‘COLORMUSE’ Absorbs Colored Shots While Blasting Instruments

COLORMUSE is all about trying to put on a jazz show. Except you need to shoot out-of-tune instruments for the show to go on.

Staccato and Legato are just trying to put on a nice performance, but for whatever reason, a bunch of irate drums, harps, and trumpets are having none of it and storm the stage. And start opening fire. It’s video games, folks. We don’t ask a lot of questions, we just start shooting back. Thankfully, you have the useful ability to absorb bullets that are the same color as your character (if you’ve played Ikaruga, you likely have a good idea what this means). You’ve got a red and a blue character, and there are red and blue shots all over the screen. Carefully navigate the storm of shots by switching characters constantly and you might make it to the end of the onslaught.

Since you can freely absorb shots of the same color, you might be thinking that this can’t be too hard since there are only two different colored shots on-screen at a given time. However, the screen is often just filled with shots, needing you to carefully thread yourself through the bullet patterns while carefully changing colors to survive. A single hit can end your whole run (although thankfully the runs are fairly short), so there’s no room for mistakes. Unless you don’t mind having your score reset. The game isn’t totally ruthless if you just want to see the end. You just won’t be touching the leaderboards until you’re perfect.

COLORMUSE offers you a relentless five minutes of color-swapping action as you try not to get killed by hostile cellos. Absorbing shots sees you continually reassessing the field to find the best route to safety, and since this is also tied to the strength of your own shots (absorbing like-colored bullets makes you stronger), it encourages you to put yourself in danger at the same time. This creates a deadly tightrope to walk that makes the game a lot of fun to play while also incredibly tense.

COLORMUSE is available now (for free) on itch.io.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.