🎹 Neon Tiles - Auld Lang Syne

#rhythmgame #game #music

A neon-styled 4-lane rhythm game built around the most-sung New Year's song on Earth — "Auld Lang Syne" — the chart was transcribed directly from a piano-vocal score and runs through the full verse-and-chorus once, top to bottom. Cyberpunk visuals with a cyan→magenta gradient palette, ambient drifting tiles on the start and game-over screens, and the Orbitron typeface turn Robert Burns's nostalgic farewell into a synthwave countdown anthem.

🎮 How to Play

Tap / Click — Tap tiles on mobile, or click them with the mouse on desktop.
Keyboard — Use A S D F for the four lanes (left → right).
Hold notes — For taller tiles, keep the key/finger pressed until the tile clears.
Pause — Space or P
Mute / Unmute — M
Quick start / restart — Press D while any overlay is showing.

✨ Features

🎵 Real Score, Real Pitch

20 measures of melody transcribed from a piano-vocal score. The original has soprano + alto stacked as 2-note chords on the treble staff — the chart extracts the soprano (top) note of every chord so the iconic melody comes through cleanly instead of the harmony.
Every note plays at its actual pitch in F major across a melodic ninth (C4 → D5), the most common range for traditional sing-along arrangements.
Tempo is ♩=80 in 4/4 time, with each game beat = one eighth note (375 ms) — a deliberately reflective tempo that matches the song's nostalgic, end-of-year character.

🎶 Hold-Heavy Phrasing with Pickup Start

The chart is dominated by hold tiles (41 of 59 entries) — Auld Lang Syne's melody breathes through its long syllables ("auld", "syne", "kindness", "mind").
The signature pickup C4 quarter on "Should" ("Should auld acquaintance be forgot") starts the chart, so the first tap is the song's first sung word — no count-in.
The final cadential phrase lands on an A3 held for 6 beats (dotted half note = 3 quarter beats) at m20 — a long, lingering goodbye to close the verse.
No bursts. The melody never goes faster than 8th notes in this arrangement, so every tile is a clean tap or hold.

🚀 Progressive Difficulty + Cycle Flash

BPM increases by +12.5% per cycle (80 → 90 → 101 → 114...). Even cycle 4 stays well inside singable territory.
Each cycle is also transposed up by a whole step (2 semitones), lifting the toast into ever-brighter keys.
Cycle transition flash: every new cycle pops up a centered CYCLE 2 / ♪ +2 · ⚡ +12% banner with a scale-and-glow animation.

🎨 Neon Polish

Cyan → blue → purple → magenta per-lane gradient, glowing tube borders, scanline textures inside the active press zone, ambient drifting tiles behind every overlay, and an animated START button that slides down into the game.
Visible miss feedback: red flash + dissonant low buzz with downward portamento on any miss.
Forgiving holds (75% duration counts, soft gradient fade at the top edge) and smart lane distribution that avoids consecutive same-lane spawns.

🎼 Scoring

10 points per beat cleared (so a 2-beat hold = 20, a dotted half note cadence = 60).
High score saved locally.

🛠️ Tech Stack

Pure HTML / CSS / JavaScript, zero dependencies, single self-contained .html file — drop it anywhere and play.
HTML5 Canvas + Web Audio API square-wave synthesis.
Chart auto-generated from MusicXML via a custom Python converter with a --chord-pick top option that picks the soprano note from each 2-note chord — without it the chart would import the lower alto line instead of the melody.

💡 Things to Try

The chart starts on the pickup C4 "Should" — no count-in, no waiting. The first tap is the song's first word.
Feel the 8-bar verse + 8-bar chorus structure ("Should auld acquaintance..." / "For auld lang syne, my dear..."). Each half ends on a long hold — that's your built-in breath point.
This is a hold-heavy chart (41 of 59 tiles are 2+ beats long). Lean back into the holds; rushing the next tap is the easiest way to lose your phrasing.
The final A3 dotted half note hold at m20 is the longest tile in the chart — let it ring all the way through before the cycle restarts a whole step higher.