Soundboxing

Honesty, one of the best VR fitness games out there. Although it might be old with no more updates, it still works with the quest 3. I love how you don't have to download any songs or mods. It is integrated with Youtube and you can just create your own songs/rhythm to workout. This is guaranteed to make you sweat and arms sore.

This game was pretty great in the first year, but there's two things that are very important to note

- This game hasn't gotten an update since 2018. Supposedly they're working on the sequel or something. Technically this game is still functional so it's not a huge problem in that sense (unless you run into some crashes)

- Most importantly: This game's user-made beatmaps are all associated with YOUTUBE videos. At first, this was really good because there's a ton of music on youtube and people can make beatmaps for any youtube video out there. Here's the big catch though: Youtube videos get delisted all the time for various reasons. As soon as a video is removed from youtube, the beatmap is lost along with it.

I cannot recommend this Soundboxing in it's current state. It was good, and technically can still function good, but is pretty dead. If some big update hits or a sequel comes out, then we might be gucci... but until then...

Being able to get up and move using VR has always made it more entertaining to burn a few calories for me. Soundboxing is one of those simple but effective games that has helped me with that. Not only do you get to play to some of your favorite music, you can also create choreographed movements to the songs if someone hasn't decided too already. Worth the money and I will continue to play it from time to time. Hopefully we can get more users on the platform as well to create even more charts on it.

I was inspired to play this game after I've read an article on how a bloke lost over 54lbs from playing this game, every day for an hour for 3 months. I've always been a big guy but with lock down happening I was at my heaviest and decided to change this. I've never been a gym going type as frankly, I don't like environment or the people that goes there.

So far from playing this, my arms are sore and I lost almost 14lbs in weight by playing this game for an hour a day and monitoring on what I eat. The game certainly will make you sweat. I love the fact that the game uses YouTube API so you can box along to whatever song you want for free. If there are no maps available, you can make your own and share it with others! This game is a hidden little gem and I urge everyone to check this out.

The game works perfectly fine with WMR headsets, no mapping required as menu buttons are pointer based.

The best VR Weight loss tool. I honestly enjoy this much more than Beat Saber

This is the best workout / music /boxing game in VR. The problem is to find the good challenges. It's sad it dont get more attention because it's very flexible and since you can use any song on youtube the tracklist is unlimited

I want to preface this review by saying I have never written a Steam review before. The reason I decided to write one for this game is because I've never played a game nor have I experienced in my lifetime the feeling this game gave me.

My musical tastes are not mainstream. I've seldom known people that like anything I can relate to, and it's always made me feel more lonesome because of it. Years and years of listening to music that moves me, that makes me feel more alive, and yet it always seems that those feelings only ever reach me and I can't ever share that joy with anyone. This game is catharsis, a spiritual experience. Let me tell you, I have never felt more connected to humanity than I have through a stranger who allows me to feel with them by playing through the movements they've recorded to the music that's been so impactful on my life. When you find a good recording that forces you to move with such energy, such emotion that you can't help but feel the sheer exuberance the individual recording must have felt, you finally feel like you can know that yes, the deep emotional connection you have to these songs is not just your own and that you are truly not alone in this world.

i really like this game, the variety, and the custom beat maps are great, but for the love of god make pausing easier, why it can't be a single button press is beyond me, i hate fafing around trying to get the cursor on the pause button

After playing just 2 songs, I would already recommend this game. However, I would recommend you check out the points below before you decide to get this game.

I would like to compare this game with Audioshield as they are both quite similar.

Pro:
- Gameplay wise, this game is superior compare Audioshield. The punching/boxing on the notes simple gives more kick compare to Audioshield.
- Has better UI looking compare to Audioshield.
- Has the ability to create your own notes into the music.

Personal Preference: (some people may like this, some may not)
- More workout compare to Audioshield. Just playing 2 songs and I am sweating like crazy.

Con:
It doesn't auto generate notes like how Audioshield did. You can either create the notes yourself, or play a song where other people had already created the notes. This means that some song that you like you may not be able to play it or it simply sucks because the person who created it doesn't know how to properly create it.
That being said, some of the popular songs are really fun to play, cheers for whoever created them.

