127 BPM

"Average NY walking speed is 127 bpm." - Anton Marek

127 BPM is a 2-player racing game that recycles DDR pads and Super Mario Bros sprites. Players are asked to keep their walking speed at or above 127 Beats Per Minute in order to avoid upsetting the pedestrians on the crowded New York sidewalk. 127 BPM was designed and created by Yuxin Gao and John Bruneau with music by Anton Marek.

127 BPM was commissioned by the Graffiti Games initiative at Playcrafting. It debuted at Play NYC 2018.

Controls and Gameplay

127 BPM is designed for use with DDR dance pads. Run on the front of the pad to run in the upper lane. Run on the back of the pad to run in the lower lane. Player 1 is represented by Princess Peach, Player 2 is Mario. The first one to make it to the MTA Subway pipe wins. All the non-player pedestrians walk at 127 beats per minute and will become annoyed with you if you move any slower than that. In an homage to the original Mario Bros. game, the players are given 400 Mario ticks (0.4 seconds) before time is up.

Alternate keyboard controls are available for testing.
Player 1: 'z' 'x' 'c'    Player 2: ',' '.' '/'

Inspiration

The Game was originally inspired by a random status update by Anton Marek, "Average NY walking speed is 127 bpm." This led to us thinking about rhythm and pace and walking in NYC. And how navigating the crowds in this city is in fact pretty game like to begin with. Anton played a live DJ set to accompany the exhibition at Play NYC and later created the game's soundtrack.

Exhibitions

2019: MAGFest Indie Videogame Showcase, Super MAGFest, National Harbor, MD (juried)

2018: Graffiti Games, Play NYC, The Manhattan Center, New York, NY (invitational)

Press

Robert N. Adams, "127 BPM - Dance Pad Racing on NYC Streets," Tech Raptor, Aug 13, 2018

Matt Hawkins, "Tourists in NYC Much Like Those Who Invade the Mushroom Kingdom, Move Too Damn Slow," Attract Mode, Aug 22, 2018

Eva Kis, "Inside Play NYC, New York's largest video game convention," Metro US, Aug 8, 2018

Legal

Disclaimer: Character sprites from Super Mario Bros. are owned by Nintendo of America Inc. This iconography, as used for non-commercial artistic expression, falls under "Fair Use", under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

Super Mario Bros. Copyright Nintendo 1986.
Mario Bros. sprites ripped by Kevin Huff.
"Nintendoid 1" font created by Patrick Lauke, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0.

Dance Pad Support

The current development version of 127 BPM has only been tested on Xbox dance pads.