Auditorium!

Auditorium

I think I linked this when Tycho over at Penny Arcade talked about it. Or linked it, as it were. Looking through my archives I couldn't find the post though, so maybe I didn't. You'd think you'd be able to Google search your own posts through Blogger; I found no such thing.

Anyways: Auditorium. It's a simple premise -- there's a flow of something and you have to use directional arrows to push that flow into other somethings to make music.

Actual screenshots

The music is composed solely for the game and is incredibly well made. Very soothing and despite hearing it for quite a long time during some levels -- it is a puzzle game, afterall -- I don't think I've ever heard it skip or go out of rhythm. It's seamless. I would pay for the soundtrack alone for reading and ambient music.

The reason I bring this up again is because yesterday the full game went live. The trial I had played before was amazingly fun and the real game is even better -- plus it now allows you to save your progress via the account that is created when you buy the game. This makes it less difficult to pull away from since you don't lose your progress now, but the full game is about three times as long as the trial which makes saving progress somewhat necessary.

Happy to help new developers

The game is, simply put, fun. It's ingenious. I donated $5 a few months back because I wanted the free audio track offered with donations and figured I'd help some starting game developers out and I really wanted this game to be made; they repaid me with a free copy of the game, I am very surprised and grateful for. They're charging $10.99 on the site and think it's more than worth it. The game is solid; the music is beautiful; the puzzles are fun; the visuals are relaxing -- if you can spare it, support some game developers in this economy and purchase a copy. It's worth it.