Many people think of “rhythm action” when they think of “music games”.Well, Stockholm-based indie team Ichigoichie is here to confuse your expectations with his funky, diabolical Backbeat puzzle A game about the complexities of playing in a band.
Ichigoichie’s first game was Hexagroove in 2019, where he creates dance music, DJs, and guitar lumanFlowing track-following rhythm action. The studio’s legacy traces through co-founder David Ventura to the Nintendo DS classic, his Osu! Cheer team! (Ancestor of Western elite beat agents). And the game’s ridiculous storyline and signature overworld map stretch its tendrils through the decades, right up to his Backbeat in 2023.
But despite that background, Backbeat is not a game characterized by playing to the beat or playing the correct notes. The gameplay is that important depth introduced over the course of many levels, Funk manipulating four timelines and moving around maps, one for each member of his band. Goal reach his area. Pressing ‘B’ rewinds, allowing each move in turn to advance the timeline, allowing potential solutions to be reconstructed. This interaction happens in parallel between her four characters, and her interaction with the level changes her bandmate possibilities.
Each stage is reserved with story cutscenes. It’s simple, but it manages to add color to the process and keep a highly technical set of rules light-hearted. started playing music in his parents’ garage. She assembles a hodgepodge of misfits and sets them on the unlikely path of jamming funk at the most sophisticated venues in town. VHS distortion, videotape rental stores, retro shopping her malls, mobile phone surprises, all dressed with love. Combined with the highly sophisticated graphics of her palette of diverse and attractive colors and her style, her visual presentation is spot on.
Importantly, the game is visually and acoustically polished. Each stage is backed by a very simple metronome beat, giving a certain sense of anticipation rather than pressure precisely. Once you plan your character’s movements, it feels like playing a turn-based strategy game, and you start playing snippets of funk from instruments like bass, keytar, drums, and saxophone. Once the solution is built, the individual parts melt into a jam session, and the finished level ends with a full performance run where everyone walks towards their goal.
It’s fun to hear the gameplay. Sounds like a small band of switches playing around with ideas. Ichigoichie touts the ability to define your own soundtrack as you play, but in reality the logic of the puzzle rather than the musical potential was the driving force behind our choice.
There’s no rhythm action, but Backbeat is definitely another kind of ‘music game’. Aside from the plot and its band fighting showdowns, the mechanics create a compelling sense of jamming as a group. increase. The drummer makes big, distinct movements to the beat, while the walking bass and key tar play against each other, covering squares that each cannot cover. , the sax soloist moves in jazzy triplets – three steps on each beat of the bar. The rulesets that constrain these movements include the regularity of changing directions on the beat, the versatility of hitting different beats with each band member, and the careful timing of solos to support each other and give them space to showcase. I have.
By the time a full range of mechanics are thrown into the mix, it gets very complicated. The process of combining all of these feels like refinement of composition. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was creating puzzle solutions like music, or music like solving puzzles. The only minor quibble with the ambitious and complex mechanics and interface is that if you edit decisions made early in a level, you have to undo all decisions made later, but it’s an eye-opener It’s not irritated. Despite this inherent musicality, it’s interesting to be able to turn off the sound and play backbeats. A music game that makes you think about music, but doesn’t require you to actually play or listen to it.
No action gameplay means you can freely plan, rewind, and start over jam sessions. In particular, we have been stumped for years. And that’s how Backbeat manages that difficulty. New mechanics stack up so often that the learning curve is steep, but at least it’s pretty smooth. do The game does not have a hint system. Since tutorials will definitely appear online, Ichigoichie seems to have decided to delegate hints and hints to the internet rather than controlling the experience. It’s a bit disappointing because I wish I could have stayed and gotten some gentle guidance.
Another side effect of the increased complexity of the mechanics is that going back to previous stages can feel pretty weird. There are critical path stages that must be completed in order to progress through the game, but along with the main stage there are more sub-stages that can be unlocked. This means that if you tackle the main levels of story mode before returning to substages, you’ll find yourself playing without the post-mechanics you’re used to. This is a testament to the frustrating high-rule gelling, but it does limit replayability somewhat. Because the completed solution is saved so you can start over instead of starting over. However, I found that there was little difference in difficulty between completing a tricky stage and getting a perfect score.
Conclusion
Backbeat stands out among puzzle games for its stunning graphics and funky soundscapes that pulsate incessantly, but most of all it stands out for the depth of its impressive mechanics. Phrase lengths, bar his markers, alignments, staggers, solos, and deathblow juggling are all done in interactive levels full of moving parts, like having wah his pedals hooked up to your brain . Aside from the sometimes cumbersome interface and limited replayability, Ichigoichie hit all the right notes.
