Puzzle games occupy a unique space within the gaming industry. More often than not, these special little experiences offer a stress-free, mentally stimulating good time, free from the worry of mobs of enemies jumping you or another player cutting your gameplay short with a cheesy tactic you couldn’t have seen coming.
Rhythm games occupy the same space. The focus of rhythm games is not on solving increasingly difficult puzzles, but on making satisfying music and training your own internal rhythm.
Both genres are relaxing, and uniquely stimulate the mind, improving activity and creating neural connections in different parts of the brain. Studies show that playing these games, especially puzzle games, helps to reinforce connections between brain cells, improves mental speed, and is an effective way to improve short-term memory.
Want to really give your brain a workout, and have fun doing it? That’s where Rytmos comes in. Rytmos is a special combination of puzzle and rhythm games where you create music by solving mazes.
Rytmos is the first game from developer Floppy Club to make it to Steam. Floppy Club is a small indie game company based in Copenhagen with making games and “interactive experiences” with a strong focus on music and soundscapes.
When you open up Rytmos, you’re greeted with a gentle solar system orbiting the sun. When something causes the planets to explode into voxel bits, you set about reassembling them immediately.
Each puzzle is a planet, with the actual gameplay taking place on the surface of each world. By connecting all of the dots on a piece of planet and creating a perfect loop, you restore that part of the planet, and its song, and move on to the next.
Each part of the puzzle you solve adds a piece to the destroyed world and a part of its song. As you complete more and more pieces, you’ll notice the relaxing little tune in the background become a full-blown song. It’s incredibly satisfying to hear what comes together as you piece more and more of the puzzle together.
To actually solve puzzles in Rytmos, you’ll be connecting lines along a maze into a loop. Each line begins at a specific point on the grid, and must pass through each of the nodes on the grid and loop back to its starting point somehow. A line keeps moving until it hits an edge on the square-shaped platform.
Each planet has six of these maze puzzles to solve, creating a unique musical score for that planet. As you progress through the game, new mechanics are added to switch things up and test your knowledge of the mechanics, becoming progressively more challenging as you progress.
As each loop is made, more layers are added to the game’s evolving soundscape, forming compositions in real-time based not on the player’s actions and instruments.
That’s right, instruments. As you progress through each level in the cubic cosmos, you’re rewarded with the chance to become a musician yourself. Instruments such as the Kalimba, Vibraphone and even classic 1980s synthesizers can be unlocked, meaning you can not only jam along with the in-game soundtracks but also make brand-new songs yourself.
As the game likes to advertise, this means that as you continue to play Rytmos, you’re not just playing a puzzle game; The game becomes, in a sense, a full-blown, fully-functional music maker that allows you to make your own complex musical tracks.
The game’s soundtrack is undeniably wholesome, featuring music inspired by Zimbabwean Kalimba music, Ethiopean Jazz music, German electronic music from the 70’s, Indonesian Gamelan music, Japanese environmental music and much more.
Frankly, it’s not a soundtrack that’s going to appeal to everyone; No music does. But with the musical toys and instruments available to you, you can make something that more closely appeals to your tastes.
The game in total features about 20 musical toys to unlock, and includes not only instruments but sound effects like a Bit crusher, Lowpass filter, Delay and Stutters.
There really isn’t a lot more to say about Rytmos than that. The game succeeds in its simplicity and is elegantly lacking in any unnecessary complexity that would only muddle the experience.
Rytmos is a game about solving puzzles, making music, and relaxing. Everything that goes into the game plays into that very well, and its lack of unnecessary features is in of itself something of a feat to be admired.
Even the graphics in Rytmos are sweet, subtle, and relaxing. The game has a pleasant little 2d voxel look, like each planet is made of brightly colored Legos, but not so bright as to be intrusive. Occasionally, the game will throw interesting shapes and textures at you during your grip around the solar system, but nothing is ever more complicated than it needs to be.
The Final Word
Rytmos is a puzzle game made by musicians, with the goal of giving you a mentally stimulating, musically-enriched relaxing time. In this goal, the game succeeds spectacularly and leaves very little to be wanting.
Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Rytmos will be available on Steam and the Nintendo Switch Store on February 28, 2023.
Comments