"Two music games got it right on the DS this year, both eschewing fancy controllers, instead focusing on the system’s touchscreen to present their engaging concepts: Rhythm Heaven and Maestro: Jump in Music." Ooh, sounds interesting - will have to hunt that down. (Via Simon Parkin)

"We spend a lot of time talking about games and films, but a much more useful corollary is music. The processes are spookily similar. Creators devise an experience, and commit it to code. The code then sits there, lifeless, until a performer picks it up. Then, through a complex tool which requires substantial manual dexterity to master, the performer interprets the experience the creator devised. No two people will play the code the same way. Some players will perform better than others. Some will get stuck and give up before the end."

"My crystal ball tells me you will hear music - great classic rock tunes - and you will believe, truly believe, that you are playing that music on your toy guitar. And you will feel, truly feel, that you are cool. A hero of the guitar." Lovely.

"Auditorium is about the process of discovery and play. There are no right or wrong answers; there are many ways to solve every puzzle." Sounds gorgeous; looks beautiful. So much loveliness.

"The thing about Harmonix is that even though they strive to bring total non-musicians closer to music, they still mark a clear boundary between playing music and not." A much better explanation of this than I tend to give; lovely article.

"The people responsible for note tracking ... aim to reproduce the way that the song is played on a real guitar to the greatest extent possible within the confines of the guitar controller's limited repertoire of moves." Which is what I assumed.

Awesome. Server set up to play karaoke; players mix appalling singing with a bit of the old ultraviolence. I miss PC gamers.

Ah, yes. The age-old problem of rhythm-music games...

"As a trained guitarist and budding programmer, the future scenario for the sonic gaming interface for me became crystal clear: Two battling guitarists in a classic street-fighting video game. I thought, what better game to play that Mortal Kombat?" - thi