One of my favorite parts of creating songs is the middle eight, which is commonly described as a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” point in the song. By now the music has acquired a framework, which we’ve enjoyed for a few minutes. Both the lines and the chorus are familiar to us. In general, we assume we know what to expect. And all of a sudden, we’re in a different place. groups of voices. Angels. We’re wiping the tears from our eyes, Elvis. An old motif turned odd and inside out. curled in on itself, sped up, and slowed down. As for now? Yes, this is the situation that exists at the ranch.
Almost as much as I enjoy a nice middle eight on its own, I adore this explanation of middle eights. I adore it because it implies that a song is a trip, and that we are traveling alongside and inside of it as we listen to it develop. We also get a little surprise when the middle eight comes around because the ground we’re traversing changes.
Not all songs require a middle eight, nor do all songs have one. However, they were on my mind a lot when I was playing the game Rytmos, where you trace paths over the environment with each piece of music. Actually, these roads are mazes. These mazes frequently resemble figure eights, which I think is a great example of unintentional harmony. However, the “eight” itself is not significant. What matters, or what seems significant while I’m engrossed in this enchanted, absorbing, mind-blowing game, are the loops in the figure eight. What’s interesting is that the music begins someplace and ends up back where it began, but it does it in an unexpected way.
A musical puzzle game is called Rytmos. After realizing that I would have to lean forward into the screen to play it, I switched from playing it on my PC to the Switch. It must be grasped in the hands. It requires the tangible elements and unique creative energy that portable games foster. It’s a basic notion. You begin at the beginning of each level, with many towers rising out of the surrounding earth. In order to complete the task, you must first draw a line from the beginning and attempt to link it with the towers before returning to the beginning.
The line in Rytmos will follow your chosen path until it encounters an obstruction. It can cross itself, but it can only end back at the beginning because the game is a puzzle. Every tower the line goes through in Rytmos causes a sound to play over the game’s soundtrack because it is a music game. The noises you trigger increase with the number of towers you strike, and when you go to the next level in a suite, the sounds from the previous level will continue to play. You are essentially creating a track as you progress through a series of stages in this game, which has an instrument-like and sequencer-like feel to it. It feels a lot like fishing for music, actually, with your line meandering through enchanted waters and joining one mote of shimmering, shuffling sound after another.
Observe: Rytmos is a really good puzzler. Among the greatest I’ve played in a long time. This is partly due to the intricacies that are present in each level set. For example, in one level, you have to move back and forth across the playing field to find paths for your line, and in another, there may be teleporters that allow you to move your line from one location to another while maintaining its momentum and direction.
These kinds of concepts are abundant in Rytmos, yet they are kept fun rather than irritating. Put differently, it becomes intricate, but it never presents a riddle that is impervious to a little exploration and inquiry.
For what reason is this the case? I believe it’s because you may move the line in four different directions, some of which are bound to be non-starters, which finally filters out the intricacies of the game. You may be rational, and during Rytmos I began to identify helpful places in the terrain—spaces that indicated if a turn was feasible or not, for example—but in reality, with just four options, the answer to a challenging issue is sometimes as simple as taking a different route. Because of this, Rytmos reminds me a lot of the verbal, nonverbal problem solving that comes from taking walks.
“I’ll just read two more poems” is what you want to hear when someone reads poetry, according to a quote by Geoff Dyer. And, secretly, that’s occasionally the case with puzzle games as well: although I recognize the ingenuity, I also frequently look forward to reflecting on my experience with the game, if that makes sense. Sometimes appreciating a smart concept in theory and memory is simpler than putting it into practice and experiencing it firsthand. In any case, I didn’t experience this with Rytmos. It really made me a little sad when a puzzle was solved since it’s so much fun to just poke a hole in them. Once more, you may approach them logically as well as whimsically—a variety of strategies that, in my opinion, have a lot of musical similarities.
In this case, that’s crucial. Is Rytmos this simple? That’s a little off. Instead, Rytmos is aware of the moments you should cherish: when a puzzle pieces together (usually in the shape of a figure eight) or when a series of triggered noises reaches a certain volume and becomes a piece of music. The riddles do not wish to interfere with the music that you are all working together on.
And for me, it’s this that elevates Rytmos from a fantastic puzzle game to an all-time favorite. Playing this game is like having a conversation with someone who shares your passion for music. I had the impression that the game was purposefully pushing me to learn more about this subject while I was playing.
OK. Every puzzle in Rytmos is located on one side of a puzzle that resembles a broken space cube that you must gradually assemble. Once one problem is solved, new surfaces with their own puzzles fall into place. When you complete six of them, a cube—a logical musical composition—is created. When you step back, you see that the cube is actually a planet circling a star. Every star contains three planets, which translates to three puzzle sets and three musical compositions. But most importantly, every star has a theme. Rytmos transports us musically over the globe via the galaxy.
You’re playing Hawaiian music from the mid-1900s, and there’s a celebrity there. You’re exploring Indonesian traditional Gamelan music under a star. Of course, that suite of levels featuring the teleporters is 1970s German techno music. Neu around the solar system! Not only do the puzzles teach you about these traditions, but they also let you experience them firsthand as you piece together a level, feeling the rhythms and the sorts of decisions that each tradition promotes. Furthermore, by following those repeated figure eights, you may be able to discern some of the more universal melodic themes that, maybe, unite all of these traditions.
You get one instrument to play with as a prize for finishing each planet. I really like that you can record your own loops and save them in a record crate. That’s fantastic. But the true benefit is the realization that all of this stuff actually exists—at least for someone like me, who is naive and a little tin-eared. In addition to introducing me to some music I was already aware with (surfy Hawaiian guitars and all that Neu! ), Rytmos also introduced me to Ethiopian jazz and provided me with the names of the artists I should start looking up if I wanted to learn more about this genre on my own. How delightful. This puzzle game suspended in space has spawned playlists, emails to former acquaintances, sharing, and borrowing. to ponder the connections between seemingly unrelated objects and their origins.