Seven years ago, indie studio Drool set out on a vision to create what they then described as a rhythm violence game. Don?t worry, I was stumped too. How could one incorporate a sense of violence into a genre celebrated for score-chasing and fist-pumping streaks" But in those intervening years, that two-person development team crafted Thumper and suddenly, everything makes sense.
Thumper is pitched as a rhythm-action game, one that has you hurtling down a meandering neon track as a chrome space beetle, encountering scores of obstacles as you go. There are boss battles, there?s a mesmerizing soundtrack and it?s all set against a psychedelic firework display of folding polygons and elongated tentacles that would give even Marvel?s Doctor Strange a trip to remember. A Near Perfect Harmony
The premise is fairly straightforward: From the get-go, you?re on a one-way trip into the abyss, guiding that shimmering critter down a note highway via one-button inputs. The rhythm dictates the play, and Thumper is a textbook example of a game that is deceptively simple, reeling you in with an addictive hook and intuitive controls, yet maddeningly difficult, layering on additional mechanics with each level that passes ? there are nine in total ? until it feels like you?re being pummelled into a corner.
It?s an assault on the senses in every which way, which goes some ways to explaining that aforementioned rhythm violence label. Because what lends Thumper its intoxicating sense of wond...