Lachryma Sonata Rhythm Game Concept

Lachryma Sonata - An underwater adventure rhythm game

⚠️HEAVILY WIP. MORE CREATIVITY, ORIGINALITY, AND CRITICISM ARE NEEDED⚠️

This concept will update over time.

Lachryma Sonata is a rhythm game that consists of two judgement lines, one at the top and the other at the bottom. The notes here are called "tears" (the hold-related notes are called "spouts"). Tap tears and hold spouts are present but unique to the game are shake spouts, river spouts, unnamed tears and spouts that can be found in the middle of the screen (like Sky Notes in Arcaea), and retears. Lazily drawn concept art will be shown at the bottom. See below for (poorly-drawn) examples.

The game's theme is water, and in the story and gameplay, sea and sometimes rain-related things are frequent.

Gameplay Terminology:

Songs are called Hymns.
Drizzle (D), Rain (R), and Storm (S) are three difficulties from easiest to hardest. However, there may probably have a secret fourth difficulty...
Splash (Perfect), Graze (Good), Uneven (Bad), and Dropped (Miss) are three judgements. Splash and Graze makes up your Streak (combo), and getting either Uneven or Dropped will break your Streak.
Combos are called Streaks.
The in-game currency is called Pearls. (singular is simply Pearl.) Pearls can be used to unlock songs and packs and are sometimes (NOT always) required to progress the story. You can earn them by simply playing songs and completing bromides.
Hydrometer is a gauge seen during gameplay. If one reaches at least 75% of the Hydrometer at the end of the song, you will get a Pure Completion and earn an Aquamarine. However, there is no failure when you don't reach the level. Instead, it just won't get you an Aquamarine.
Aquamarines are a rare form of in-game currency used to unlock songs with high difficulty. You can earn one Aquamarine by getting at least 75% of the Hydrometer.
Bromides are pictures that can be formed and collected by completing a puzzle minigame. The puzzle pieces can be earned by playing songs in Campaign mode (meanwhile, playing songs in Free Play won't get you any puzzle pieces).
Completion simply means you finished the song. Pure Completion means you reached at least 75% at the end of the Hydrometer. Flawless Hymn is an FC. Lachrymal Splash means All Perfect (or All Splash). End is when you fail a song that only occurs if you use a Forte-type Performer.
Partner characters are called Performers. There are three types: an easy type that makes the gameplay easier called Piano, a hard type making the gameplay harder called Forte, and a "balance" type for balanced gameplay with small changes called Mezzo.
Collabs will be called Connections, if one really happens in the future... lol
The five major chapters are called Books and the song packs inside each are called Chapters.

Story (not the best though...):

"The first thing you see other than an energetic festival is seeing a lost child."

Aenon, an uncontacted village located somewhere in a large ocean, was celebrating the song-filled 71st Annual Aria Festival, when Atla, one of the Spirit Guardians, found a lost child, holding a mysterious ancient coin. The child told Atla tried to find eir parents to no avail, and this led eir to Aenon. Ey said that ey was desperate for improving eir health, and this led to Atla taking care of the child. The coin then got handed to some of the experts in Aenon to research.

"My name... Lachryma."

Two years later, when the 73rd Annual Aria Festival started, Atla, Lachryma, and others in the Aenon village are celebrating, when suddenly, a ship crashed into the village, causing chaos. The giant boat crashed the buildings, the falling boxes from the ship destroyed into the ground, and worst of all, Lachryma starts to act strange.... it was a disaster. A group of people of different species from the Aenons fell and fainted on Aenon's central square. They were taken to the clinic to heal their injuries.

Viola, the leader of the group, woke up, along with other humans, and being a human who is supposed to not talk and breathe underwater, suddenly she can do these things (talk and breathe) underwater. She cannot believe this and is shocked about it. The Aenon people tried to calm her down and took her on a tour of Aenon to familiarize herself with the village. She also introduced herself and her group to the village, when suddenly, the coin that Lachryma sent to the experts for research, starts to glow strongly, so strong that the light can even be seen through the ocean via satellite view. The coin then started whispering inaudible words, with the only one roughly audible being "empire". As the coin does strange things, Lachryma's strange behavior got worse. Ey quickly passes out for a few seconds and quickly gets up, walks slowly, and talks more like a robot than in a normal voice...

