Music Catch, a daring experiment from Reflexive Entertainment, is a game based around the simplest of simple mechanics: collecting stuff. All you do is move a little orb around, grabbing the shapes that pour forth from a rotating white line. Green/blue shapes are worth points. Yellow shapes increase your point multiplier and make your orb grow larger ("Yellow shapes are good!" the game yelps at you during the nearly unnecessary prologue). Red shapes cut your multiplier in half ("Red shapes are bad!") and shrink you back down. Purple shapes are the Holy Grail—they temporarily grant you a vortex that sucks in all the good shapes and gives your score a massive injection. Your goal is to pull down the highest point total you can within the game's four-minute life span.
That wouldn't be much of a game by itself, but the whole thing is set to music—a transcendent classical piano piece (by Reflexive staff member Isaac Shepard) that could hold your attention single-handedly. The shapes appear in ebb and swell to the accompaniment, diving from foreground to background in a shifting aquamarine rainbow. You'll never catch them all; the most you can hope for is to ride the wave, soaking up as much as possible, darting for extra substance where it appears. In other words, the gameplay is much like listening to an enriching piece of music.
No, really. The gameplay is like listening to music. Having to avoid the red shape ambushes is a bit of a stretch, maybe, but the rest of the metaphor is fine. Really great music forces you pay attention, to follow the thread of mood, to surf. If you move through the music skillfully, you gradually swell up—with emotion in real life, with mass in the game—even more so if you can anticipate where the composition is going next. Perhaps the red shapes represent a loss of concentration, the way you can lose your grip on a song and work to re-attach yourself.
Now available:
Music Catch for iPhone/iPod Touch!
Maybe there's no intended metaphor at all. The high score medals, and the overly enthusiastic words that appear when you get a special shape ("Yikes!" "Fantastic!" "Purple Power!") suggest that the whole thing is meant pretty lightly; or else Reflexive lost confidence at some point and decided to make it more traditionally game-like. But regardless, there is something deeply stirring at the heart of this shallow, four-minute excursion; something that says
from this. Nothing more.
Take your deepest breath,
and it will move you.
First?
This is incredible, really. It's like... i don't know. Sitting outside in the summer at night. In a game. With shapes dropping from the sky.
One of the best games you have reviewed so far. I've been coming to your site for years and this is one of my favorites!!!!
It's very relaxing, and the music is brilliant! 10/10
This is just one of those things that makes you feel very content with the world and everything in it. It doesn't push you or demand a great deal from you, but you can enjoy it so much anyway.
More games need to be like this.
This is a pretty fun game and it calmed me down so much. Really has a great ambiance and music is great. It attracted me in first 30seconds of music. fun game still
Great! I love these kind of games, simple but relaxing.
I just love how the size of the shapes is dependent on both the intensity and volume of the music! The louder and more complex it is, the bigger all your shapes are, which means that they're easier to catch, but it also makes the red ones bigger, and easier to lose your multiplier.
A really solid and enjoyable game, though I think that I can only play it so many times in one day.
Is there anyway to just get the song from the game? Or if it wasn't made for the game, can someone give me the title? It's really beautiful.
The second time I played the game I just listened to the song itself, and payed no attention to the gameplay.
Think I might just have to listen to it again...
Disregard my last comment, the reflexive website has it for download, just go to the Music Catch webpage there, http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=WebGameDetail&WGID=94&CAT=Search
The song is called "Before Dawn", and it is by Isaac Shepard, from his Piano album called "Swept Away."
You have to be a member of the site to download it, but it is a free sign up, so if you want it, it's not really much trouble.
Oh that's quite lovely. I played it a couple of times without sound because my husband doesn't cope well with computer speakers, and that was pleasant enough. With sound it is really nice. And I didn't think I would get better at it with practice, but I do (or else my luck improves). Sigh, now it is time for bed. Gosh, there aren't many really calming casual games . . .
A lovely game. Not a descriptor often used but this game, the music, the colours, make it so.
What a great find - so soothing. Thank you :)
troubles just didn't exist for the time i played. i just want to give you a big smile for sharing this.
What a wonderful game this is and how difficult it is to explain goodness of it to someone who hasnt played yet (you gather geometric shapes with bubble? your worse enemy is simple red shape instead of steel-covered zombie with flamethrower?).
