Instrument / Game Design Ideas

After brainstorming about instrument ideas and the upgrade mode, I came up with a couple suggestions. First, instruments could be divided into seven complexity levels, and four different types: woodwind, brass, percussion, and string. As you progress through the game you can upgrade your instruments into higher level forms, which deal more damage or have extra effects. For example, every instrument starts out as a level 1 "Two sticks," which can be banged together but ultimately are not very useful. Once the user completes a certain criteria they will be able to upgrade the instrument, either into a simple drum or a bottle, both level 2. The simple drum can then be upgraded into various string and percussive instruments, and the bottle can be upgraded into woodwind and brass instruments. In this way, the upgrade system for instruments works similarly to a binary tree, although obviously it will need to be contained to prevent the need for 2^7 separate instruments. The way I see it, levels 1-3 will contain simple instruments that are easy to compose for; levels 4-5 will give the player lots of options without giving them full control, and levels 6-7 will theoretically allow the player to compose whatever they want. Higher level instruments will probably have more abilities; possibly level 6 instruments would have 2x capability, meaning they would be able to subdivide 16th notes, and level 7 would be able to subdivide 32nd notes (4x). Also, the way I see it level 6 instruments will represent the highest quality instruments available today, and level 7 will be imaginary / ancient / futuristic instruments that can be brainstormed as a group. Let me know what you guys think of these ideas at the meeting tomorrow.