Last Tuesday, I was invited to an N-Gage Dance Fabulous preview launch by Nokia France, with the chance to discover the game as well as meet David Stuart and Cindy Gomez (the two artists behind the project) and hear them perform. It was a great opportunity, and tons of fun, and I’m sure you’re wondering what my thoughts on it are, so let’s get down to business, shall we?
Dance Fabulous, The Background
Dance Fabulous was born from the creative mind of Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) who had been working closely with Nokia for a while and who wanted to bring a music game to N-Gage. On the other side of the story is Cindy Gomez, an aspiring artist discovered by Dave, who can sing in 8 different languages (suddenly the fact that I speak 3 languages fluently seems mediocre) and move her body like a professional dancer.
Cindy is being introduced to the world in N-Gage’s Dance Fabulous with an avatar and a soundtrack, a creative idea that has never been seen before. You can download here the official Cindy Gomez biography as well as some pictures of her.
It Ain’t Over Until Cindy Gomez Sings
I’m pretty sure there was a lot of sound effects involved, but darn it, when Cindy opened her mouth, I had the goosebumps. She has a very powerful voice and she sure as heck can sing correctly. She performed some classics as well as some of her songs like her new single Again and Again. Plus, she writes most of her songs, which I found to be catchy and easy to listen to. Here is the exclusive video clip of Street Dancing by Cindy, Dance Fabulous’ official song.
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Apparently, this song will also be the theme soundtrack of Street Dancing: The Movie, a film set in India about a boy who falls in love with Cindy’s character while playing Dance Fabulous and travels to Mumbai to participate in a dance competition hosted by Cindy. The movie will include a collaboration between Dave Stewart and composer A.R. Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame.
The Game Concept
Dance Fabulous’s concept is pretty easy: you just have fun making dance moves and following the rhythm correctly. But it took a long time to get that from a concept to a game, and the developers, Digital Legends who brought us ONE, had to use real life motion capture to bring the dance moves to life. Cindy, trained by a professional choreographer, was the model for the female dance moves, and 2 male models were used for the Break Dance and the Hip Hop moves. Below are two behind the scenes videos from the game developing process, showing the techniques used to get the motion capture moves correctly.
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The Gameplay
Before playing the game, I was worried that it’d be one of those “follow the arrows” games like the absolute stupidity that is Star Wars -- The Force Unleashed on N-Gage. I always wonder about the real fun in games like that where you only need a good Pavlov reflex. Anyway, Dance Fabulous isn’t at all a “follow the arrows” game. You can choose whatever choreography you want by choosing successions of any of the moves that are available (and they are plenty). You simply have to follow the rhythm and the beat of the song that’s playing, so it’s a genuine dance game. The scores are based on the difficulty of the moves, the rhythm and the diversity. Here are links to download the game datasheet, as well as some posters, and below you’ll see embedded a video of the gameplay detailing the process that goes from choosing your character, music and style, to actually launching the game and playing it.
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Dance Fabulous Is All About Personalization And Fun
The most important aspect of Dance Fabulous is personalization. You get to choose Cindy or any avatar you want and change their look from head to toe, you also get to pick the location, the dance style (there are many, and I was happy to see a Hip Hop one other than the default Street style that Cindy dances to), as well as load any of the songs you have on your device to use as the music for the game. As you advance through the game, you unlock accessories, locations, styles. You can also share your scores, avatars and choreography through the Arena as I’ve been told. Check out this pack of screenshots from the game that show some of the available characters, accessories and backgrounds.
Personal Impressions
The first thing I liked about Dance Fabulous is the fact that it has a nice but uncluttered tutorial at the beginning that shows you all the possible moves and what key combination you have to do to perform them. I am also a fan of the freedom that the game gives in terms of picking your own moves later and only being scored on whether or not you followed the music soundtrack’s beat and how often your diversified your movements. Another thing to like is the fact that some dance moves are traditional but others are funny and creative, and these moves vary depending on the Style you picked at the beginning of the game. Choosing your own music is also a big plus, and the inclusion of Arena features like sharing choreographies and playing against opponents online adds to the fun.
I discovered that there is a part of the game where you have to “follow the arrows”, these are Challenges that you get to by getting 2 Golden Stars (a Golden star is earned by achieving a Good Rhythm, Great Rhythm and Perfect Rhythm continuously). In the challenge mode, you are shown a set of arrows that descend to reach speakers, and you have to hit the key when they reach the speaker. You can check the Challenge mode in the gameplay video that I embedded above. It’s not an intruding mode, and it adds a bit to the variety of the gameplay so you don’t get bored from creating your own choreography.
Another thing worth noting is that I played the game on an N95 8GB which was hooked to a speaker system and a TV. The graphics were clear and cool on TV-Out and that promises some fun if you’re playing with friends.
Dance Fabulous will sure be considered a female game, and to some extent it is. I wasn’t able to check the Hip Hop or Break Dance styles and moves, but from the posters and the making of videos, you could tell that there is some serious potential there, so I hope that they will be marketed well to bring a male audience to check out Dance Fabulous.
Pre-Order Dance Fabulous
The game will be available publicly on June 11, but you can go to http://nokia.mobi/dancefabulous from your phone’s browser in order to claim a free 30-day trial of the game.
Dance Fabulous Is Bigger Than Just A Game
Dance Fabulous’ promise is not just in the gameplay, as you see from all the above. Dance Fabulous is THE game that Nokia is gambling on to bring N-Gage to the masses: introducing a new artist with it, Cindy’s endorsment of N-Gage in her Street Dancing song clip, but most importantly the prospect of seeing N-Gage pushed to millions of viewers through the Street Dancing movie could finally propel the platform to the heights it aims at. Setting the movie in India, Nokia’s largest market, was also definitely a wise decision. So let’s cross fingers and hope that their choice for Dance Fabulous as the first worldwide N-Gage ambassador is also wise one, and that the movie will be a success at bringing N-Gage to a wider audience.
