I like to imagine there's an Oberlin burnout somewhere who's made a living getting bent on ayahuasca and pitching music-history based games to different companies. My hypothetical game designer, wide-eyed and euphoric, is responsible for games like Boom Boom Rocket, Eternal Sonata, Jazz: Trump's Journey [$2.99], and now Frederic --Resurrection of Music [$1.99/HD/Lite], by Forever Entertainment S.A.

In the first scene, set in present-day Paris, Fryderyk Chopin climbs out of his grave, speaks with the Muses, and rap-battles a French DJ with dual-wield keyboards and a jetpack. After this, he rides a horse-and-carriage to Jamaica and gets high with a reggae artist named Rob. Amazing.

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When I play a music game, the most important things I’m looking for are good music and approachable gameplay. Cytus [$0.99] by Rayark manages to nail both of those and even adds a little bit of visual flair on top of it. While Cytus does have a few small issues and miscues in regards to a few elements, it’s still great to play and is a worthy addition to the iOS rhythm genre.

Cytus plays similarly to Elite Beat Agents – note bubbles appear on your screen and must be tapped to the rhythm of the song. An ‘Active Scan Line’ moves up and down the screen to the beat of the song and helps you time the hits on each note. In addition to normal notes, the game also features holds and slides which add some variety to the gameplay. Hits are scored on a system ranging from ‘Perfect’ to ‘Bad’ with a final ranking at song completion dependent on the length of your hit chain and the amount perfect hits.

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This is cool, guys. Below, you'll get your first look at Beat Sneak Bandit's silhouette mode. There are four of these babies in every chapter, but you can only access them by collecting the "bonus" small clocks scattered about in every level. Developer Simogo is telling us that you'll unlock one for every ten clocks, and that these levels are locked away because they bolster the real challenge of the rhythm meets stealth title.

We aren't the only dudes digging Beat Sneak, by the way. It's up for Best Mobile Game in the IGF awards, and has received honorable mentions in Excellence in Visual Art, as well as Excellence in Audio. Not too shabby, eh? Then again, this is the studio behind Bumpy Road [$2.99]. So awesome.

Simogo's Bumpy Road [$2.99] is radical because it totally embraces the touch screen. On top of being a simple and gorgeous game, the play is stupendously clever. Touch the physics-enabled bit of road and it lifts, taking the playful car with it.

This purity of design might become something of a hallmark for the Swedish company. I've just spent some time with its upcoming title, Beat Sneak Bandit. It's as artful and as delightfully cutesy as Bumpy Road, and it boasts another kind of one-touch control that feels just as satisfying. Color me impressed.

Beat Sneak is a little abstract conceptually. I've started to think about it like this: it is what would happen if Kojima decided to marry 2D Metal Gear Solid to Grove Coaster [$.99], and knock out all of the former series' fat in the process.

In Beat Sneak, you control a bandit (duh) on a 2D plane in tightly constructed, object--filled vertical levels. Your goal is pretty basic: steal a huge clock without security systems or people detecting your presence.

What makes this interesting is the injection of puzzle mechanics and the game's unusual control method. You move lockstep, but only if you tap correctly to the level's beat. If you played Groove Coaster, imagine a scenario in which you were only able to access the next note if you correctly hit the previous one. This is how you move in the world.

Moving is simple, but devilish in practice: in addition to having to keep the beat, you'll need to avoid pitfalls -- sliding doors, strobing searchlights and other kinds of bandit-catching obstacles. In the game's first chapter, a lot of the mainline puzzle solutions can be boiled down to knowing when to wait for an opportunity to open. This is roughly the equivalent of resuming a Rock Band song midway through, so it ain't easy.

Another thing: there are other, smaller clocks in levels. If you're into optionals, you can grab these, too, but they require serious thought. You'll need to observe movement patterns at every turn, evaluate the best way to turn Beat Sneak the Character around, and then get him back to the main prize -- all without being caught.

In my demo session, I played through the entirety of the first chapter in the game and that took around 30 minutes. I failed a lot because I'm no music game master, but I also failed because the optional clocks are flat-out hard to obtain. I also noticed while I was doing all this failing, by the way, that there is a baby mode "skip" option that'll whisk you away into the next level with no penalty. Not even a tutu.

I think the biggest challenge facing Simogo is keeping players feeling the groove and in the moment as they ponder and then experiment with the environment. Music games are odd beasts in general, as the experience tends to snowball into an icky mess if you fumble the timing of a song.

