Dev Diary: Combat in Dead as Disco
How we turned rhythm into a fight and made every punch hit to the beat.
Setting the Stage
When we first started designing Dead as Disco, one idea drove everything: we wanted players to feel like they were in the middle of an action-packed, music-synced fight scene straight out of a movie.
That “flow” moment where every hit lands on the beat, every dodge feels like a dance move, and every finish feels perfectly timed became the soul of our combat system.
So, in this Dev Diary, we’re diving into what makes Dead as Disco’s combat tick: the inspirations that shaped it, how we blended rhythm and action, what we learned from playtesting, and where we’re taking it next.
1️⃣ The Philosophy Behind Combat
Inspirations we drew from
Right from the start, we knew we needed to deliver on the fantasy of playing a music-synced action sequence from a movie. So our range of inspiration is actually quite large: from Cowboy Bebop and Scott Pilgrim, to John Wick and Baby Driver, over to martial arts action movies.
From a games standpoint, freeflow combat serves as the foundation of our inspiration, but we absolutely take cues from fighting games and traditional rhythm games.
What’s important is that the world and combat of Dead as Disco is ultimately its own. As important as the inspiration is, what we chose to leave out and modify is really what makes the game shine. We wanted anyone to be able to pick up the game and feel like a music-matched badass in just a few minutes.
Making combat feel like dancing: rhythm meets reaction
Charlie’s style is intentionally a combination of many martial arts, as well as dance moves. A large part of dance is improvisation which, amusingly, fits perfectly with a fight where a player controls the action.
To build Charlie’s kit, we experiment with a variety of moves to see what sticks. Then we introduce variety so that it doesn’t get too repetitive. One vital part is that everything has to feel snappy — Charlie literally doesn’t want to miss a beat.
Balancing style, rhythm, and impact
With both dancing and fighting, if you are sloppy and not hitting your marks, it all falls apart. Strong poses, quick movements, and timing are hallmarks of both fighting and many styles of dance.
So in achieving one, we actually can achieve both. There’s a reason that fight scenes and dance scenes both have choreographers — and in Dead as Disco, that choreographer is you!
2️⃣ Building a Combat System That Works With the Music
How the beat detection and tempo syncing work
We set a core principle from the get go - “The game needs to play to the music and not the other way around”. The general idea is that we stretch and contract the animations all the time so that the important part of those animations (such as the punch impact) lands somewhere important in the music (such as a beat). The wording I used here is deliberate because our tooling allows us to sync any part of any animation to any part of a song. We use this tech to create special moments and always ensure Charlie is doing something awesome that works with the music
Why we wanted players to “feel” the rhythm.
One difficult part of traditional rhythm games is it requires a lot of mental load from the player. They need to be able to feel the rhythm themselves, and are punished each time they stray from it.
With Dead as Disco, instead of punishing the player for being off rhythm, we help the player find it by aligning everything to the music. Players that are in the flow get rewarded for good timing, and bad players aren’t punished but through the sound and actions can get a better feel for the song over time.
Button mashing is ok! And we feel that’s a starting point for a lot of players to have fun and they’ll improve over time.
How music directly affects attacks, timing, and player flow
Music is the foundation of everything we do. The BPM of the song is the starting point, but it’s not enough to just punch to the beat.
We make sure to mark up songs to highlight special moments like drumrolls so that Charlie can really style on his opponents. This markup says when Charlie’s hits should land and ensures that every action aligns with the song.
3️⃣ Iterating Through Playtests and Feedback
What we learned from Closed Playtests
I cannot stress how important feedback is to us. As an example, we made some changes a few playtests ago that slowed combat a bit and made certain actions (like whiffing a counter) restrict new inputs for a period of time.
It was something we wanted to try — but we quickly saw feedback that players didn’t feel as in sync with the music anymore. It also affected different skill levels of players differently.
We listened to that feedback, made some adjustments, and were excited to see feedback in recent playtests that folks were in the groove again.
We also use playtests to see what players want more or less of, what songs they are playing most, how they engage with the leaderboards, etc.
4️⃣ What’s Next for Combat
Evolving Combat and Progression
Progression and skill trees are coming! For playtests and demos, Charlie’s been jamming with a somewhat mid-level progression of his kit. For the final game, Charlie will return from the dead with his base kit and will have to re-learn many of his abilities, as well as learn some new tricks from his former bandmates.
It’s important to call out that Charlie is always awesome - so even his base kit will ensure you can thrash enemies with rhythm and style - and then you go up from there.
Fever Rush is Charlie’s signature ability and he’ll be able to earn a new unique signature ability from each Idol he defeats. Defeating an Idol also unlocks their associated skill tree, which will provide improvements from increased health, to modifiers to existing abilities, to new moves.
We’ve been playing internally and having a blast trying out different builds and seeing what skills and abilities harmonize well together. Gaining and utilizing the powers of the Idols truly makes Charlie a force to be reckoned with. It’s still early in development, but we are excited to eventually give folks hands-on with this in a playtest.
At the heart of Dead as Disco, every swing, dodge, and combo is a chance to feel the rhythm, not just follow it. The combat system is our way of letting players move with the music, turning every fight into choreography that’s uniquely their own.
We’ve still got a lot of fine-tuning ahead, and we can’t wait for you to see how combat evolves as we continue to build and test with our community. Thanks for dancing through this Dev Diary with us, and for every bit of feedback that helps us make the groove tighter.
Next time, we’ll turn up the volume and dive into the music of Dead as Disco, how we craft tracks that make you feel the fight, and how every beat drives the soul of the game.
Stay tuned!
The Dead as Disco Team