My face hurts from smiling, and I got goosebumps when I saw my score go over 1500000. I don't think a game has done that to me before.
I always enjoy your reviews. You're an incredible writer.
Kinda boring gameplay, but still I keep playing :)
Nice simple graphics and music, and they fit nicely together.
For people who really enjoyed this one... what is the replay value anyway?
For my part, it certainly wasn't bad, but I didn't get anything special out of it either. Maybe if there were more than one song available and if the stream of shapes were a little less constant, changing more with the music, I would have liked it more. Then maybe I would have felt like I was interacting with the piece more? Who knows.
i luv your site. And this game is just so calming. its relaxing yet invigorating. luv the music alot
I love simple Ideas, and I love (and more importantly learn and play) music. So just upon seeing the name and image of ¨Music-Catch¨ I started smiling. Yet I was rather disappointed after clicking the link.
The game focuses, as you explained, on creating atmosphere. The music is supposed to be a big part of it. However, It seems to me that the music was repetitive, boring and unimaginative. You could almost hear Elton John tapping the keyboards (This is a bad thing) and thinking how this over-used chords are brilliant. At some point, the creator must have thought ¨wow, this harmonic sequence is such a horrible cliché, let's do it again and again and again!¨. You'd expect at least some kind of modulation, development - something. Even in Orisinal's most cheap game-soundtracks there was still a change at some point. This one however stayed the same and was a complete package of expected banality.
For other people this might have been a wonderful game and really put them in that atmosphere it tries to achieve. I only felt revulsion - This isn't music! this is just an everyday-pop-song which consists of no interesting aspect whatsoever!! It has no Structural value, no harmonic value and no rhythmic value! Its not ¨a transcendent classical piano piece¨, Its simple-minded rubbish!
p.s.
I realize I feel that way mainly because I am studying music, So I'll probably get some replies of people telling me its not supposed to be Mozart. I know that, and I still think it could be much better. Doing so is not even hard.
THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL... i might even make a website just to put this game on it. but i have to go eat breakfeast first...
I really like this one.
First time through it was relaxing, but I played it again for a good score and by the time in was on a 78x combo I was on edge! Very nicely done though. Good find.
As far as I can figure, there are two parts to the replay value. One is the music, which quickly becomes familiar (I think because the song is sort of internally repetitive), but familiar in a comforting way rather than an irritating way. Sort of like a lullaby, you know it will always be the same. The other part of replay value is getting yet another higher score. If you're really hot stuff and get 1.5 million on the second go, then I guess that doesn't matter so much, but it's surprising how much better I get at the game play over time (my score seems to reflect my record better than my impression of how well I did). And I actually really like having the reflexive.com site suggest how good I am in tiered categories, because leaderboards only give a few people the impression that they're improving (after a while everybody else gets sunk in the tide of a few people rising).
On my first try, I got a GOLD MEDAL. Really good concept for a game, nice and relaxing. Normally, I would suggest adding more crazy power-ups and the like, but I wouldn't want to take away from the serene feel. As good as it is, it would be 20 times better if you could upload and use your own mp3s, but that would probably be really hard to do with an in-browser flash game. I salute them for innovation.
+1 for this game, when I read the words "music catch" I though I bet this once again a techno sh**. I was wrong, this is good :)
Beautiful!
It doesnt start.
Blank black field where the game supposed to be.
I tried FF & IE. Same sith.
P.S. Yes i checked that, my computer is on.)
[Edit: Javascript must be enabled. If that doesn't help, trying updating your Flash player. -Jay]
Beautiful game. Not what I'd expect from Reflexive.
Speaking of game sites, what's up with Big Fish? Somebody trip over an outlet cord?
I have not had any problem accessing Big Fish at all. Possibly an interweb malfunction?
I've noticed an increase in net splits (not sure if that's the proper term) occurring over the last couple of months. This generally happens when one network provider (eg. Level3) refuses to forward traffic to another. This can cause requests to time out.
You can try doing a trace route to see where the fault is occurring.
Since 2 days ago Big Fish just won't load. Must be what you said.
