Great trailer. Mediocre game. . . but it was pretty?

Very weird. For a game that is ostensibly about music, the music mechanics and actual soundtrack wasn’t all that great. For a game that is ostensibly a platformer, or rail-runner game, it’s like, free-to-play mobile game levels of depth.

I can give them credit as it was certainly an original idea, and they’re a tiny team, shipping their first game, but it just wasn’t my jam.

It sorta skated the line between “games” and “experiences”. Surface level, this looks like a platformer / rail-runner game, with music/rhythm game aspects. And it technically is all of that. But it’s all sort of incidental? It’s there as a vehicle to tell and enhance a story. And it does a great job as set dressing.

When I think “game” I think mechanics and systems first. That’s the primary thing I’m evaluating. I evaluate all the rest of it too, and great music, great story, great characters, etc, can all absolutely elevate crap game mechanics . . but games like this, the mechanics are so incredibly downplayed that it doesn’t even feel like a “game”. Things like this are still perfectly valid art, but I’ve periodically advocated for them to just be called something else, “interactive experiences” for things like this, “toys” for things that are just undirected sandboxes, or just a gimmick rigged up. Again, this isn’t to denigrate them, it’s just pointing out that they’re something else, and shouldn’t be evaluated the same ways.

I’d recommend this with the caveat to point out that it’s story-forward. Not a must-play game or anything, but also not bad. Worth it for an evening.