Speaking of that, Beat Sneak's quirky music is fantastic. I also dig how the entire game seems to revolve around the beats and the general offbeat tone. In the trailer, you'll see how the bubbly world bobs and weaves with the music.

I'm overwhelmed by this idea. Conceptually, Beat Sneak is cool, and the execution on the remarkably pure concept seems to be panning out extremely well. We'll get our hands on a final version a little later this quarter when the game hits iOS.

We would argue that if there was just one more thing Taito's Groove Coaster [$.99] needed, it would be way more dubstep. Now, the game's latest update unfortunately doesn't include any dubstep, but we'll take it anyway because it includes a total of five more downloadable tracks, including a trance mix of Jingle Bells that we're sure you'll never forget. A new ska track, as well as an acid house joint -- "Thrase Beat -- are the other notables joining the downloadable roster.

Oh! And in the spirit of the holidays, Groove Coaster, Space Invaders Infinity Gene [$2.99], and Cooking Momma [$3.99], have gone on sale for a "limited time" -- or until the iTunes freeze clears we're presuming.

Wonder no more: after a fun mystery trailer Simogo has revealed its next game alongside IGN. It's called Beat Sneak Bandit; and as we guessed, it's a rhythm-cross-stealth game featuring all the adorable art your eyeholes can handle and a one-touch action model that appears to be as great as the one utilized in the studio's last game, Bumpy Road [$2.99].

In Beat Sneak, you'll play as the Beat Sneak Bandit as he reclaims all the clocks Baron Von Clockface has stolen and tucked away in his curious mansion. You'll move, er, sneak by pressing a finger to the screen in beat with the game's oddball music. The wrinkle here is that you'll also need time your timing in order to avoid roving guards or other things that can spot you and end your home invasion.

Simogo is one of the most creative App Store developers out there, so we're definitely stoked to give Beat Sneak Bandit a go. In fact, we've been talking with Simogo and it seems like we'll be able to give you a pretty good taste of what's to come in the very near future.

Oh! Speaking of the future, Beat Sneak Bandit will release at some point in early 2012 for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

[Via IGN]

Want more out of Groove Coaster [$2.99]? Good news: the dudes over at Taito have rolled in three new tracks and a couple of bug fixes in the latest free update. Two of the songs, Just No Friend and Protocol Signal Generation, immediately bolt on to the core game, while the third of the new bunch, Hello 31337, is available as a one dollar IAP. Naturally, these tunes come with a flashy experiential level that compliments what you’re hearing and doing with the song.

Taito has also added “new album versions” of Play Merrily, Not Get Wish, and Breach of Faith in this update. Neat!

I’m not the kind of guy who usually gets into rhythm games, but Groove Coaster's crazy level progression system and with its insane visual style and direction hits just the right notes for me. Plus, the music isn’t so bad. I heartily recommend you check it out, or at least, read our review.

[Via GamePro]

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time getting into trailers anymore. Spend enough time following the games industry and you eventually develop an elephantine level of skin thickness to ward off promotion and hype. Even being as jaded as I am towards anything but gameplay footage, every so often, I see a video or promo and I just know in my gut that I’m going to love the game.

It happened for me on the PC with Magicka’s brilliantly funny video campaign earlier this year, and when I saw the trailer for Radballs [$2.99] a gigantic smile spread across my face. I knew that if the execution of the gameplay was even half as clever as Glow Play’s promotional efforts that I’d have a pretty wicked time on my hands. Now that the game is out? Well, I shan’t mince words any longer; my expectations were both met and exceeded.

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Well, we kinda know what “VidRhythm” is now. Chatting with Gamasutra about the mysterious trademark spotted by Internet sleuths earlier this July, Rock Band creator Harmonix confirmed that VidRhythm is a real project and it’s coming to iOS soon-ish. It also divulged that it’s more app than game, but stopped short of delivering mechanical or system-level details. Neat.

"It will actually be our first iOS release as a studio, coming out relatively soon," Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos said in the interview. "I can't say anything yet about what it is, but in parallel with all these huge console game productions we have underway, we're commencing our first iOS development project." (more...)

