Rhythm Game

I wanted my internship project to be something I'd actually want to play, not just a demo. Rhythm games look simple from the outside, but a lot of small details have to feel right before it becomes fun. The goal was to build one from scratch with no game engine and no framework, just the browser.

A full rhythm game you can open straight from a browser. Four lanes mapped to arrow keys, tap and hold notes, three difficulties, and a scoring system with combos and S-to-F grades. Notes are pure CSS shapes rather than images, the UI scales to any screen, and a demo mode plays in the background of the song select. High scores save locally, and it works on mobile too.

The stack was intentionally minimal: Web Audio API for precise note timing, localStorage for persistence, vanilla JavaScript for the game loop.

Game feel lives in the small things: the pulse before a note lands, the burst when you hit a perfect, the combo number growing as you chain hits. None of that is gameplay on its own, but the game feels flat without it. I also learned that working with no libraries pushes you to think more carefully about timing, structure, and what is really needed. Limits can make you more creative, not less.