By its nature, music is not dynamic. You can listen to the same song a hundred times and it’ll never change. As such, its relationship with video games has been rather tenuous, and audio remains the only aspect of entertainment that video games have failed to crack. That is, until Sound Shapes.
Sound Shapes is a 2D platformer in which music plays a unique role. You play as a circular blob (think Mutant Blobs Attack) traversing colorful platforms to reach a record player at the end of each level. You can stick to some surfaces — though the game does a poor job of communicating which ones — and touching anything red is lethal.
Unlike other 2D platformers, Sound Shapes isn’t sidescrolling, and instead takes place on a series of static screens. Each screen contains notes (read: coins), which you can collect. Collecting these notes adds a small snippet of melody or a drum beat to the music. As you progress across a screen, the music becomes more complete.
The interaction with sound doesn’t stop there. The various objects in the game can also contribute to the music. A creature might make a noise when you jump on it, or when it shoots a deadly laser, or sometimes just when it moves, which may be dynamic based on the player’s location or in a predefined rhythm. If it moves, it most likely makes a sound.
The levels start off simple, but as they become more complicated, you’ll occasionally reach a zen moment in which an entire room’s complexities are distilled into a beat, and you can hear what’s going on. Rather than memorizing enemy patterns and trying to time your movement around them, you’ll listen to the music, comprehend a level, and move accordingly. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between. It’s rare that a level can click in such a way, and when it does happen, it doesn’t last long.
That said, most things in Sound Shapes don’t last very long. The campaign mode, which features 20 levels across five visually and aurally distinct worlds, can be completed in under three hours. There isn’t much of a difficulty curve at all, until you reach the aptly named Death Mode, at which point it’s more of a brick wall than a curve.
Indeed, Death Mode is sadistic. You’re tasked with collecting a given number of notes in a limited time without dying. The notes are randomly placed, which means success often comes from lucky placement of notes, rather than mastering the level. Death Mode neglects what makes the campaign great, which is hearing how different platforming elements can combine to make music. Instead, it takes place on a single screen, and the notes you collect don’t contribute to the music.
Given Sound Shapes’ subject matter, it’s unsurprising that the soundtrack is phenomenal. I Am Robot and Proud, deadmau5, Beck and Jim Guthrie lend their talents to make a soundtrack that sounds diverse, and is made that much more special by how intimately you can interact with each track.
While Sound Shapes’ simple, vibrant aesthetic does look great, its visuals can be distracting. Flashing circles and nearly seizure-inducing colors occasionally made it hard to keep track of where I was. Furthering the game’s mechanical problems are its control issues. I found it difficult to accurately aim my jumps when rolling along a sticky wall or ceiling. These issues are minor and quite rare, but frustrating nonetheless.
Sound Shapes comes with a robust level editor, in which just about anything you see in the campaign can be used to create levels. However, the community has yet to produce too many quality levels, and is instead more interested in recreating themes from other video games. So far I’ve already found seven levels inspired by Mario. The key to a good creation community is to give the best levels more exposure, but Sound Shapes doesn’t have particularly effective mechanisms for doing so.
Sound Shapes is a delightful platformer that ends too soon. Its additional modes and features don’t give it some much needed longevity, but the core campaign is enjoyable and unique. With an incredible soundtrack and a slick visual style, Sound Shapes is certainly worth a look.
Tested on PS3