Migration

A music-driven rhythm game where a bird evolves through the music.

A small bird hovers near the left edge of the screen, gently bobbing on a path that ripples like wind. Geometric cues slide in from the right, generated from the song you're playing. When each one reaches the bird, you press the matching arrow key. Build a streak and the bird transforms: from a tiny egg, to a fledgling, to a full songbird, to a gold phoenix with a crown of fire and a tail that trails sparks. Drop your streak and you fall back. Hold a perfect run and you fly through the song's last verse in your final form.

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Three ways to play

Campaign. Nine levels across three acts, each scored to an original Shane Curry track. The difficulty curve mirrors the bird's evolution: gentle in the Fledgling act, denser in Songbird, and unforgiving in the Phoenix finale. A hidden tenth song unlocks once you've cleared the rest.

Free Play. Upload any song. The level generates itself in real time from the audio's spectral flux, so every track you bring is a brand-new flight.

Drift. A no-fail meditative mode. The bird drifts on its own to the music; your cursor steers softly. No score, no game over. Just the song, the bird, and a smoothed flight path you can save as an image when you're done.

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Features

• 9-song campaign across three acts (Fledgling, Songbird, Phoenix), each track an original by Shane Curry
• Free Play: upload your own audio (WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG) and the level generates from the song
• Drift mode: no-fail, no-score, meditative companion to the campaign
• Bird evolution with four tiers
• Hold notes, star pickups, combo multipliers up to 5x, best-combo tracking per song
• Results-screen song replay: each run is rendered as a smoothed flight path you can play back and export as a PNG
• Optional ambient menu music with a diatonic chime layer
• On-screen d-pad and full touch support for mobile
• Plays in any modern browser

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Controls

• Arrow keys or WASD to match cues
• Hold the matching key for hold notes
• Any direction collects star pickups
• Mouse or touch to steer in Drift mode
• Esc to go back

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Inspiration

Vib-Ribbon (1999): the original audio-reactive rhythm game. Migration borrows the audio-reactive level generation idea (here implemented via spectral flux analysis), but the moment-to-moment play is different.

PaRappa the Rapper (1996): the directional-input-on-the-beat feel.

Patapon (2007): the idea of a creature that grows and visibly transforms as a reward for playing well.

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Credits

Music: All campaign tracks written and performed by Shane Curry.

Audio toolkit: ChewGum Time Chime, MIT licensed, also by Shane Curry / ChewGum Labs.

Game: Designed and built by Shelly Xiong.

Built in vanilla JavaScript with no engine, no framework, and no build step.