "implementing a rhythm training protocol" as per the article. 

Deemo is a Taiwanese-based mobile rhythm game that was released back in 2013 by Rayark. It's gained a large following, warranting multiple remakes on newer consoles. The gameplay is fairly simple and reminiscent of a piano: there is a single line at the bottom of the screen with notes that will come down in accordance to the song you choose, you have to tap the notes as they hit the black line, which aligns with the song. There are two difficulties: easy and hard. Most of the music featured in this game is orchestra and piano-based pieces, so if that's your forte I'd recommend this game. Why I believe it would help with improving rhythm training is because the scoring system is much more accurate than most games, which was a main criticism from the article. While the game has a "perfect" designation for when notes are tapped at the correct time, there are two types of "perfect" designations: a normal perfect and a charming perfect. A charming perfect is shown by a yellow flash when the note is tapped while a normal perfect is shown by a green flash. A charming perfect is a more accurate "perfect" designation, which attributes to a more precise scoring system, a system scored out of 100%. For instance, a song completed with all perfect taps nets a "Full Combo" score, however, a song completed with all charming perfect taps nets an "All Charming" score, which is accompanied with a 100% (a full combo will not net a 100%).

Cytus & Cytus II

Cytus and Cytus II are a pair of Taiwanese-based mobile rhythm games released by Rayark. Compared to Deemo, the gameplay is much more intricate and can be a bit confusing. The premise of the game is the same as Deemo in principal: notes will appear in accordance with a song and you have to tap the notes accordingly on a single line. However, the main gameplay mechanic that differs is that in Cytus, the notes are stationary and the line moves up and down. I believe that because of this main difference, Cytus is a little more difficult to grasps than Deemo, though it would make for more significant improvement in rhythmic skills. At each point the line is moving in the opposite direction, new notes will appear on the screen; notes are designated by a specific color based on which direction it is meant to be tapped (as to avoid further confusion in conjunction with other notes). This game enjoys a mixed variety of music from electronic music to piano and orchestra based pieces. And much like Deemo, the scoring system is quite precise. There are two different "perfect" designations with one being more accurate than the other, with the more accurate perfect being shown with a bold "perfect" showing up on the screen when a note is tapped while a normal perfect is shown with a regular-font "perfect". Songs are scored out of 1,000,000, all accurate "perfects" will net a "Million Master" score along with a 1,000,000 while all normal "perfects" will net only a "full combo" score (a full combo with not net a 1,000,000).