Building rhythm game UI in Unity

Drive the UI with events, not polling

Let gameplay systems raise events (score changed, combo changed, note judged) and let UI components subscribe. Designers can then restyle or replace the HUD without touching gameplay code, and nothing reads state every frame for no reason.

public class Stats : MonoBehaviour {
    public UnityEvent<string> onScoreUpdate;
    public UnityEvent<string> onComboUpdate;
    public UnityEvent<string> onJudgement; // "Perfect", "Good", "Miss"
}
// In the Inspector: onScoreUpdate -> ScoreText.SetText

The in-play HUD

• Judgement text near the hit line, shown briefly and animated (a quick scale pop reads better than a fade).
• Combo, hidden below a small threshold so a combo of 1 doesn't clutter the screen, with a clear break effect.
• Score in a corner, away from the note lanes.
• Song progress as a thin bar or percentage, so players can pace themselves.

Song select and results

Generate the song list from your song data rather than building it by hand: one prefab per entry showing cover art, title, artist and difficulty. On selection, pass the song to the game scene. After the song, show a results screen with score, max combo, a count for each judgement and misses. Players replay songs to improve these numbers, so make them prominent.

Countdown, pause and mobile safe areas

• A 3-2-1-Go countdown before the first note gives players time to get ready, and hides the scheduling delay before the audio starts.
• A pause menu must pause the audio and the note clock together. If it only sets Time.timeScale to 0, the audio keeps playing and the chart desyncs on resume.
• On phones, keep tappable UI inside the safe area so notches and home indicators never cover a lane or a button.

How Rhythm Game Starter does it

Rhythm Game Starter ships with this UI wired up through UnityEvents:

• StatsSystem raises score, combo, max combo and miss updates, plus a count for each configurable hit level.ComboSystem adds combo visibility and combo-break events.
• SongManager raises song progress as a 0–1 fill value and as display text (a percentage or mm:ss), plus start and finish events.
• SongListHandler builds the song list from SongItem assets, with cover art, author and a difficulty fill.
• CountDown provides a configurable countdown with a "Go!" last word. View handles fade transitions and can pause the game while a menu is visible.
• A safe-area helper keeps the canvas clear of phone notches.