Track Lab Drops the Beat and the Launch Date

You would have to go a very long way to find someone who doesn’t enjoy listening to music. While not everyone shares the same tastes, many people long to be able to create great music as well as passively listen to it. This is the central core of Track Lab, a hybrid of puzzle and rhythm game, which is coming soon to the PlayStation VR.

Track Lab was created with the notion of letting anyone create music, by making it fun and easy to create original tracks, no matter your level of musical education.

The idea was to take music creation beyond simply remixing or mashing together two tracks, or pretending to be a DJ, or following along with a plastic guitar, pressing the right buttons. Instead, Track Lab takes inspiration from professional music tools and gives them a videogame spin.

The player begins by picking up a music sample and putting it in the path of a rhythm ‘pulse’. When the samples are struck by the pule, they sound off their beat. The player can combine various samples in a timed grid in order to create loops and samples.

This grid and the samples become the building blocks with with a track is created. The use of motion controllers means that players can simply grab the beat they want and move it to the right location, allowing players to advance their skills and gradually build up intricate tracks.

The developers at Amsterdam-based studio Little Chicken first had the idea for the project twenty years ago, but are now firm in the belief that virtual reality (VR) brings a new element to Track Lab, and that Track Lab, conversely, complements VR by allowing players to do something they can’t do in the real world.

Pre-orders are due to go live imminently on the PlayStation Store, and Track Lab will be available on the 22nd August, 2018. For further coverage of Track Lab, keep checking back with VRFocus.

Preview: Track Lab – A Beautiful Crescendo of Music and Puzzles

In previous Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) years Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has always touted to the world that PlayStation is all about the games. That’s certainly been the case for 2018, with a myriad of titles including Déraciné, Trover Saves the Universe and the rather good Ghost Giant. Adding a musical twist to the proceedings is Track Lab, a videogame by Little Chicken Game Company that combines both music creation and puzzles into one inventive experience.

Track Lab - Screenshot

The core gameplay which VRFocus demoed centred around the puzzle aspect of Track Lab. The videogame uses light to symbolise beats and sounds, with a massive chequered board laid out in front of you. A pulse of light will be automatically fired out, flowing through various coloured orbs and hitting bumpers which create sounds. The aim of each puzzle is the get this light source to an end goal or goals.

Depending on each of the difficulty levels you’ll be able to access different items to manipulate the light and complete the puzzle, from objects that’ll change its direction to others that’ll split it in two. These are simple grabbed and placed as needed using the PlayStation Move controllers. Each level is made up of several boards, each needing to be completed in sequence that’ll create a core sound or rhythm.

Here’s the thing, when you succeed in completing a puzzle you’ll get a box which can be placed on a plinth with a volume slider. As each puzzle is finished you’ll be able to add further boxes, building up a selection of beats. Then as a side mission – more something fun to play with – this DJ style area can then be used to manipulate the sounds collected, with various manipulation options located on either side of you plus a cross-fader where your knees are.

Track Lab - Screenshot

This has a complete two-fold effect for a single-player puzzler, the puzzles themselves are well laid out and easy to pick up once you’ve learnt the basics. Then once you’ve finished with the puzzle aspect of Track Lab you can play around with those beats as much as you like. And that’s before VRFocus has even mentioned the creation mode – which we didn’t demo this time, that’ll come later.

It’s clear to see that Little Chicken Game Company has put a lot of thought and effort into Track Lab, developing an experience that takes a well defined genre and turns it on its head. For the musically gifted Track Lab might seem simple, yet for the rest of us the mix of gameplay and music creation will likely win over many fans. This is another PlayStation VR exclusive that gamers should be keen to see arrive.

Construct, Create, Compose, In PlayStation VR Music Experience Track Lab

You’d be hard pressed to find a busier Wednesday for virtual reality (VR) news in recent memory. Not only is there all the goings on in San Jose at the GPU Technology Conference hosted by NVIDIA, but Oculus are busy celebrating the second anniversary of the Oculus Rift. Add to that an avalanche of news and announcements that have tumbled out of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) – such as new titles and a price drop on PlayStation VR bundle packs – and it’s difficult to quite know just where to start first.

Track Lab - ScreenshotOne such announcement from SIE comes with a reveal on the PlayStation Blog of a brand-new videogame for their VR headset, one which is not a first-person shooter or a platformer, but rather a title that involves the creation of music.

Developed by Little Chicken Game Company, Track Lab allows you to create original music through designing various tracks on a grid, taking a respected sound, placing it in front of a pulsing light beam which then generates the sound, these can be chained, looped and have other affects added that alters the wave’s path whilst other tools that alter the environment can also be manipulated to change the way pulses operate. You aren’t so much composing music as you are composing it through constructing it

Thomas Sala, Creative Director on the project, explains it in the blog: ” String along some blocks, and you’ve got the first outline of a beat. Then use what we call prisms to divert, split and reflect the light beam to create loops and ever more complex musical constructs. If this sounds a bit strange, you’re right. Track Lab is truly something unique and new.”

Track Lab - Screenshot“That said we don’t drop players in without any guidance. We have two modes in Track Lab, creation mode where you’re free to go at it, and an evolver mode that lets you learn how to create awesome music patterns through puzzles and challenges. On top of that you can mix your creations and add live effects to create amazing performances. We’ve intentionally tried to stay as far away as possible from normal musical instruments or the technology for creating electronic music.”

You can check out Track Lab through its announcement trailer below, VRFocus will of course bring oy further updates about Track Lab in the weeks and months ahead.