JamBot

A while ago I was introduced to the online web game Jam Legend, so I checked out the site. The premiss is the same as any of the music games, you hit the notes as the move on the screen. I played for a while, then got bored and forgot about it till this week. However, after playing it again, and getting bored again, I decided to create my own challenge and finally check out the Robot class in java to see if I could create a program that could play it for me.

The Robot class is a java package that is designed to aid in computer automation. You can have it look at the current screen object and then move the mouse or hit keys. The big challenge for me was getting the bot to be able to recognize what was happening on screen. Like any robotics programing it is easy to say that it will look here and do something, but actually making it happen is quite a bit more challenging. To start off JamBot requires you to drag the transparent window over the game, this sets up a view port for the bot to look at a few different locations, namely in and just above the five note zones. The challenge with this is that when playing not only do the note locations change when you need to hit a key, it also changes the background colors as your multiplier increases. In order to adjust for this, the easiest way is to check the color percent of the note color for that spot, vs just seeing if the color has changed. If you look at the included code, the values have been adjusted to what I though worked best, but you may have better luck with some further adjustments. The next step was to also have the bot look just above the note zone to see if there is a hold note active. Then if a color match is found, instead of unlocking the key, it waits for the hold to finish. After figuring out all this, and a few hours later, I had a working bot, just for the insane tap difficulty which would get around a 90% on most songs. Is it perfect, NO, however it looks and act like a normal person playing with normal skill would.

Now if I was interested in further development I would look into adding separate Robot objects for the different notes, I think this will improve accuracy and timing, by using different threads for each zone. Right now the bot is missing notes due to the main loop not being fast enough to either see the note coming or hit it before it is out of range. I am reasonably sure that a more streamed lined threaded setup will fix this. Also it is missing the ability to select different difficulty setting, and needs an included feature for strum. All which would not be too hard to add, but I will leave that up to some one else, as I have other projects to start.

Quick Instructions for Use
[Only works for Insane Tap]
1. Open JamLegend and get to the point that you can hit play to start the song.
2. Start JamBot and drag window till the lines and circles line up on screen.
3. Click the Setup Button and then drag the window to the side.
4. Once out of the browser window click start.
5. Start your song and watch as it plays its self.

As usual I have uploaded the compiled class (MAC) and the java source code for anyone to develop further, however please credit me if you do. Download Here and enjoy.