Sonority by Hanging Gardens Interactive

Sonority is a worthy addition to the area of interest however intriguing subgenre of music-based journey video games. While its New Age fairy story vibe could be a bit hit-or-miss, relying in your aesthetic preferences, its environmental puzzle design is spectacular, each when it comes to its pacing and the best way the musical components improve the mechanics with out requiring any prior musical information or capacity.

Practice Your Scales and Your Scaling

Sonority’s puzzles are all based mostly on some variation of intervals, or the gap between particular person notes. Plotting out a musical phrase may transfer a wall up or down, for instance, relying on whether or not the interval is upward – a low notice following the next one, in different phrases – or downward.

The larger the interval, the better the change within the atmosphere. Going from C to D – or “do” to “re” should you discovered your notes from The Sound of Music – may elevate a step so you’ll be able to climb to the next degree, whereas an F all the way down to an A may remodel a looming cliff to an easily-stepped-over curb.

The lovely factor right here is that it’s all simply fundamental math: three steps down is a couple of step down – no music concept background required – so it’s simple to know that central idea. As the sport progresses, although, extra notes enhance your energy, and extra twists, like environmental options that rotate reasonably than elevating or reducing, present constructing blocks for extra difficult puzzles.

The Muppets Visit the Lost City of the Inca

All of this climbing, elevating, exploring, and musical composition serves a story that feels a bit like a contemporary fairy story and has a vaguely Precolombian-by-way-of-Jim-Henson vibe to its visuals. Protagonist Esther, with a pan flute in her hand and a poncho on her again, is exploring a misplaced metropolis, a secret haven the place mankind and animals alike as soon as lived as equals, united by the ability of music, and he or she hopes to discover a magical track with the ability to heal her greatest buddy, who occurs to be a bear.

Both the earth tone coloration palette and the presence of jolly singing stones and magical animals jogged my memory of Jim Henson, as talked about, and Labyrinth particularly, and it’s by and enormous a beautiful sport to discover, its environments vivid and vivid however subdued sufficient that the general temper is mellow reasonably than nerve-racking.

As for the music, nicely…I did point out that our hero wields a pan flute, proper? So so far as music-themed video games go, don’t expect the icy digital intellectualism of Fract OSC, a lot much less the heavy metallic mayhem of Valfaris. Think extra Peruvian flute ensemble; that’s not a nasty factor, although, and matches with the mysterious but laid-back vibe of the sport as a complete.

Sweet Song

That mentioned, every thing from the voice performing to the story itself falls proper on the road between whimsical and twee, so your enjoyment of Sonority could depend upon whether or not speaking animals provide you with a way of childlike pleasure or just an upset abdomen. Personally, I’m not at all times a fan of twee, however I’m prepared to miss lots if there’s a speaking raccoon – blame Guardians of the Galaxy, I assume – and Sonority has one, so there you go.

There’s additionally lots to be mentioned for the puzzles – the one a part of this sport that really has some edge to it – and the best way they incorporate every thing from the musical components of Lucasfilm Games’ basic Loom to extra modern indie choices like The Talos Principle. Developers Hanging Gardens Interactive do an exquisite job ramping up complexity with a intentionally restricted set of mechanics, and the problem curve is finely tuned: laborious sufficient for head-scratching however not so laborious it offers me an precise headache.

Definitely value taking part in even should you don’t like pan flutes (and should you do, even higher)!

Sonority is on the market through Steam.

Watch the trailer for Sonority beneath: