POSTED 24/2/17


CHIME SHARP

Zoë Mode/Chilled Mouse

What was that all about?!

Six years ago, that was our first reaction to this initially mind-fuckletating PS3 musical puzzler, which purloined hunks of Tetris, Lumines, Rampart and flocculent deity Jeff Minter’s Psychedelia, banged them together and spat them out as a trippy, chilled-out puzzler. On the surface at least, for deeper delving soon indicated that the aim of the game was anything but chilled.

To the accompaniment of tracks from musical luminaries such as the stupidly named Chvrches, Kavinsky and even minimal music pioneer Steve Reich, you plop down Tetris-esque pieces in various griddy things. However, rather than being comprised of four blocks as per Alexey Pajitnov’s bundle of blocky bliss, here you’re dealing with five square thingies. Pressure!

The idea is to lay these pieces down to form ‘quads’ – congregations of three-by-three squares or more - which count towards your coverage of the grid. Form the minimum requirement and the creation starts filling in. Add more quadlaciousness before the timer says ‘BZZT!’ (figuratively) and you’ll score more.

Coverage is that aforementioned aim of the game. You’ll aspire to 100 percent, but you’ll be bloody lucky to achieve it.

Harking back to musicality, placement of quads and size affects the music you hear, as a ‘beatline’ triggers stuff as it passes. Kinda like a LEGO Duplo sequencer.

There are 16 levels this time around, and new modes deliver everything from limited lives – have a few pieces dissolve by hanging around too long and you’re toast - to harsher time application.

The only real downside is that visuals are way too garish for their own good at times, interfering with an already super-challenging game mechanic.

Sure, it’s hippy and trippy, but this time the smelly buggers did good.

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