Name: Sonic Breakbeat Ӣ Rating: Way Cool Ӣ Format: Online Software Ӣ Play
Classic Breakout with a musical purpose. The audio-game Sonic Breakbeat is not that different from the early video game Breakout. You move a paddle back and forth along the bottom of the screen, bouncing a small ball up into a series of blocks, until you’ve eliminated all of the blocks. What programmer Justin Bakse has done, ingeniously, is to associate various sound elements to the blocks, and to time those elements so that the game runs as one single continuous rhythmic and melodic sequence. The instructions read, in part, like basic music theory for pop-song writers: “Hitting blocks that contain the same sample builds anticipation; anticipation yields excitement when a new sample is played.”