Most music-based games are based on the same premise: interaction with the rhythm or beat of the song in some form or fashion. That’s why Say What?! [Free] seems like such an interesting take on the genre; rather than interacting with the musical composition, the game challenges you to interact with the actual lyrics. While I think that Say What?! is definitely one of the more interesting takes on the genre that I’ve seen, a very limited selection of music coupled with a lack of gameplay diversity leaves it somewhat wanting.

The premise of Say What?! is simple: as lyrics to a song are displayed at the top of the screen various images scroll across the bottom portion from right to left. When portions of the lyrics light up, you must tap on the image that corresponds to the highlighted lyric.

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Licensed games are rarely awesome, but I suppose Tap Tap Glee [Free] has a shot at being one of the better ones we’ve seen just by sheer virtue of its core simplicity. Fox Digital Entertainment and Tap Tap creators Tapulous announced the new partnership and the game the other morning, and now you can go download it on the App Store for free. Like other Tap Tap games, all you do in Tap Tap Glee is ‘tap’ out musical beats alongside songs. Naturally, it features music from the stupid popular TV show and lots of thematic elements from it, too.

I’m stretching the word “free” to its limits here. With a download, you get a whopping total of three tracks to play with: “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Hell To The No,” and “My Cup.” If you want to pony up some cash, though, you can purchase up to 50 additional tracks via IAP. More music will apparently hit every Tuesday until the powers that be decide to pull the plug on the project.

“There has never been an artist-branded Tap Tap game with the breadth of music, features and social media integration that Tap Tap Glee has, and that really speaks to the unique premise of the show and its music,” said Tim O’Brien, VP of Business Development and Marketing for Disney Mobile said in a statement.

“This game brings together two of the most popular franchises in music to create a must-have gaming experience for all GleeKs,” he continued.

A GleeK, by the way, isn’t that one move where you spit through your teeth at an unsuspecting person, presumably sitting next to you in study hall. Apparently, it’s a name for Glee fans. I think. I found a Web site that confirmed as much, at least.

One cool little bonus I haven’t mentioned yet about Tap Tap Glee is the fact that it includes a promotional video from “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie.” You and I might not care about that, but I’m sure fans are all about catching a sneak peek before it hits theaters later next week.

An iPad version of Tap Tap Glee is in the works and should appear soon. If lyrics are more your thing, don't forget about Smule's karaoke Glee game, the oh-so-cleverly titled Glee Karaoke [$.99]. I can't believe I just downloaded any of this.

Taito’s Groove Coaster [99¢] is an experiential music and rhythm game that mixes fun, upbeat, and jazzy tracks with a psychedelic and retro-informed visual aesthetic. At its truly mechanical core, it’s just a tap game that has you drum on your iPad whenever a bubble crops up on a neon rail, sorta like a one-note Rock Band. While that’s not necessarily entertaining in the year 2011, Groove Coaster’s constituent parts manage to overpower its simplicity, making for a game that’s a pleasure to pick up and thrum alongside, lack of depth and flaws be darned.

It’s easy to be wooed by Groove Coaster’s striking vector graphics presentation in the same way that it was hard to look beyond another Taito title’s visuals in Space Invaders: Infinity Gene [$4.99]. But even without the trains of retro baggage behind Groove Coaster, it manages to feel aged, yet refined and re-imagined in the same way. It’s a unique approach that really adds a certain flavor to the action and adds to the experiential edge of the project.

The thick wire-frame rail guiding all the action, by the way, isn’t static: it zigs, it zags, it ducks, and it circles alongside a given music track’s ebb and flow. Your cursor, which can be an assortment of objects including Taito-branded characters, helplessly runs along these tracks, speeding up and slowing down with the beat as thematic particle effects, ranging from flowery explosions to plain ol’ particle-vomit, crop up all over the place. Groove Coaster is a music game, sure, but it’s also a visual treat in addition to an audio one.

In this vein, the backgrounds and their respective effects are cool, too, especially as they morph and throb thematically as songs change tempo.

It’s not all great -- there’s an exceptionally fundamental flaw nestled within the visual design. Sometimes, instead of ratcheting up the intensity of a song and the beats you need to hit, Groove Coaster uses its presentation to conceal your cursor and thus hamper your ability to hit the glowing “beat” orbs. This comes off as a tactic to obscure its fairly rudimentary play, and a needless one at that. So, what? This game is easy to play. Who cares?

