Video games, much like any art form, are susceptible to fads. Arena shooters, motion-controlled games, and rhythm/dance have all had their rise and fall. While the latter still has massive success in arcades, rhythm games have mostly been abandoned on the home market. Developer Vitamin Games aim to change that with a twist to the genre with their self-coined musical bullet-hell Project Arrhythmia.
Project Arrhythmia has players take control of a little cube-shaped cursor, navigating to avoid spawning blocks and bricks. These pulsing shapes are synchronized with the music playing in the background, though admittedly the music is the star of this title. The character cursor is controlled with with the left analog stick and one can boost dodge using the A, X, or right trigger. Boosting grants temporary invincibility, allowing one to navigate through oncoming hurdles. Synchronizing movement with said music is key to completing stages. It’s an easy concept to learn, but a difficult one to master.
The current early access build of Project Arrhythmia has an Arcade Mode, complete with up to 8 player local co-op, and a Level Editor. Vitamin Games plans to incorporate a Story Mode and leaderboards into the final release. I personally don’t have much interest in creating my own levels, so I spent all of my time in the Arcade Mode. That is until I realized I needed to download levels off of the Steam Workshop. From the start, there are no pre-installed levels. Steam Workshop will quickly become your best friend.
Steam Workshop is filled to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of user-created levels, as well as some by developer Vitamin Games. All of the levels vary in difficulty, ranging from mind-numbingly easy to curse-inducing frustration. Some are made difficult due to well-designed use of the musically synchronized pulses. Others are hard due to poor level design and/or the implementation of cheap deaths. Many of the available levels include a “Boss Fight”, which entails avoiding their array of attacks. Overall though, having community made levels is a fun concept that helps mix up the gameplay in a way that keeps it from getting stale.
Between user levels and ones made by Vitamin Games, Project Arrhythmia manages to keep things fresh in its music selection. Most of the music currently available is a form of electronic music. Dubstep, EDM, lo-fi, and many other genres are proudly featured. The quality of music available will obviously vary, as the meat and potatoes of the early access version are user-created. That said, I found quite a few songs that I not only really enjoyed playing but found myself wanting to listen to outside of the game.
Project Arrhythmia does a great job of making memories out of music.
My time so far with Project Arrhythmia has been nothing short of enjoyable. Vitamin Games have proven to me that the music genre can be reworked and tweaked into a special gaming experience. While the current offerings of the arcade mode and building tools are quite bare, the full release of Project Arrhythmia promises additional features and a ton of potential. I eagerly await the rhythmic adventures Project Arrhythmia’s full release will entail.
Until then, you can check out Vitamin Games’ official website, to learn more about Project Arrhythmia. You can also check out Project Arrhythmia’s official Steam Page if you would like to get in on the action. A digital Steam copy was provided for the purpose of preview.
Editor’s Note – It’s hard to look at Project Arrhytmia and not notice the visual similarities to another recent game Just Shapes & Beats of which we reviewed and rather enjoyed. The main difference here appears to be the open tools for the community to make their own levels. Frank actually wasn’t aware of Just Shapes & Beats at the time of writing this preview. Of course, game design is a circle of borrowing and innovating ideas, mechanics, and the like but just know that these games are similar. Remember, FPS games all used to be called “Doom Clones” and it’s now one of the more common genres in gaming.
