What’s Good About: Thumper
Thumper. Thumper is a game that is described by its developers as a “rhythm violence” game. When I first told about this particular fact, my initial reaction was to squint real hard and try to make sense of this designation. Was it rhythm gameplay that played out violently? Or was it violence that was rhythmic in execution? That probably doesn’t make too much sense. What I’m saying is that Thumper is a rhythm game and a pretty dang interesting one at that.
The main conceit of Thumper is…I don't know? I know that it’s a rhythm game, but its audio/visual presentation is the main thing that jumps out at me. It gives off this dark, foreboding presence that can only be described as “an aura of dread” because that’s the main thing that I think about whenever I’ve tried to play it. If I had to describe it; it’s basically what would happen if you took the aesthetics (more specifically the visual style, use of color, and the lighting style) of Dario Argento and decided to make a video game out of them.
This is best shown within the limited tutorials that show you how to play. And after that, the game goes “Okay, you essentially know enough, have fun with all of this nightmare fuel!” This works out in the game’s favor because it leads to the action quicker and focuses there.
This approach to teaching the player is also complemented by the introduction of the game’s scoring system. The way the scoring system works is that it gauges how often you kill enemies and get perfect note hits. This goes a long way to introducing a way to seek mastery of the game’s mechanics because it changes the way the game is played so drastically; that leads to a better incentivization to replay levels for better scores and progression grades as well as instilling the idea of mastering the gameplay to get through it as fast as possible. These are all awesome ways to encourage replayability and I am honestly kicking myself for not playing the game sooner, or more importantly when it first came out.
This increased awareness of mastery is also tied to Thumper’s sound design as well. This game has a strong sound design that ties into the gameplay, which sounds silly when said out loud because as a Rhythm game, you kind of need that. But what I mean is that the perfect note hits add an extra chime that helps you keep the rhythm of the gameplay in line with the rhythm of the music. This is important in the later levels and sections because some of the levels pick up in terms of speed and it can get chaotic. Especially the bosses which can sometimes look like MC Escher paintings on LSD coming off of a cocaine high, or more realistically (relatively speaking that is), like those web creatures from the end of the second season of Reboot if they were made today.
All of this comes together to make a rhythm game that’s fun to play, but also kind of a lot in the best way imaginable if you like to chase high scores and change up your approach to games as I do. If that’s the case, give Thumper a shake. You’ll be in for a treat. Oh, and it also has VR support, so if you get it on either the PS4 or Steam, you can experience the visual trippiness first hand.
All Images, as usual, are from https://www.igdb.com/games/thumper/presskit
