Scrap Drums: Kiko Faísca's barrel kit

About Scrap Drums

Gig night at the junkyard. Kiko Faísca stacked up oil barrels, tin cans and a hubcap for a cymbal, grabbed two lug wrenches for sticks and called the crew over. The band covers everything — bass, guitar, vocals — except the drums, and those are yours. Every real drum hit in the track drops down one of four lanes to the rim at the bottom, and you hit the right drum at the right moment. Inside 110 milliseconds is PERFECT and pays 100 points; up to 240 is GOOD and pays 50 — the window is generous on purpose. Hitting off the beat costs you nothing at all. What costs you is a hit going by untouched: the CROWD bar drops 12.5 and your combo resets. The crowd never recovers mid-song, so eight missed hits in the same round end the gig. Every 10 hits in a row the multiplier climbs, up to ×4, and at 20 in a row Lume flies in and doubles everything until your first miss. There are 8 songs, one per round, written for the game: garage rock, yard funk, highway blues, warehouse heavy, swamp electro, scrapyard punk, workshop latin, and the garage again — this time at 150 beats a minute. Each round hands you more of the kit, starting with kick and snare on the beats and working up through eighths, fills and hi-hat, and the hits fall faster as you go. Finish a song and the bonus pays on your accuracy and the crowd fills back up. Finish the eighth and the gig is complete — the game says ENCORE! Two Steel Flames characters share the stage: Kiko, who had never played a note, and Lume, who only shows up when the groove is good.

One of Selminha's ideas

“Everyone drums on the table when a good song comes on. I wanted to watch Kiko do it on actual barrels — and have Lume turn up only when the groove has earned her.”

How to play Scrap Drums

1. Each drum owns a lane and the hits fall to the rim at the bottom. On a computer, A, S, K and L (or ← ↓ ↑ →) hit the four drums left to right; the mouse works too — click the drum's column. On a gamepad, the d-pad covers all four (A and B also work for the right-hand pair). On a phone, tap the drum's column at whatever height suits you — there are no buttons.
2. Landing within 110 milliseconds is PERFECT and pays 100 points; up to 240 is GOOD and pays 50. The window is generous on purpose. Hitting off the beat costs you nothing — the only thing the game charges for is a hit that goes by untouched.
3. The CROWD bar starts full on every song and never recovers while it plays: each missed hit takes 12.5 and resets your combo. Eight misses in one song and the gig ends there. Finishing the song fills the crowd back up.
4. Every 10 hits in a row the multiplier climbs — ×2, ×3, ×4. At 20 in a row Lume flies in and doubles everything until you miss. The combo is what separates a good score from a great one.
5. There are 8 songs, one per round, each faster than the last (102 up to 150 beats a minute) and each handing you more of the kit: it starts with kick and snare on the beats and ends with the eighths, the fills and the hi-hat. Finishing one pays a bonus of 5 × your accuracy. Finishing the eighth is the whole gig.
6. P or Esc pauses, and the music stops with it; M turns the sound on and off; F toggles full screen on a computer. At the end, put your name on the game's Top 5, kept on the server.

The four drums, and what they pay

Kick

The big barrel, first lane. The downbeat drum: on the first song it is almost all kick and snare.

Snare

The tin can, second lane. It marks the backbeat — two and four. When kick and snare land together, the snare is the one left to you.

Hi-hat

The hubcap, third lane. It arrives around the middle songs, first on the beats and later on the eighths. This is the one that fills your hands.

Tom

The smaller barrel, fourth lane. It shows up in the fills, almost always at the end of every four bars.

PERFECT

Within 110 milliseconds of the mark: 100 points.

GOOD

Up to 240 milliseconds: 50 points. The window is generous by design — the game wants you playing, not stopwatching.

Missed hit

One that goes by untouched: −12.5 on the CROWD and your combo gone. Hitting off the beat, by contrast, costs nothing.

Your hit always lands on the beat, even when your finger is a little early or a little late — the game snaps the sound onto the song's grid. And it measures your average lag over your first few hits and calibrates itself, because phones and headphones each delay audio in their own way.

Controls on phone and computer

Computer

A, S, K and L or ← ↓ ↑ → hit the four drums · mouse: click the drum's column · P or Esc pauses · M turns the sound on and off · F full screen · gamepad: the d-pad hits all four (A and B also work for the right-hand pair), Start pauses, Back turns the sound on and off

Touch

Portrait and full screen on a phone, playable with one hand. Tap the drum's column as the hit reaches the rim, at whatever height suits you — there are no buttons. Pause and sound sit in the top right corner.

Combo, crowd and the eight songs

Combo

Hits in a row. Every 10 the multiplier climbs: ×2, ×3, ×4. One missed hit wipes it.

Lume

At 20 in a row the little dragon flies in and doubles your score until your first miss. It is the payoff for holding the groove.

Crowd

The bar at the top, out of 100. Full at the start of every song, down 12.5 per missed hit, and no recovery while the song runs. Eight misses and the gig is over.

End-of-song bonus

5 × your accuracy on that song. Playing clean pays better than playing a lot of notes.

The eight songs

Garage at 102, Yard Funk, Highway Blues, Warehouse Heavy, Swamp Electro, Scrapyard Punk, Workshop Latin and Garage at 150 — written for the game, each faster than the last.

The climb

Every song hands you more of the kit and drops the hits faster: it starts with a 2-second fall and ends at 1.45. Whatever you do not play, the band plays.

ENCORE!

Finishing the eighth song is the whole gig. This game has an ending — and the score goes to the Top 5.

The songs were recorded with drums, and then the drums were separated out and removed: what falls down your screen are the track's real hits, not a grid invented on top of it. That is why landing on time sounds like the song asking for it.