You may be familiar with the Flash version of this game, Tunescape follows the same principle. Fragments of the music are thrown out of a planet in time to the music and you must collect them with your space ship to gain points. The larger the fragments, the more points you receive. To help rack up your score, star multipliers can be collected, but be careful of the meteors as they will remove stars if collided with.[singlepic id=1239 w=320 h=240 float=center]
Your ship has three power ups which are recharged by collecting coloured fragments. Green fragments enable a speed up ability which allows your ship to travel faster once activated. Yellow will activate a shield which is useful for avoiding meteors. Blue fragments will enable a gravity pull which will suck the fragments towards your ship allowing for easy collection of them.
Tunescape features 12 levels which are unlocked by collecting diamonds that are spawned once you gain a specified score. There are three diamonds per level and the challenge of gaining the scores provides some good replayability, especially for the third diamond on each level. While you do not need to collect every diamond to reach the twelfth stage, purists will find a decent challenge in doing so.
[singlepic id=1240 w=320 h=240 float=center]
The gameplay is essentially very simple which allows for a wide range of games players to participate in. You can’t die in this game which is great for newcomers, more experienced gamers will however find some great gameplay with trying to avoid meteors and black holes to keep their stars and earn the high scores. There are also some gameplay twists on some levels, for example a ball and chain style space ship which is initially tricky to control as it uses some physics to move around and collect fragments. The twists provide a welcome change to mix up the gameplay.
The included music is made up of a mix of dance, trance and classical styles and they all work very well. The dance style tunes are more upbeat and provide a regular stream of fragments to collect which results in a more faster paced game with opportunities to set some very high scores. The classical style tunes are more relaxed in pace, but still require some quick thinking as fragments tend to be less regular so collecting them all along with the stars is essential.
[singlepic id=1241 w=320 h=240 float=center]
Tunescape allows the ability to play your own music collection which can be streamed from your PC for example. I tried several songs from my collection and it works great, fragments are spawned in time to the music as you would expect, each song is different. I loved playing Drum & Bass songs as the regular beats and bass made for a very challenging game! A multiplayer mode for up to four players locally is also included and can be played co-operatively or competitively, I could only try with one additional player but it adds even more replayability.
Presentation is done well, the menu is easy to navigate and keeps in theme with the planetary feel to the game. Graphics look the part and are bright and colourful and there are some amazing moments when the music quietens down and comes back with an explosion of fragments when the music starts again. You could use this game as a simple music playing visualisation software and it would work just as well as the majority of visualisers currently on indie games.
[singlepic id=1242 w=320 h=240 float=center]
Unlocking the twelve levels will take a hour or two, collecting all the diamonds will add another hour or two once you have perfected your game. But thanks to the ability to use your own music, the lifespan could be seen as limited only by your music collection. Add in a decent multiplayer mode and you have a great little game. Tunescape costs 80 :MSPoints: which is excellent value for money and easily a recommended purchase!
More information on Tunescape as well as the trial and full versions of the game can be found on the Marketplace.
0
