ClassicSimon

Welcome to ClassicSimon!

ClassicSimon is a simple audio memory game in the classic "Simon" style. The game plays a growing sequence of tones, and you repeat it back. Each round adds one more tone, so the sequence gets longer, and faster, until you slip up.

Getting started.

When you open the game, a short logo plays. Press enter to skip it if you'd like. You will then land on the main menu, which has three options, Play, Settings, and Exit.

Settings.

Choose Settings from the main menu to adjust a couple of options. Spoken hints, which are on by default, control the extra speech during a game, the game announces each round number, says go when it is your turn, and names each arrow as you press it in learn tones. Turn them off if you would rather play by the tones alone. Play logo at startup controls whether the logo plays when you open the game, turn it off to skip straight to the main menu the next time you launch. Each option is a simple on or off toggle, and your choices are remembered between sessions, so you only need to set them once. Press escape, or choose Back, to return to the main menu.

Choosing a Simon.

Choose Play to pick a Simon. The list is built from the sound packs you have installed, so whatever packs are present will show up here. You can add your own too, see "Creating your own Simons" below. Pick one to open its menu, where you can Start game, Learn tones, or View scores.

Game modes.

When you start a game, you first choose one of four game modes. They change how the sequence is built and how you repeat it. Here is what each one does.

Classic.

This is the traditional Simon. Each round the game adds one new tone to the end of the sequence, and the part you already learned stays the same, so you only have to remember the new tone on the end. You repeat the whole sequence in the same order it played. For example, if round two plays down then up, you press down then up.

Classic reverse.

The sequence grows exactly like classic, one new tone on the end each round, but you repeat it backwards, from the last tone to the first. For example, if round two plays down then up, you press up then down. In round one there is only a single tone, so forwards and backwards are the same.

Shuffle.

Instead of building on a sequence you already know, each round throws out the old one and plays a brand new random sequence, one tone longer than the last. Nothing carries over, so you memorize a fresh sequence every round. You still repeat it in the order it played. For example, round two might be left then right, while round three could be a completely different up, down, left.

Shuffle reverse.

This is the toughest mode. Each round is a brand new random sequence like shuffle, and you repeat it backwards like reverse. For example, if a round plays left, down, up, you press up, down, left.

Difficulty and autopilot.

After you pick a game mode, you set the difficulty to easy, medium, hard, or insane. Difficulty controls how fast the tones play and how quickly the game speeds up as you go, and as you fail. Insane is the fastest, it starts quicker than hard and tightens even more sharply, for players who want a real challenge. You can also turn on autopilot, which lets the game play itself for a while and fail at random. It is handy for a demo, or just to sit back and listen.

How to play.

Each of the four arrow keys is one of the four tones, left, down, up, and right. Listen to the sequence the game plays, then repeat it with the arrow keys. Exactly how the sequence grows, and whether you repeat it forwards or backwards, depends on the game mode you chose, see Game modes above. If you press the wrong tone, the round ends and the game speaks your score for that round.

Learn tones.

Not sure which arrow is which? Choose Learn tones from a Simon's menu. There you can press the arrow keys to hear each tone as many times as you like, and press F to hear the fail sound. Press escape to go back.

Viewing your scores.

Choose View scores from a Simon's menu to hear your best runs for that Simon. First you pick which game mode's scores you want, classic, classic reverse, shuffle, or shuffle reverse. Then you get one line for each difficulty, easy, medium, hard, and insane, telling you the most tones you have ever memorized in a single game of that mode at that level. If you have not played a mode and difficulty yet, it will say no score recorded. Your best is saved separately for every mode and difficulty, and remembered between sessions, so you always have something to beat. Games played on autopilot do not count, since the computer is playing, not you. Press escape, or choose Back, to return.

Creating your own Simons.

Making your own Simon is easy. Inside the game's sounds folder, then the simons folder, create a new folder. The name you give that folder is the name that shows up in the Play menu, so call it whatever you like. Inside it, place five sound files, all in ogg format. Four of them are the tones, named 1.ogg, 2.ogg, 3.ogg, and 4.ogg, which map to the left, down, up, and right arrows in that order. The fifth is fail.ogg, which plays when you miss a tone. That is all a pack needs, and it will appear in the Play menu the next time you open it. You can also include an optional info.cmf file to fine tune how your pack plays, which is covered next.

Tuning a pack with info.cmf.

Any pack can include an optional text file called info.cmf that adjusts its timing. It is completely optional. If you leave the file out, or leave out any single line, the game uses its normal default for that setting, so you only need to include the lines you want to change. Write one setting per line in the form name=value. Blank lines are ignored, and a line that starts with a number sign or a semicolon is treated as a comment. All times are in milliseconds, and a bigger number means slower and more forgiving.

The available settings are listed below.

playback_delay.

The gap between tones while the game plays the sequence. It takes one value per difficulty, in the order easy, medium, hard, insane, separated by colons. For example, playback_delay=500:400:300:200.

reaction_delay.

How long you have to press each tone before you time out. It also takes one value per difficulty separated by colons, for example reaction_delay=2000:1500:1000:500.

ramp_step.

How much the playback gap and the reaction window shrink each round. This value is multiplied by the difficulty, so higher difficulties speed up faster.

playback_floor.

The fastest the playback gap can ever get, no matter how long the game goes.

reaction_floor.

The shortest the reaction window can ever get.

tone_padding.

A small fixed gap added after every tone, so that two of the same tone in a row stay distinct.

autopilot_risk.

How reckless autopilot is. It is multiplied by the difficulty to set the base chance that autopilot slips up, so a higher number makes it fail sooner.

autopilot_factor.

Also shapes autopilot's mistakes. The current sequence length is divided by this number and added to the fail chance, so a smaller number makes long sequences riskier for autopilot.

We hope you enjoy this fun little time waster. It was quite the blast to make.