Ready? Set. Haiya!(alt.ctrl.GDC2020)

Ready Set Haiya! is a motion-based fighting rhythm game, where players use a “real” wooden man as the input, and try to imitate various kung-fu poses displayed on the screen on the wooden man, to eventually achieve a high score. The closer the match is, the higher you score.

Main mechanics, theme, and inspirations.

Ready?Set.Haiya! blends two of the most entertaining genres in gaming, i.e., fighting and rhythm, and takes an arcade-twist by using an actual kung fu wooden dummy as the input.
Being a motion-based game, players must controller a budding kung fu student, by activating the various sensors on the dummy’s arms in the right order and on time, to either block or attack the enemy, depending on the indicators on-screen.
Each level has a track that indicates its length similar to how each song in Rock Band and Guitar Hero is its own level. Just like in Just Dance, a bar at the bottom of the screen prepares players for upcoming sensors to press and thus indicating what would their pose be.
Players have to make sure to time their inputs in order to maximize their score and generate long combos.
Our main inspirations were Kung Fu movies like Kung Fu Hustle and Enter the Dragon along with anime fight scenes which is why we wanted to try for a semi-serious and low-poly simplistic art style, with a casual tone.

Position and Contribution

I am one of the engineers in Ready Set Haiya team and I am also the one who pitched this game originally as an vision holder.

Designed the core game loop and generated new ideas with designers.
Developed the music gameplay, including beat generation, beat matching, and combo counting using data-driven techniques.
Created character animator blenders to let characters behave differently in offense or defense mode according to the music data.
UI programming of different menus. Implementing particle effects in canvas.