# Scores per keyboard, testing harness & more

Published 3 September 2026 on the Keystreak devlog.
Canonical URL: https://keystreak.app/devlog/scores-are-per-keyboard-now/

A few updates from the last few days that are now nearing completion (or have indeed reached completion), also some more info on the environment I use for tests etc.

## Scores per keyboard

A song on a 25-key controller is not the same song on an 88, less keys is generally easier. The game folds the notes to fit whatever you have plugged in, so on a small keyboard you are pressing a different set of them. Up to now there was one rank per song no matter what you played it on (just that the numeric value of said rank differed depending on your keyboard setup).

After this update score is per keyboard. All your songs stay unlocked when you switch, so you won't lose any of your progress (you'll only lose your previous keyboards scores, until you plug that back in). The game explains this once as a notification card whenever you switch your input hardware.

## Tests & simulation

I've also been working on a testing suite that emulates keypresses etc to test some of the core functionality. This suite helps because every change & update I make in the core functionality backtested throughly. Having something like this means that any breaking changes will show up early (QA is quite limited when developing something solo like this, especially much so given that my piano-playing is sub-par at best..).

Anyway, the testing harness can also handle the custom midi upload functionality, which allowed me to extend it to really try and break shit by introducing some very hectic scenarios like *Rush E*:
![Rush E mid-run](https://keystreak.app/devlog/media/rush-e-testing-keystreak-app.webp)

(I'll share an actual recording of a Rush E play-through at some point, but before then I want to work out some of the weirdness that the insane count of notes and speed led to. Let's just say that the score scaling past the edge is just the start of it...

## A note on hardware (keyboards) and what I'll be working on next

Making a song playable whether you have 25 keys or 88 and still make sense (and be fun!) is an interesting challenge, especially much so when it needs to work not only on the games preloaded set of songs, but also programatically for any song the player chooses to upload. I've been doing some research and testing, and ultimately  I'll not only have to find a way for that but it also needs to assign a suitable difficulty, and in the future perhaps also deduce what hand plays what etc. I'm sure it is doable somehow. Anyway, one of the first steps will be to extend the hardware I test with. Currently I've been building and testing the game  using an [AKAI MPK miniplay mk3](https://www.akaipro.com/mpk-mini-play-mk3/), which worked well to get me the first few steps on the journey to realise Keystreak. However I've figured out I need to get myself an actual 88 key kb alongside it to make sure the game is polished enough for both scenarios.

---

Keystreak devlog - Notes on building Keystreak: what changed, what broke, and what is being built next.
Keystreak is a rhythm game that teaches piano, in development for Windows and macOS: https://keystreak.app/