The second week of Sony's six-week “PlayStation Mobile New Year Giveaway” offer is here, giving anyone with access to both a PlayStation-certified mobile device/Vita and the internet another PlayStation Mobile title to download for free. This week it's Beats Slider, an incredibly frustrating slider puzzle game with a musical twist.
In this game, the sliders must be arranged in colour-coded rows that each represent a MIDI pattern. Beats from different instruments continually pump through the lines, but when you line them up properly you get the full effect of all the combinations together. According to the managing director of FuturLab, James Marsden:
So what we’ve done is allow the player to push a drum loop MIDI pattern into a synthesizer slot, or a melody pattern into a bass line track, and every combination you could think of within the limits of each level. It was quite the brain teaser to write music that can be rearranged in this way whilst still sounding good, but we managed it.
This game is apparently supposed to help teach players how to solve these slider puzzles in other contexts, but it doesn't seem to be doing me much good on that front so far. If you think you could handle it, head to the PlayStation Store before next Wednesday and download it – after all, it's free.
