Synaesthete is the work of four DigiPen students (Zach Aikman, Joseph Tkach, William Towns and Andy Maneri), and to use their own words:
To use mine, it mixes elements of Robotron, Rez and any number of Bemani titles, swishes them into an isometric angle and sends the player on a psychedelic trip through an abstract existence suffused with sound. Probably not as snappy as their explanation, but hopefully it’ll give you some idea of the gameplay. In Synaesthete you play a grey protagonist who leaves for different worlds from his hub world, which for one reason or another features a fountain. Once there, you have to extinguish all enemies from the area, using your beat attacks. Instead of having a gun, ammo, or even the ability to aim, you have music. In play, three beats fall from the sky, as Low, Medium and High beats. You simply time your button presses to the music, and you attack the enemy automatically, which leaves you free to mostly concentrate on running away.
Points and combos are awarded for accuracy with timing, and whilst you can simply concentrate on a single beat-style to kill the enemy, you can try to get a little more complex and involve the other beats in your attack chain for extra points, a faster chain growth and more attacks to defeat the enemy faster. Of course if you flub it trying to show off then you can end up completely wrecking your combo forcing you to try and catch up to the peak of your musical maelstrom. It’s a risk-and-reward mechanic that really pays off, although maybe there aren’t enough risks to outweigh just mashing the beats and hoping to fire lasers across the world, but at least it doesn’t scare you off from trying to keep up with the pace.
(Basically at this point you should just start downloading it, it’s worth the size/wait, but hit the extended if you want to keep reading! It will please me…)
You progress in a fairly linear fashion, unlocking extra levels, worlds and spells as you progress. Spells are basically power-ups you can take into each world to help you complete them easier. Some help you boost your chain, others cause you to increase in size tenfold ignoring the whole Bemani style of attacking to a more traditional head-stomping approach. Whilst playing with the keyboard is perfectly viable, I would recommend using a gamepad if you have one. The reason being not only so you aren’t restricted to simply 8-directional movement, but if you’re using one with rumble/force-feedback, then it actually jolts in-time with the music, which helps you keep to the beat a little easier. It’s interesting, really, since your pad doesn’t just feel like simply an input device, but rather it pulses with the game, becoming an extension of the experience, if you’ll pardon the overly enthusiastic exaggeration.
I do still have a couple of gripes with the game. Apparently every game lately that fuses music in with action gameplay needs to punctuate all break periods with somewhat pretentious/philosophical dialogue. It fits the mood of the piece sure, but I also find it a little tough to take seriously, as if someone just decided to interrupt my combo chain with random musings on life, the universe and everything. Also, a place where I could just blast away enemies to an ever increasing beat and baddie count would be nice without all the walking between areas. But as it stands, at least, it’s already a great game and well worth checking out. The download stands at a rather weighty 80mb, but with a game so focused on music that’s well to be expected. Enjoy!