Eric Richter ’23
What is an Indie game?
An indie game is a video game typically made by either one person or a smaller team that doesn’t have the financial support of most companies.
Rhythm Doctor
Rhythm Doctor is a genre of game that isn’t seen or talked about much in the industry, a rhythm game. It’s a shame too because many of these types of games go mostly unnoticed despite having delightful music and gameplay to suit. Rhythm Doctor is one of them and a great one at that.
The gameplay is simple yet intuitive because of the wondrous and vast music provided. The only button required to play the game is the space bar as it mostly consists of timing each press to the “heartbeat” of the patient. There’s many different types of beats; the “seven beats” have six beats played in which the player must time their press to the seventh. There’s also basic “one-two” beats that have the player time the button press on each second beat. Each “heartbeat” also follows the song’s own beat, making it very satisfying to hit every beat correctly.
The story isn’t the most grandiose out there, but it’s straight, to the point, and sweet. The overall simple and fun nature of the game makes it easy to pick up for a few minutes and enjoy, without being too time consuming. The mechanics stay fresh and new throughout the game as new beats, mechanics, and distractions are introduced within almost every level. These include special boss stages that have you fighting a virus that usually glitches out the screen and music, making it harder to tell the beat and relies on the player’s own sense of rhythm to overcome.
Rhythm Doctor in its current state as an “Early Access” title is pretty short, however, there is still a lot of replay value in it with optional S+ ranks that signifies a perfect completion for that stage which is very difficult. There are also custom stages that can be downloaded online and it’s even quite simple to make one with a very intuitive built in level designer. Not to mention the levels are just fun to play in general with its great music.
All that for 15.99$ when the game isn’t even finished yet is very worth it, especially considering the small team behind it. It is highly rated on steam and even if the game doesn’t sound like it’s for you, at least check out the OST on Youtube which is totally free and, who knows, you might find a track that you really like. At the very least appreciate the work put into the game with such a small development team that put their heart and soul into it.
The Salesian Spectator 