Sound Shapes

Sound Shapes is a platformer in which the player does not collect coins but notes, and every note picked up instantly becomes part of the composition playing through the level. As the level progresses, the music layers up and grows; a simple rhythm becomes a full song, and the player feels as though they are composing it themselves through movement. The character you control is a simple ball that can stick to certain surfaces and detach from them, which turns movement into a question of timing whenever the platforms move in rhythm with the track.

The campaign is divided into albums, each with its own artist and its own musician, so they differ significantly not only in sound but also in visual style. One album looks like abstract graphics, another like an industrial landscape, another like a gloomy city. Well-known musicians and artists took part in creating them, giving the game a reputation as a project somewhere between a video game and a music album. Alongside the campaign, the title offers a fully featured editor where the player builds their own level and composition at the same time, since the placement of notes directly determines the melody. Modes focused on speed and survival are also included, using the same material in a considerably more aggressive way.

The Vita version launched alongside the PlayStation 3 release and offered shared progress between the two devices, an appealing novelty in 2012. The touchscreen makes the editor considerably more pleasant to use, and the handheld form suits a game whose individual levels last only a few minutes. Critics received the title very well, praising above all how naturally it linked playing with composing music without turning into a rhythm game in the usual sense. Sound Shapes remains one of the most original things ever released on the Vita, and stays one of the best examples of a game that is just as important to listen to as it is to play. With headphones on, it becomes an experience with few equivalents on a handheld console, and even after years it still manages to surprise with how naturally it weaves together movement, image and sound into a single whole.