Overall/TLDR:
Audioshield is still a superior product compare to this due to the fact that you can simply play any song you like from YouTube. However the gameplay in soundbox is more fun compare to audioshield. If you can only get one, get Audioshield, but I highly recommend both.

A must own if you have a VR headset and like Rhythm Games.

The problem a lot of rhythm games have is the lack of songs to play due to the difficulty of using an editor; Or if they're running off of a stream turning tracks into music visualizer type gameplay, leading to inaccurate notecharts that feel more like you're playing a vauge guess of a song's flow and not actually playing a song.

This has the middle ground between the two. The songs are streamable from youtube, but they have a surprising amount of notecharts to playthrough that are manually made by the community that 8 out of 10 times are very accurate and very, very fun to play. The UI is very crisp, with support for playlists players have made or just sorting through a player's profile of tracks they created so that if you find a song you loved playing with a track that suits your musical tastes, all you have to do is look to the left and go through the simfile creator's profile to see everything else they've created and you'll often have a plethora of cool stuff to play that's likely right up your alley. It reminds me of youtube before they deleted the all activity tab, it's like a self branching economy of content relevant to your interests and I love it.

The only thing outright clunky about the UI is the scrolling which only shows 3 tracks at a time per row, everything else is top tier.

I also think it's freaking adorable some of the poses people record at the end of their song charts since the dancing robots are what I assume to be recordings of players dancing. I've seen everything from players doing goofy poses to cheering to dabbing. It gets a chuckle out of me often.

I was able to find charts for everything from mainstream trash to video game OSTs to obscure vocaloid songs (While it doesn't have EVERYTHING, there is a SURPRISING amount of tracks that are made), all with entertaining charts that make you actually pull off real dance moves without thinking about it most of the time. If there is one thing this game is, it's a WORKOUT. After 3 tracks I have to take a break because my arms feel like jello, but I have so much fun playing that when my arms work again I just feel like playing more songs. This is as entertaining to me as any arcade rhythm game with official grade simcharts and I'm happy I got it.

On a side note, the fact that there are two pinned threads containing "Harder difficulty maps" and even a "Workout chart suggestion" containing a lot of DDR stuff and etc. shows me that whoever made this game actually knows why people love playing rhythm games.

Pros:
Super fun gameplay
YouTube integration
Highscores
Custom user made beatmaps
Custom website with history

Cons:
Sometimes highscores don't save <-- See below
No osu! integration

Overall:
I'll just start off with saying I adore Soundboxing. Jumping right into it the game is insane levels of fun! Whenever I want to wind down from work or maybe get a workout at home, I load up this game. Soundboxing is simple enough for new players to VR (I showcased it at a party!), but challenging enough for even experienced players. I'm not going to go over actual gameplay here, because that'd be really hard to describe a VR game like this and do it justice. Check out the trailer if you want to see the action.

Soundboxing has YouTube integration, which means there's pros and cons to that aswell. Soundboxing has thousands and thousands of music videos to choose from on YouTube to 'dance' to while they play in the background of the screen. Whenever you want to search for a song all you have to do is be on the search screen and preface your search request by saying "Search." For example: "Search The Power of Love." It searches YouTube and pulls up anything that matches your request, just like on the normal website. The downside to this is that sometimes the song that you want to play doesn't have a beatmap... and that brings me to another point: User made beatmaps.

In Soundboxing there are NO auto-generated beatmaps; they are all user made! This is good and bad at the same time. The good is that a lot of the time when you play a song, it feels like the beatmap goes PERFECTLY to it. The community works hard to create beatmaps that are fun and challenging while also still matching the beat and lyrics perfectly. This means that a more chill song might have a slower beatmap and be easier, but a fast paced or energetic song might kick your butt. Now here's the bad: Every beatmap is user made. While there's tons of songs with good beatmaps, there's plenty that have terrible beatmaps. Some songs don't even have beatmaps at all! This is where the rest of the community comes in. It's up to the community as a whole to make GOOD beatmaps. If you don't think someone did justice on a song, you can create your own! Some songs have multiple beatmaps and each one is made by a different player!

The highscore system in Soundboxing is amazingly simple and addictive. When you finish a song, you are ranked on a highscore list for that beatmap based on how many consecutive balls you hit and how many points you scored. Some players can get a full 100% on the song and still be drastically different scores. The harder you punch, the higher your score! Now, one problem I've run into as of the last patch is that sometimes the highscore doesn't save. That's frustrating. Like, really frustrating. Recently I did a very hard beatmap, 100%, on my first try. I was WORN OUT! after that song, because I put my all into it. My reward was an ERROR, score did not save! It's not even on their website, either. Very, very disappointing to say the least. Apparently the developer knows about this and hopefully the issue will be fixed soon.

And speaking of highscores, that brings me to their website: www.Soundboxing.co. This is such a clever idea and I am flabbergasted at why I don't see more devs do this! All of your song history and scores are saved on the site, so you can easily view them out of VR. Your friends' history aswell as global highscores are shown here, too!

Overall, I believe Soundboxing has a few more challenges to overcome, but I will 100% without a doubt recommend this game. Even if you are not a leaderboard chaser or a creator, Soundboxing is amazingly fun!

4/5 *

Gameplay wise the best of the genre at the moment. Feels great to punch to the rhythm rather than just waving your hands and catching the orbs.

Critique:

- UI is really rough
- Communication with the dev is slow
- Update schedule is even slower
+ Community made beatmaps
------ Beatmap editor is really really bad. Nearly useless unless you're doing some basic 4/4 120 bpm song that is really predictable.

So its a game that is fun to play, that relies on the communitys effort, which has been given the worst tools ever to create the said content.

Should be in Early Access. Cant recommend buying it yet, but maybe in the future if the dev hasnt already abandoned this project.

Soundboxing is not just a game, its a workout!

I tried them all out: Audioshield, Soundboxing, Holodance, Beats Fever and Airtone.

I directly need to say Audioshield was the worst of them.

1. Airtone (most expensive, great look and gameplay, limited songs)
2. Holodance (really really great, nearby nr. 1 and by far nr. 2)
x (Soundboxing - can not recommand at this time as it is very buggy, uploading beatmaps does not work and virtual keyboard does not work for Oculus users)
3. Beats Fever
4. Audioshield

Audioshield: it did not feel like a rhythm game at all and it had only a few sound-stages. The gameplay was not in sync with the music as the algorithm does not do that well. Every game with predefined beatmaps is far superior. You Tube integration does not help. Gameplay feels often chaotic and shallow.

Soundboxing: Gameplay felt more serious as in Audioshield. It has user made beatmaps and a youtube integration. You can easily create beatmaps to your own favorite songs and share them. It has 12 different show-stages. -- Can not be recommanded atm as uploading beatmaps does not work and the virtual keyboard does not work for Oculus users --

Beats Fever: Good looking environments, 40 songs with predefined beatmaps. Songs are a bit generic, gameplay is okay but does not feel that organic. A bit chaotic at times.

Holodance: with Osu! integration, great looking, fun gameplay, definitely one of the best. Through Osu integration nearby infinite gameplay.

Airtone: Best rhythm game out there, if you can life with Japanese pop. It has the best rhythm gameplay of all of them: you have to punch/slap the notes, just holding the stick in the direction is not enough; your punches/slaps make a sound when you hit so you hear the rhythm you are beating (not just a short vibration), the presentation is very beautiful, every song has three difficult levels, all in all very fun and addictive. 25 Tracks included.

This is it! This is the GAME for VR!

if you like music
if you like to do something useful while listening to music
if you like to workout without going to a gym
if you don't mind sweating a lot
if you simply want to have lots of fun

...then Soundboxing is four you

Warning: one can spend countless hours without realizing it.

No matter how many expensive VR games I already own, I always come back to this fantastic game.

There should be many of these on VR, This game is perfect for me to burn thr extra Kcals after a gym session, its a good challange, the idea is simple. Link you tube to them game, watch videos and throw punches but it works really well.

what id love to see to make me push my self more a Lcal burner that tells you how much you burned off and keeps a log of it on your profile , that would be awsome.

the game is worth the money

Very rewarding and fun if you like to dance and hit stuff in beat. The quality of the beatmaps vary greatly, but there are some real gems there, and you can make your own to share.

I have quite a few of VR games but this is really in the top 5 and so much worth the price.

I've only played a short amount, but due to the nature of the game I'm certain not much is going to change.

