Hexagroove: Tactical DJ
Hexagroove is probably the most interesting and exciting music game I’ve ever played. It’s a rhythm game made by people with a deep and obvious love of electronic music and the culture around it. It plays in a unique and intuitive way that makes it simple to make some kick ass music. Honestly, I never knew how much I needed something like this in my life.
Unlike other rhythm games which rely on quick reflexes and tapping along to the beat, most of Hexagroove’s gameplay centers around layering different instrumental loops. If you’re the kind of person who likes to play a game for the challenge, then it might not be for you. Most of the fun comes from putting together the different pieces and finding a solid groove, then adjusting it and playing with it on the fly. There’s room for a lot more experimentation and playfulness than in games that emphasize skill mastery, like Beatmania or Audiosurf. It offers some mini-games and an obligatory campaign, but you won’t find anything too taxing except on the highest difficulty. I’ve made my way through the whole game on each difficulty level, but most of my time is spent in free mode just jamming out. I’d hesitate to even call Hexagroove a game. It controls like a game, and it’s got levels, achievements and tricks to perform for style points, but it plays more like an instrument, something you can play to make cool music, without any of the hassle of having to learn to beatmatch or how to use an MPC.
– Real player with 19.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Experimental Colorful Games.
Even with my short time in the game thus far I think it’s incredibly cool. I’ve not seen or played anything else like it. From the viewpoint of someone who doesn’t (yet) make music, it’s about the closest you can get to actually mixing and producing your own tracks while still also technically being a game.
It’s a lot of fun just to play around in, and I love that the game encourages that. More than once I’d be vibing with all the loops and samples in the practice mode, finding out my favorites and which ones work well together before remembering, oh yeah, I have a set to go play, maybe I should do that. It’s double cool that incorporating real life mixing and songwriting techniques and theory affect your performance and score. Also you can have a Psytrance rave deep in the forest.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Playhear : Square Paper City
How an Electronic Music Album would sound and look if it was a Video Game?
Welcome to a new way to listen to music with this first opus of Playhear, a series of musical pieces made into games!
Surreal City
Settled in a weird and minimalistic place, Square Paper City is a Musical Walking Simulator with mazes, some puzzles and a bouncy and dynamic world.
A new way to play a music album
This interactive experience will make you live and feel a music LP as something new: semi-procedural, designed according to the game and the levels, moving and modulating according to your actions. The simplest inputs have dramatic consequences over your musical experience.
There’s also rhythmic totems to test your rhythm abilities, some shooting skills to help you find your way in the monochromatic mazes, some light Parkour, and other fancy mechanics.
Made with experimentations in mind
I made this game in solo, following my emotions and knowledge, testing visual technologies and interactive audio systems to provide a psychedelic but dynamic and fun walking game in a living painting!
I have also been working closely with some audio plugin developers as a tester and sound designer.
This game is a tribute to them (Unfiltered Audio, Rhizomatic, UVI, Bitwig, Sugar Bytes…) and to experimenters.
Finally, here’s the
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Push the Boundaries of the Way we Play/Listen to Music: a technical and artistic approach to interactive music
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Automatic Writing and Serendipity: a surreal way of composing the story and developing the game content with serendipity.
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Minimalistic Systems and UI: more immersion for the player. No complexity, immediate onboarding.
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Synaesthesia: attempt to make a world that lives according to music and visual connections.
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Focus on Experimental Art and Trippy Mood: I wish to experiment on both the technical art and the interactive music system in order to push the boundaries of abstract and artistic games.
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Diversity in electronic music genres: as I always done in my musical career
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This Game is an Instrument as Much as it is an Art Piece: give the opportunity to the player to play the game as an album or live show during a party or whatever.
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Use a Limited Range of Instruments: especially those that I’m testing for audio developers friends and a few others that I really need for the overall quality of the music
A game made by Tomavatars
Read More: Best Experimental Puzzle Platformer Games.
Koma
Awesome simulator of near after death experience, it gave me goosebumps while I was playing it
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Experimental 3D Games.
Koma is a confusing, both in a bad and a good way.
First the game seems to have some optimisation issues. Even on my Ryzen 9 XT and Nvidia 2800 Super, I had some lags and micro freezes, usually when loading a new area.
