Vib-Ribbon
Encyclopedia
is a video game for Sony
PlayStation
. Developed by Masaya Matsuura
(the former leader of the Japanese "Hyper Pop Unit" PSY S
) and his NanaOn-Sha
company, and released in Japan in 1999
. The game was released in Europe
the following year and was additionally re-released in Japan under the PlayStation the Best and PSOne Books
greatest hits lines in 2000 and 2001 respectively.
Vib-Ribbon is a rhythm video game
in the style of PaRappa the Rapper
and Amplitude
. The game was unique in that the software loaded into RAM, letting the player use any music CD to play against; the game could generate a unique level from any track. The graphics for Vib-Ribbon are simple, consisting of straight, white vector
lines forming crude, angular drawings of the level and the character, a female rabbit named Vibri.
The objective of the game is to guide Vibri along a ribbon filled with obstacles corresponding to the song being played. Pressing the correct buttons at the right time will let Vibri pass unscathed. Failing to do so multiple times will eventually result in Vibri degenerating from a rabbit
into a frog
, then a worm
, and finally perishing for good. If 18 obstacles are navigated successfully in a row, Vibri's form is "promoted" to that of fairy princess if she is currently a rabbit. If she is at a lower leveled form, she will advance to the next highest form instead. The game's score is represented by a series of symbols that accumulate as the game level progresses. A numerical score is generated at the end of the song. Depending on the score obtained, Vibri will sing a congratulatory song that gets longer with higher scores.
The game features four basic obstacles. They are blocks, loops, waves and pits. Each obstacle requires a different button press (L, R, X and Down respectively) to negotiate. For example, Vibri will successfully negotiate a block by climbing up it and jumping off the other side, or a pit by stretching her legs across it.
Two obstacles may be combined into a more advanced form to create a total of ten unique ones. Where an obstacle is a combination of two basic ones, it requires two button presses at the same time, each corresponding to the button used for the basic components of the obstacle. For example, a loop can combine with a pit to make a loop with a pit in the middle (pit halfway through the loop, upside down).
In more difficult levels, the obstacles may move at different speeds, so the order the obstacles appear on screen is not necessarily the order that they must be negotiated. However, the player is never given more than one obstacle at once (with the exception of combined obstacles), despite the fact that multiple obstacles may need to be traversed immediately after a previous one.
In addition, it is also common for the obstacles to appear on the opposite side of the line to Vibri (as if they were reflections in a mirror), and then switch around as they approach the character.
tracks, including six songs by Japanese group Laugh and Peace (also known to play keyboards for J-Pop W's 2006 Duo U&U
album). Laugh and Peace are sometimes incorrectly known as Laugh and Beats, or Love and Peace.
Along with the music distributed with the game CD, the player can run their own music CD, which generates the vib-ribbon in accordance with the rhythm of the tracks : a hard rock CD producing a much more challenging line than a soft music CD.
s: Mojib-Ribbon
, which focused around rap music and calligraphy
, and Vib-Ripple
, which was similar to Vib-Ribbon but instead used digital images loaded into the game to generate the levels. Both were released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation 2
.
Game creator Masaya Matsuura has stated interest in working on Vib-Ribbon again, either through a sequel or a remake, and showed interest in downloadable services. When quizzed about the possibility of bringing Vib-Ribbon to other consoles Matsuura said he could buy it from Sony. When asked about the possibility of a port for PlayStation 3
, Matsuura stated "We are discussing the possibility of making a downloadable version of Vib-Ribbon for Sony, but, I don't know yet - Sony only recently launched their downloadable service in Japan, so maybe we need to wait a while before releasing a title with that kind of appeal."
An iOS game, Russian Dancing Men, which features gameplay similar to Vib-Ribbon, was developed by Smashmouth Games and Jonti Picking
was released on October 28, 2011.
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. Developed by Masaya Matsuura
Masaya Matsuura
is a video game designer and musician based in Tokyo, Japan. He was born in Osaka on June 16, 1961, and majored in Industrial Society at Ritsumeikan University. He has worked extensively with music and images, and has been active with the J-Pop band,...
(the former leader of the Japanese "Hyper Pop Unit" PSY S
PSY S
Psy・S [sáiz] was a popular Japanese progressive pop/rock band, formed in 1983 by Masaya Matsuura alongside female vocal powerhouse Chaka...
) and his NanaOn-Sha
NanaOn-Sha
NanaOn-Sha is a Japanese video game company which created what is widely credited as the first modern rhythm game, PaRappa the Rapper. It was founded by: Masaya Matsuura in 1993. The game's success resulted in the spinoff UmJammer Lammy, which is based on guitar samples, and eventually a proper...
company, and released in Japan in 1999
1999 in video gaming
-Events:*British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosts the 2nd annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards*March – Game Over republished as “Game Over: Press Start to Continue”...
