Developer: Flip Rhythm (based in Portland, Oregon)
Release Date: October 12
Platform: Windows 10
Price: $25 (15% discount at launch)
Website: rhymestorm.com
Steam Page: Rhyme Storm
Press Contact: flynn@fliprhythm.com
Press Release: Release Announcement
Press Kit: presskit.zip
Social: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube

Utilizing speech recognition, a unique scoring system, and AI lyrics generation, Rhyme Storm is a wholly new experience that challenges you to stay on your toes and on the beat as you deftly string together hard-hitting punchlines. Battle your way up the scoreboards as you progress through 6 levels of difficulty across two play modes. It's packed with awesome beats, hilarious topics, and mind blowing visuals that dance and pulse along to your performance. You won’t be asking if you can freestyle rap or not -- you’ll be wondering “how fast can I go?”

• A New Experience: The world's first freestyle rapping rhythm game
• Test Your Might: Get graded in real time and then see how you stack up on the scoreboards
• Killer Soundtrack: 20 awesome beats in various styles and speeds
• Find Your Groove: It's easy to get on beat with our slick visual guides, flashing words, and visualizers all pulsing to the music
• Hypnotizing Graphics: 9 unique visualizers throb and twist with the music, reacting to your performance and pulling you into the flow
• Get Pumped: Your own personal hype man backs you up, pushes you on, and cheers for every victory
• Freestyling: Off the Dome mode gives you rhymes built around your chosen topic, the rest is up to you!
• AI for MCs: Freeflow mode gives you full lyrics to rap in styles ranging from modern rap to Shakespeare, all powered by Tempest AI
• Laugh Your Butt Off: Over ten thousand hilarious topics with custom rhymes

Why Early Access?

During the past two years our development and design has been driven by data and feedback from over 1000 playtesters. Their input improved Rhyme Storm immensely and we believe that Early Access is an even bigger opportunity to work with the community as we create new features.

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

We are focused on game experience and responding to community feedback, so our roadmap is flexible. Our current plan is to have all our major features in place within six months and then to exit Early Access once those features are stable and finalized.

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

• Competitive and collaborative multiplayer modes
• VR support for the entire game
• More beats
• New visualizers that push the limits of creativity
• Global ranking and scoreboards
• Way more topics to rap about
• Improvements to Tempest AI lyrics generation
• New AI models

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

• Real time scoring of your rapping ability
• 20 awesome beats in many styles and speeds
• Six skill levels across our two modes, designed for everyone from your grandparents to a true rap master
• Off the Dome, our freestyle rapping mode that provides you with rhymes on a topic
• Freeflow, our more guided mode that provides AI generated rap lyrics while still allowing for freestyling
• 8 unique models for lyrics generation in Tempest AI
• Interactive visualizers that respond to the music and your performance
• The Hypeman, which reacts to your freestyle and guides you to victory
• Over 10,000 unique topics with custom rhymes
• Local scoreboard that works for multiple users

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

We are so, so appreciative of the early support, so we will be offering a lower price in Early Access.

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

We want to create as many opportunities as possible for our community to engage with us and provide feedback through social media. We will also be providing regular updates on our development and roadmap.

Flip Rhythm is an indie game developer located in Portland, Oregon. Co-founded by Flynn McEchron and Tip McMahon, long time creative collaborators who originally met on a videogame forum twenty years ago.

Flynn McEchron

Flynn is Rhyme Storm's Director of Music. He brings decades of experience in the Northwest music scene as a rapper, producer, event organizer and sound engineer. He's also an avid gamer with a passion for game mechanics. Flynn curates Rhyme Storm's awesome soundtrack and provides guidance and communication between ourselves and our producers, as well as providing key insights into our game design.

Tip McMahon

Tip is a second generation indie game developer and head of tech and design on Rhyme Storm. He started in the game industry at the age of 6, playtesting to earn his allowance. As an adult he's worked in television and movies as a visual effects artist, and in the tech industry as a coder and user experience designer. Rhyme Storm was inspired by his love of music... and utter inability to freestyle rap.

Flip Rhythm allows for the contents of Rhyme Storm to be published through video broadcasting services for any commercial or non-commercial purposes. Monetization of videos created containing assets from Rhyme Storm is legally & explicitly allowed by Flip Rhythm. This permission can be found in writing at rhymestorm.com/presskit.html