Also, sometimes I felt some issues regarding of the usual rules of game design in the way to indicate you the path. Combined with the fact that you can glitch the camera trough the walls, and sometimes yourself, it result in situations where you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to do or where to go. I completly understant the goal to make you feel lost in this strange world and I like that, but sometimes I just felt lost because of confusing game design. It reminded me it was a game and kinda breaked the illusion.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Cadence
Cadence is something different: a hybrid of game and music sandbox. Understanding how to bring these two worlds together has been a quest 8 years in the making. It’s now finally here for you to enjoy.
How you spend your time with Cadence is up to you. Some people will enjoy relaxing with the game and solving levels. Tinkerers will enjoy fiddling with music in the sandbox. The crazy ones will program things we didn’t even know were possible.
Game play
You don’t need a sense of rhythm or a good ear to play Cadence - just your thinking cap and a bit of patience will reward you with gentle zen melodies. Puzzles start simple and build up to complex head-scratchers.
Make some noise
If you’ve tried music production you’ll know it’s intimidating. Cadence’s sandbox mode has been meticulously designed so that “time to first sound” is mere seconds. It doesn’t matter if you’re a composer looking for inspiration or you’ve never made a note of music in your life - Cadence is an entirely new and playful way of interacting with music.
Many are better than one
Cadence goes deep: underneath the game there’s a Turing complete logic system and a host of music production tools for you to explore. What’s possible with Cadence is an open question.
That’s why Steam Workshop is deeply integrated with effortless one-click import:
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play the best community generated levels
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collectively learn new techniques
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show off your proudest creations
PROJECTIONS
This is an extremely unique and fun game. I’ve been a fan of Wolfgun’s music for many years, and when I saw the trailer, I was dazzled but I shared others' concerns about the game being visually busy or hard to follow. I was proven wrong very quickly and I’m really amazed at how quickly I picked it up and how fun and addicting it is. I think this game has an incredible spirit to it, the story mode is quite interesting and high concept and I find myself pondering the meaning (or meanings) of it weeks later. I’m extremely excited to see what Wolfgun does next and I think this is a remarkable first game and definitely a worthwhile experience.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
If you, like me, have never played a hack-and-slash game in your life, you may very likely find Projections a bit difficult and even frustrating at first. Every time you get smacked and your score is halved for it, even though you swear you hit the dodge button just in time to parry that attack from an entity you’re familiar with? If you, like me, get incredibly invested in and perhaps a little overly-competitive over beating your own high scores? It can be a bit disheartening to say the least.
– Real player with 34.6 hrs in game
Super Star Shooter 16
Super Star Shooter is a psychedelic shooter that somehow feels calming to play. It’s in early access so there are some improvements to be had but my time with it has been somewhat of a neat experience. I love the soundtrack and the voice that talks throughout the levels. In a way I feel like I’m playing a combination of star fox and tempest 4000. One thing I wish is maybe for score hunters possibly have an endless mode? That’s just a minor thing I was thinking about. I honestly can’t wait for it to be finished because the progress of this game is good!
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
This is a seriously good retro 3D shooter with great visuals, sound effects, speech, music and playability. If you like blasting things, you will not be disappointed.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Russian Subway Dogs
8/10: Russian Subway Dogs is a fun, silly arcade game of barking, snatching food out of the air, and surviving the hazards of the Russian subway like bears and chocolate bars. MOLODETS!
Russian Subway Dogs is based on a true, real-life occurrence of stray dogs in Russia using the subways to commute into the city in order to find better food, the commuting back to the suburbs for safer places to sleep. Choose from a collection of referential dogs and cats and get to filling your belly with shawarma and burgers before the other dogs and animals.
– Real player with 33.2 hrs in game
Oh c’mon this is a fantastic arcade game with a ton of charm and meat-on-the-bone. Yeah, the price is off-putting at first, but I assure you this is top quality stuff. There is a solid campaign mode that helps you learn the ropes in steps. There is an endless mode complete with Steam Leaderboards. And lots of awesome unlockable characters that are largely cameos from other indie games. It’s surprising how much great diversity they crammed in here. Finally, the pixel art and music couldn’t be better.
– Real player with 31.4 hrs in game