Maestro Nav

NOTE: If you see a white screen, give the game a sec to load! This might take a few minutes; this appears to either be an issue with Ruffle or Newgrounds. In Maestro Nav, you play as a sound wave! You’ve been sitting inside of a dusty old stereo for ages, but one fateful day, an old friend comes back to play you. It’s a DJ you’ve known for years, and he needs your help: he’s performing for a party, but it’s been a while since he’s played, and he’s feeling nervous. Some of his bad vibes got on the record he was handling, and you need to make sure to dodge them on your way out of the stereo. Also, turns out you’re not the only one that’s been sitting around in that thing; the stereo’s particles have started needing canes to get around, and have started trying new hobbies, like cooking. Space is at a premium inside of a cramped stereo, though, so they killed two birds with one stone, and made themselves some cane spatulas. Don’t let them hit you, they hurt as bad as a swing from a geezer’s cane and a swat from a mediocre chef’s spatula put together! On the bright side, they’ve been growing some carrots for their new adventures in cooking, and those look pretty good… after grabbing one, using it will heal one of your hearts (of which sound waves have three; common knowledge among audiophiles), but if you hold off until you’ve got two, you can turn invincible for four seconds, and barrel right through those bad vibes and that stereo junk! With all that headed your way, think you can last through the whole song? Arrow keys to move up and down (note that you can loop to the bottom lane from the top, and vice-versa), and space bar to activate your ability. Made for Newgrounds’ Flash Forward Jam in 2021, this serves as a personal «goodbye to Flash» for me. The first game idea I ever had after visiting Newgrounds back in 2009 was a Guitar Hero rip-off with licensed songs, drums controlled with a webcam, and vocals via a plugged-in mic (nevermind that I didn’t have a webcam yet, and my highest-quality mic was from «Hey You, Pikachu!» on the N64). I thought it would be a very fitting end to the platform that made me fall in love with Newgrounds if I were to loop back around to the first idea I ever had for a Flash game, and never came through with (which is actually a blessing, in hindsight). Plenty of things about that original idea were awful (including the original name: «Maestro Master»), though, so I wanted to just pull out the DNA, which boiled down to one thing: a nice, simple rhythm game! I wanted to flip things around, though: if most rhythm games are about hitting objects in time, why not try avoiding them? On top of all that, I knew I wanted the soundtrack to reflect the time that I came to NG, and the title «Positive Vibes» fit so perfectly, it felt like destiny. Hope you have as much fun playing thing as I did working on it! There are a few odds and ends I’d like to add in an update, but for the sake of good sportsmanship, I won’t be updating until after the judging for the jam is completed, except for emergencies (i.e. game-breaking bugs). If you enjoy this, though, keep an eye out for future features!

Categories and tags of the game : Arcade, Dodge, Flash Forward Jam, Game Jam, Rhythm, Single Player