Ryan Shafer | Frequency, Harmonix Music

Frequency, Harmonix Music

It's only Rock & Roll

I was brought on at Harmonix in the summer of 1999. At the time, they were a startup video game company starting on their first console game. Was it going to be on xbox or PS2, or even launch at all? A few years later, they would launch not only Frequency on the PS2, but 3 titles later they had a huge hit called Guitar Hero. Sound familiar? Frequency set the ground work for Guitar Hero I, II, & RockBand and I was was involved from the early stages.

I worked along side Harmonix's Art Director to design & animate many looping texture maps and polygonal objects for the game's 3D world. I also designed, animated, & edited a promotional video for the game to be shown to investors and consumers to drum up interest in Frequency. It seems to have worked…

For further details, review my resume.

After receiving my copy of the game (My name is in the credits, WooHoo!), I soon found the game to be a digital form of crack. Really, I could not play it enough.

The design of the game was heavily based of the movie "Tron" & "Blade Runner" only the aesthetic was dialed up to eleven.

When players captured enough bars of the song, they were given the opportunity to "Jam" using the analog sticks on the controller and freestyle over the song.

Frequency's basic concept was that each side of an octagonal tube was matched to an instrument or sound in a song. The player had to "catch" the notes of the track as they went thru the tube to make the beat or melody.

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Skills Involved

Visual Design
Visual Research
Beta Testing
Animation
Video Editing
3D Model Making

Ryan Shafer || Design. Communicate.

Frequency, Harmonix Music

It's only Rock & Roll

For further details, review my resume.

Skills Involved

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