. The game was released in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
the following year and was additionally re-released in Japan under the PlayStation the Best and PSOne Books
The Best range
The Best is a Sony PlayStation budget range in Japan and parts of Asia. For the PlayStation, The Best was followed by PSone Books when the PSone was released in 2000...
greatest hits lines in 2000 and 2001 respectively.
Vib-Ribbon is a rhythm video game
Rhythm game
Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press buttons in a sequence dictated on the screen...
in the style of PaRappa the Rapper
PaRappa the Rapper
is a rhythm video game for the Sony PlayStation created by Masaya Matsuura and his NanaOn-Sha company....
and Amplitude
Amplitude (game)
Amplitude is a 2003 PlayStation 2 musical video game. It was developed by Harmonix and is the sequel to the game Frequency.-Gameplay:In Amplitude, the player controls a ship moving down a path of varying shapes and lengths, containing up to six tracks...
. The game was unique in that the software loaded into RAM, letting the player use any music CD to play against; the game could generate a unique level from any track. The graphics for Vib-Ribbon are simple, consisting of straight, white vector
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
lines forming crude, angular drawings of the level and the character, a female rabbit named Vibri.
Gameplay
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
into a frog
Frog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
, then a worm
Worm
The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...
, and finally perishing for good. If 18 obstacles are navigated successfully in a row, Vibri's form is "promoted" to that of fairy princess if she is currently a rabbit. If she is at a lower leveled form, she will advance to the next highest form instead. The game's score is represented by a series of symbols that accumulate as the game level progresses. A numerical score is generated at the end of the song. Depending on the score obtained, Vibri will sing a congratulatory song that gets longer with higher scores.
The game features four basic obstacles. They are blocks, loops, waves and pits. Each obstacle requires a different button press (L, R, X and Down respectively) to negotiate. For example, Vibri will successfully negotiate a block by climbing up it and jumping off the other side, or a pit by stretching her legs across it.
Two obstacles may be combined into a more advanced form to create a total of ten unique ones. Where an obstacle is a combination of two basic ones, it requires two button presses at the same time, each corresponding to the button used for the basic components of the obstacle. For example, a loop can combine with a pit to make a loop with a pit in the middle (pit halfway through the loop, upside down).
In more difficult levels, the obstacles may move at different speeds, so the order the obstacles appear on screen is not necessarily the order that they must be negotiated. However, the player is never given more than one obstacle at once (with the exception of combined obstacles), despite the fact that multiple obstacles may need to be traversed immediately after a previous one.
In addition, it is also common for the obstacles to appear on the opposite side of the line to Vibri (as if they were reflections in a mirror), and then switch around as they approach the character.
Music
As with many CD-based games, most of the in-game music is included on the game CD as standard Red Book audio formatRed Book (audio CD standard)
Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...
tracks, including six songs by Japanese group Laugh and Peace (also known to play keyboards for J-Pop W's 2006 Duo U&U
Duo U&U
is the first album by W, the duo formed by Morning Musume and Minimoni members and longtime friends Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji. Recorded while they were winding down their duties as Morning Musume and Minimoni members, the album consists of cover versions of songs released by other female Japanese...
album). Laugh and Peace are sometimes incorrectly known as Laugh and Beats, or Love and Peace.
Along with the music distributed with the game CD, the player can run their own music CD, which generates the vib-ribbon in accordance with the rhythm of the tracks : a hard rock CD producing a much more challenging line than a soft music CD.
Legacy
The game spawned two sequelSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
s: Mojib-Ribbon
Mojib-Ribbon
is a music video game created by Masaya Matsuura as a pseudo-sequel to his earlier music game, Vib-Ribbon . A direct sequel called Vib-Ripple was released in 2004...
, which focused around rap music and calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
, and Vib-Ripple
Vib-Ripple
is a video game for the PlayStation 2 created by Masaya Matsuura and his studio NanaOn-Sha. It is the sequel to the 1999 PlayStation game Vib-Ribbon...
, which was similar to Vib-Ribbon but instead used digital images loaded into the game to generate the levels. Both were released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
.
Game creator Masaya Matsuura has stated interest in working on Vib-Ribbon again, either through a sequel or a remake, and showed interest in downloadable services. When quizzed about the possibility of bringing Vib-Ribbon to other consoles Matsuura said he could buy it from Sony. When asked about the possibility of a port for PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, Matsuura stated "We are discussing the possibility of making a downloadable version of Vib-Ribbon for Sony, but, I don't know yet - Sony only recently launched their downloadable service in Japan, so maybe we need to wait a while before releasing a title with that kind of appeal."
An iOS game, Russian Dancing Men, which features gameplay similar to Vib-Ribbon, was developed by Smashmouth Games and Jonti Picking
Jonti Picking
Jonathan "Jonti" Picking , otherwise known as Weebl, is a British Internet personality and flash animator and is the creator of Weebl's Stuff....
was released on October 28, 2011.