Lost in music

Lilt Line is a music game from the underground. App store link

In this music game everything works a little different. The first obvious difference is that the music is really good for a change. It was produced by 16bit and it’s not at all pop-songs, it’s dubstep. Music is always hard to describe – you better listen to a snip of “PCP” by 16bit:

The second difference are the controls. You control the end of a thin white line up and down by tilting the phone left to right. This is a strange twist of directions but it works fine. While the music is playing an abstract pathway made of colour gradients moves to the left underneath the line. Your task is to keep the line on the pathway. When it touches the edges, you will hear a disturbing noise overlaying the music.

Occasionally white vertical bars appear. They are rhytm events and move to the left with the pathway. Tap them when they intersect the thin white line. But something is twisted again here. They usually don’t mark the bassdrum, they focus on other, more dubstep related beats. And it’s actually not about the moment you tap them, it’s rather about the moment of releasing your finger which fits the music style very well. If you miss a marker, the music will turn down and ony return to full volume if you catch the next marker.

In this game you don’t make points, you start with a number of points and you’ll lose them if you make mistakes. If you run out of points the level ends. You’re not asked if you want to retry the level, the game automatically restarts it, which is cool I think. The graphical style, the colours, the countdown before the level starts and the production of the menu elements are rough but funky. They fit the underground vibe.

This is really a special music game. I really like the music and playing the game. There are enough levels and it’s fun to play the same level over and over again.

App store link and developer link: Different Cloth