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#PGCHelsinki: Polybeats is the winner of the Very Big Indie Pitch

Shape to the beat

#PGCHelsinki: Polybeats is the winner of the Very Big Indie Pitch

Polybeats is as mix between a rhythm action game and a tower defender. It's beat-based, and sees you battling back waves of shapes as they encroach on your central hub.

You need to play it with headphones on, but it's a worthwhile experience. The chunky dance music thumps and thrums as the simple neon graphics pulsate.

Each shape has its own beat, and when you tap on the screen at that point, you'll create an rapidly increasing box that represents it.

That shape will destroy any similar shape that's floating towards your base. But if it touches another attacker, or catches the edge of your safe zone, it'll disappear.

Tapping in time with the music is the key to your success, but it's a tricky skill to master, and not one I manage to master in the short time I get to play the game.

But what I do see certainly has me interested. This is a fresh take on a couple of genres, and it mixes their ideas together in an energetic and honest way.

The deeper you get into the game, the more shapes are thrown in your direction, and the quicker they race in from the edges of the screen.

You can up the difficulty by adding extra shapes as well, and things get interestingly chaotic when the screen's filling up and the cacophonous racket is bashing away at your ear drums.

Very Big Indie Pitches are all about finding games that coruscate with new ideas, and that's just what Polybeats does. Quite often literally.

You can read about the other entrants here.

Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.