This is the time when Atla deals with Lachryma's strange activity, researching the mysterious coin, and keeping Viola and other humans safe.

List of Chapters:

Book 1: Human
Book 2: Coin
Book 3: Lachryma
Book F: Side stories
Book S: Has two chapters, one contwining connection (collab) mini-stories, and the other acts as the "Singles Collection", songs that have no relation to the story or collabs at all

Characters:

^^^ Concept design, no art yet lol

Atla (アトラ) is the main protagonist of the game. The musical one of the four main characters, Ey is a 300-year-old water spirit who can manipulate water only if necessary. Atla is one of the Spirit Guardians of eir home, Aenon. Ey is close to Lachryma, a young water spirit who got lost in Aenon. Ey aspires to sing at an early age, and follows eir dreams long later by practicing and improving eir voice. Ey currently sings at Annual Aria Festivals.
Lachryma (ラクリマ) is one of the four main characters. The creative of the main four, Ey is a 150-year-old Tetra, a kind of water spirit with fish-like abilities and blue legs. Ey is a child trying to find eir lost parents, who ended up lost in Aenon instead. Eir favorite activity is sculpting.
Viola Allegretti (ヴィオラ・アレグレッティ), the chill one of the four main characters, is a bossy yet easygoing 23-year-old seafarer. She is the crew leader of the Rosewater Sea Express, a small team delivering things by sea. She was born and raised in Italy before moving to France to work at the age of 20. She had to live alone at age 11 because her parents went missing without any lead. One year later, she is guarded by her mentor.
Shyla Kaur (シャイラ・カウル) is the quieter one of the four main characters and is a 21-year-old Indian girl and member of the Rosewater Sea Express crew. She loves viewing the sea, both surface and (especially) underwater. She is the adoptive mother of her 1-year-old son Kash.
Haixing Lan (海星蓝/ハイシン・ラン), a 21-year-old Chinese, is a close friend of Viola who first met online when she was 14 and Viola was 16. She is a lazy girl who doesn't believe in work but does believe in helping others, which is perceived by some as "ironic" because it also counts as work. Since Lan and Viola are far away from each other (Lan didn't choose to work at Rosewater Sea Express), she still has to use gadgets like laptops, computers, and phones to meet her. She got involved in the events of the game because ???????
David Silvestre (デイビッド・シルベストレ) is a 22-year-old Filipino boy with an insecure yet innocent personality. He is shy around others except for his close friends. He wants to be a funny person and make a good comedian, but often doubts he can because according to him, he might make only bad jokes. He loves eating and considers spicy food as his favorite kind of food, especially spicy chicken. David is Tourettic.
Sakiko Yasue (安江早紀子) is a 22-year-old Japanese autistic girl. An enthusiastic and curious girl, she loves to research when she sees something and talks about it to her friends a lot. She enjoys wearing boyish clothes to express herself, but she doesn't mind wearing girly clothes either. She is best friends with April Carlton, and due to her dark skin and vitiligo disorder, Sakiko is overprotective to her and can show her secret confrontational personality to anyone who makes fun of April's skin. She is also close friends with Ren.
April Carlton (エイプリル・カールトン) is a 19-year-old African American girl working at Rosewater Sea Express. With her age and join date, not only she is the youngest, but also one of the most recent Rosewater crew members, who joined just 2 weeks ago. She is a soft, sensitive girl who likes sweet food, and dreams to become an idol on stage to make everyone happy. She prefers to join an idol group fronted by diverse members to spread acceptance to people of color. She absolutely hates being made fun of just because of her dark skin and vitiligo.
May Carlton (メイ・カールトン) is a 29-year-old older sister of April, who is 10 years and a month older than her. She is not only mature and refined, she also gets motivated in fashion. She also acts as an older sister figure to her friends younger than her. She loves sewing and cooking. She also loves to draw, despite if she is bad at it even though she enjoyed.

Inspirations

This gameplay concept in general draws inspirations from Dynamix and Paradigm Reboot. The shake spouts are inspired by Utacchi, an obscure rhythm game by Konami. Retear notes are inspired by Taiko no Tatsujin's balloon note thing and spinners from osu!. The unnamed type of sprout that appears in the middle is inspired by Beatstream's Stream notes.