Undead referred me to this latest offering on Steam:
AudioSurf.
It's basically a puzzle racer which auto-generates tracks according to the music you load into it. You can load anything from your own music library and dynamically generate race tracks for the music. The tracks include uphill areas for the slower tempo parts of the song and the slope goes downhill as the song speeds up. It also generates crests and bumps for more intense changes in tempo, as well as tunnels for the most intense parts of the track. It's truly a rush. This in itself assures serious longevity, but there are so many awesome features, that I'll only run through a few here:
- Many different game modes and skill levels. You can choose from different "characters" who each have their own way of solving the puzzles. Some need to only collect one type of block into clusters, while others must match mixed blocks into like-coloured "clusters".
- You can compare your score for a specific music track and game mode with others who have played the same song online. This is really cool and adds a great challenge element. There is also a buddy system built-in.
- Customisable appearance for the tracks and block colours.
Check out the website for more features and intro videos.
This game has truly blown me away with its simplicity and fun. I love listening to music and this just adds a huge element of interest for me. Nothing like blasting your speakers to your favourite track and trying to beat someone's score online.
And the price? Wait for it ...
$9.95. There is no excuse not to grab this game.
Below is a sample of the gameplay I recorded with FRAPS.
The character I used was the Elite Ninja Mono in Iron Mode (about as hard as it gets). The challenge for mono is to collect all of one type of block into clusters while avoiding the grey blocks. Grey blocks give a score penalty and also can prevent you from getting the right clusters joined. Mono gets a 30% score bonus if you can avoid hitting a single grey block for the entire song. I was going great until I started to lose concentration about 2/3 into the song and ended up hitting a few greys. I am now obsessed with acing this challenge, since I'm about 7th on the overall world leaderboard for this song. it's driving me crazy.
Anyway, here it is:
AudioSurf - Pendulum - Hold Your Color