Reality Is Broken: Piano Edition

I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying “Reality is Broken” by Jane McGonigal (love the name too!).  One basic premise of book is that games are engaging exactly because they represent a “better” version of reality in which missions are clear, feedback is more direct, failing is fun (careening off the track), …  At the same time, I have started to learn how to play piano from a fake book.  A fake book only shows the right hand melody and then indicates the chords that should go along with it.  Disclaimer: I am not a good piano player but I enjoy playing nonetheless and have always admired people who could play on the basis of a few bars of melody and a couple of chords.

While I may never get there, I am already having fun trying, but inspired by Jane’s book I figured that there should be a game that would teach me.  Nobody seems to have built a full-on Guitar Hero/Rock Band like experience, but I discovered a startup called Synthesia (which may be a one man band) that offers a “falling note” display and even has some rudimentary leaderboards.  It misses quite a few of the elements that Jane calls out as critical to the game experience (e.g. fun failing), but seems like a good start.  Next weekend I will see if I can get my daughter’s keyboard hooked up and Synthesia working.

I will also be back to practicing cords and trying out fake book songs, including Beauty and the Beast (with my daughter singing along) and Hey Jude.  If someone knows of another keyboard game, please let me know.  Maybe the folks who created Guitar Hero / Rock Band could offer a plug-in architecture that would let others add more instruments and/or make existing instruments more realistic (e.g. actual electronic drum set, real electric guitar).