Rytmos

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Rytmos is a family-friendly Puzzle game with a strong musical component released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game has players solving puzzles to piece back together exploded roughly cube-shaped planets in a galaxy, with each planet representing a specific instrument, and each solar system representing a different worldwide musical style.

The visual presentation in Rytmos is pretty abstract. You’re clearly piecing together cubical “planets” in a series of “solar systems”, but the 3D planets themselves are designed in a way that makes them look like wooden block puzzles with pegs sticking out of them, and their smooth design makes them look highly stylized. It’s a look that works well enough for the game, though it’s nothing special.

Before going on, I should note that even though Rytmos is a highly musical game, it is not a Music-Rhythm game. Players who are tone-deaf and rhythmically-challenged will not find this game any more difficult to play. Rather, the musical element of this game adds a pleasant diegetic element to the gameplay, with parts of the puzzle adding to the somewhat abstract diegetic music that forms the game’s “soundtrack” (for lack of a better word). In addition, for those who care to read up on the instruments and musical styles this game features, there are helpful little snippets throughout the game, making Rytmos a very light lesson in music history as well.

However, all of that is just dressing over the game’s main gameplay, which involves creating a looping line that hits all of the nodes on a given side of the cubical world you’re working on and then returning back to the source. In essence, the gameplay in Rytmos is a glorified block-sliding Puzzle. However, not to sell it short, the puzzle design is clever enough to make that work pretty well, and even make for some fiendishly clever and creative puzzles.

And for those who prefer to play around with sounds, each completed puzzle will let players mess around with that puzzle’s instrument via an on-screen interface, and even record a simple repeating melody to go with the backing track being played by the world itself. It’s not even remotely close to a Music Creation Application, but it’s a nice addition to the game, all the same.

As Puzzle games go, I don’t think Rytmos is likely to blow any minds, but I think fans of the genre will still find this to be a pleasant and well-designed entry into the genre, and those who are more musically-inclined are likely to appreciate this game’s tour of various instruments and musical styles from around the world. If this sounds at all appealing to you, I think you may find Rytmos worth trying out.

tl;dr – Rytmos is a family-friendly Puzzle game with a heavy musical component, though it isn’t a Music-Rhythm game. Rather, this game gives players a stylish take on the classic sliding block puzzle, but one with clever puzzle design that combines with this game’s museum-like tour of different worldwide musical instruments and genres, resulting in an enjoyable Puzzle game that musically-inclined fans in particular will likely find appealing.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Puzzle Game

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