I'm no internets specialist so this Frankenstein tinkering is gonna be weird.
I'm afraid I have to agree with yuval on the music - at first it sounds like a calming, nice piece, but after a while it becomes mawkish, repetitive and mildly irritating, as generic a 'calming' piece as is possible, without enough life or originality to it to lift it from the bowels of mediocrity. Which is a little hostile, but I've just finished playing it again and I'm feeling on edge.
Which is a shame, because I actually really enjoyed the game and have played it several times - the game-play is simple but requires some thought and skill, the multiplier/penalty system works very well in the context, and getting those elusive purple shapes is wonderfully satisfying. The idea behind it is an intriguing one and the tiered scores provides an incentive for replay (appealing to that strange quirk of human psychology that makes racking up points a game in and of itself.)
Clearly, this games failings are a matter of personal taste, centered on the music. Some people will enjoy the music, and achieve the calm atmosphere the game intends to convey. Others will dislike it, and thus spend the game tense and slightly annoyed. I do like this game a lot, and I will play it again in search of higher tiers, but the music will annoy me every time. If the developers were perhaps to toy with the idea of expanding the selection of pieces available I, for one, would be right behind that.
(Honestly? The main distraction for me was actually the piano the piece was performed on. It sounded slightly weird, badly maintained or something. Kept making me wince on the high notes.)
This game is just wonderful; so relaxing and soothing. The music is stunning. I managed to get the star medal thing after my first try, but I'm nowhere near today's high score (which is something crazy like 289459084 -- HOW is that possible?!).
I just wish that this had more than one level -- perhaps an increasing level of difficulty. Extra bonuses. A selection of songs, also! It'd be awesome if they were from the composer's album. Or! Songs from a variety of genres!
So yeah, as much as I enjoy playing this game, I sincerely wish there was more variety in order to heighten the replay value.
Great review. :)
It was a hosts file that blocked me, Jay. Got rid of it.
Russian nerd scientist - "I am invincible!!"
Simple and charming. I love the fact that the reds dont kill you, so if you catch one by mistake it is fine, you simply carry on.
The music reminds me strongly of a piece from a Ferry Halim game - but the game itself is quite wonderful, very relaxing and... well, zen-ish, since you know it lasts ~4 min, and not more... a masterpiece. 5/5
The bad thing about this game is that it's actually a game of chance - in 15-16 matches I barely arrived at 180000, this last match yellow stuff just kept coming out and - wham! 310000?!? A score I don't think I'll ever reach again. It's a shame, the chances should be a little bit more balanced. Great game all the same.
Love the music, love the graphics
and also, I love PURPLE POWER :D
which is the song's name?
Anyone have a link to the album this guy apparently has?
So... I can hear the music. It's great. Soothing and all...but there are no shapes to collect!? Just a greyish line that moves across the screen. Anyone else have this problem?
here is Issac on youTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WacQPh_w-Rw
Anon: yeah. it's happening for me too. and i don't even get the music o_0
I really love the music. It's so soothing, and I think it's a really great piece as I love piano pieces. Relaxing..
HEY!!! has anyone have the songsheets for this song?? i love it... i wanna try playing it too.... its so cool.. what is the name of this song anyways? does anyone know? i tried playing it by ear... its quite difficult... i can't even reach the middle of this song.. ZZ it sounds so romantic so i'm gonna play it for my girlfriend when i can finish it.. if anyone knows the name of the song plEASE TELL ME!!! it'll be a big help.. or did the guy who played the piano just randomly played something.. then i'm doomed.. finishing the song by ear isn't gonna be easy... oh 2703345 on my first try.. somebody help me!!
Beautiful!
My score is: 483292
lol
Very nice game....
gahh, There needs to be more levels, IU like the song alot thought. :3 but i got bored of it the second time.. )):
Wow... This game is incredible. Very relaxing. 10/10.
First time score: 1494836
Beautiful. Just beautiful. :)
As I was scrolling down to make my comment, I already knew what I wanted to type, and there in front of my eyes were my thoughts exactly, succintly expressed by Spazz. At the risk of repetition, my response to Music Catch is:
Just Beautiful.
I see from the comments it must be amazing, but unfortunately, it won't load for me. :'(
Update