I like this as a welcome alternative to Audio Shield a game of pretty much the same concept. VR, youtube vids, go nuts. This one allows you a lot more freedom off the bat however, creating custom tracks as opposed to using some formulator to work one it. This has it's pros...And one rather arm aching con.

Soundboxing takes it's main game play philosphy in a different sway to shield. It's on the offensive. Rather than just Audio Shield's 'just getting the orb gets you all you need', there's a multiplier tied in to how much welly you put into a hit. Five minutes later and I was a sweaty mess after going all out on a track. Definitely great potential for an exercise game here.

Few problems however - If people have suggestions to resolve these feel free to leave a comment and I'll get around to correcting this.

- No way to change the youtube stream quality. It streams on a pretty big screen with what I think is 480p. I don't have the greatest internet, so waiting for this to load is a time sink i'd rather not have. Let me crank it down (or up for those with better net) so I can just get to the music and the punching.
- This is pretty strenuous in comparison to the aformentioned Audioshield - Make sure to have them wrist-straps on, have a nice big open area to punch towards - It likes to go for low and wide stretches sometimes. And don't bother giving this game a shot unless you have some foam replacements/sweat proof foam guards. This game is a sweat machine.
- It's not as pretty as it's rival. This isn't a gripe, just I did like the asetic of Audioshield more.

All in all, it's a sound punching game that takes on a more strenous and aggressive approach to similar games. Not the best if you just want to unwind whilst flailing your arms around, but if you want a workout routine oh boy you're in for a treat here.

I just bought this game after seeing the article about the guy losing weight like i'm sure a bunch of people will be doing. I gotta say i love this game. I worked up a sweat and i only did a few songs so far. I was con centrating so hard on getting the rythem right i didn't even realize i was exercising at the same time. This is a must have for both rythem gamers and people wanting to lose weight.. I love the fact i can pick any youtube video and it works.

I bought this tonight after seeing an article on UploadVR and glad I did! Great game with lots of replayability!

Let me start by saying that I'm having a lot of fun with this game.
It feels great to punch synched up orbs while force and the combo multiplier matter for the score.
Getting updates on who played your beat maps and who pushed you from the first place is motivating, as well as having a website tracking the leaderboards and available songs.
The ability to record your own beat maps is actually quite challenging, since you want to have a lot of diversity and not only punch orbs at the same height in a different rythm.
You can also search for popular songs, either sorted by times played or maked as favourites.

But of course the game isn't perfect.
- No ability to rate the difficulty of a beat map
- Cannot fix a mistake you made when recording a beat map
- Not all beat maps are created equal, it depends a lot on who created it

Even with those missing features the game is quite fun and recording can be really exhasting if you try and be creative. I have high hopes for this game, not only is it a great foundation to build upon but the developer interacts and listens to the community.
A side note for fellow germans: Since YouTube is used, a lot of modern music is blocked by GEMA.

What I would like to see adjusted:
- The ability to restart from a certain point in my recording and stop with the click of a button
- A grid like view to see more songs at once
- Hide the constantly visible menu with the menu button.
- Make the plane you have to hit when recording more visible, since its quite easy to loose track of it

Holy moly. This was great. I don't want to say it is better than Audioshield, it is just a little bit different.
First the bad: I encountered a bug where some videos would slow down, and the sound was distorted. You could also see the timer went slower, so.. memory leak perhaps? Other videos worked great.

Audioshield vs Soundboxing:
If you like Audioshield, you will enjoy this game as well. In the latest update, Audioshield discontinued Soundcloud support and implemented Youtube instead. Audioshield also has an automatic beat detection feature for unplayed songs, where Soundboxing is manual. The good thing about Soundboxing, is that you can create a completely new "beat map" if you don't like the existing one.


Intensity intensifies:
Audioshield has a nice feature where you can choose difficulty, and you can also find mods online to replace the existing difficulty settings.
In Soundboxing you need to kind of figure out the difficulty level yourself. If you see a song that is 3:20 minutes, but it has 600+ beats / punches, then you know it will be intense. So that gives you an idea of how difficult the song is. If no one has played that song before, then (some will say unfortunately) you need to make your own beat map. You need to stand and punch at the beats however you see fit.

Missing
In the future, I would like to see the following:

• Favorites
  
• Genre selection
  
[*] Region based high scores