I’m not sure how to classify the music used in the game. There’s a mix of J-Pop, new wave, house, and other fast-paced highly electronic stuff. Most of it, actually, appears to be pulled from other Taito titles, but they all seem to fit with the visual stylings. In particular, Arkanoid DS’ “Happy Smiling - More Happy Mix” sticks out in my head as on of the best songs, as its thematic qualities and the music line up pretty well.

Most songs introduce some neat visual elements and mechanics to the fold. “Happy Smiling,” for example, is the first level to add a merry-go-round of beats that swirls and rotates as you hit (or miss) each one. As you move up in difficulty, new “beats” are added that make you do things like swipe and flick, or even hold and jiggle your finger. All of the songs seem to have a new mechanic, which makes for some compelling replay opportunities.

Oddly, but somehow fittingly, Groove Coaster features a fairly advanced “perks” system. As you beat levels in the game, you increase your own experience level. As you do, you unlock new avatars and upgrades that net you bigger bonuses or special in-game perks. It’s a pretty standard carrot-on-the-stick approach, but it’s effective. Additionally, you can purchase IAP items and avatars that do the same things these bonuses do, except they really push it to the max. I’ll stress that the IAP options feel entirely, well, optional.

Groove Coaster is a good game with a fundamental flaw. It also has a few nit-picky problems, too, like it’s spectacularly abrupt ending and horrible “How To,” but the strength of its presentation, music, and RPG-lite systems make up for anything that could sour the experience. I’m generally not too into music games, and for what it’s worth, I’m suggesting this one to whoever will listen. It’s fun, it’s sharp, and it’s an experience.

You know what the App Store needs? More imaginative and psychedelic rhythm games, that’s what. Conveniently for the purpose of this news story, a new one is on the way from the same man who is responsible for dropping Space Invaders: Infinity Gene [$4.99 / Free] on us eons ago, Taito’s Reisuke Ishida. It’s called Groove Coaster, and it appears to be as simple as the titling suggests: you listen to some trance-y / new wave-y music and tap out the beat as a blink-y thing glides on rails.

Japanese publication Famitsu scored the first look at the new title. The first video here demonstrates the basics of the game in what must be one of the easier levels:

The second video shows what appears to be a more difficult level, with tons more beats to hit and visual effects to accompany them:

For what it’s worth, you can tell this is Ishida’s. As Joystiq notes, it’s all wire-framed out and ready to grab some glow sticks for this evening’s rave. Infinity Gene had a similar look and feel and that certainly panned out well for a title, that, overall, really had a spring in its step and some awesome mechanics to share. Here's to hoping this has more than meets the eye... but even if it didn't, I think I'd be pleased with it. Our collective gut says that this is definitely a game to watch and review whenever it’s slated to hit.

I remember when I first heard about Elite Beat Agents, and how completely ridiculous the whole concept sounded of me tapping on the screen of my Nintendo DS in time with a song to make my three agents assist people in need via a masterfully choreographed dance. But, if you've played it, you know full well that the game is incredible, and still worth dusting off the ol' DS to play once in a while. I'm hopeful for similar things from Pixel Punch's Rice&Shine.

Rhythm games work well on iOS devices, but I've always found myself quickly getting bored of games that just have you tapping on colored dots without any over-arching goal beyond your high score or any potential unlockables. Rice&Shine adds an additional layer to this in that your rhythmic taps are actually translated to ninja-centric sword fighting. It remains to be seen how much of an effect all this ninja business has on gameplay, but I'm really hoping there's some depth to it beyond eye candy.

Anyway, check out the trailer:

Details are rather vague right now, limited to little more than this trailer and an ambiguous "coming soon." Needless to say, we're going to keep a close eye on this one.

It’s a shame that we received this announcement of Puzzle Family after our podcast was recorded for the week. Instead of the Bungie Aerospace news, this game and it’s insane trailer would have been the leading story of the bunch. Before I delve into the specifics, take a gander at the trailer. It's better to go into this blind. Trust me.

That's hot stuff, right? Puzzle Family has one of the weirdest trailers we’ve seen in a long, long time. Vivid, flashing, and possibly seizure-inducing lights? Check. Horrible animation, but adorable art? Check. Promise of insane antics in convoluted games? Check.

If the trailer didn't clue you in, Puzzle Family is a mini-game collection that puts you in the shoes of Akoo or one of his 20 fascinatingly eccentric family members through three initial mini-game experiences: block matching, Guitar Hero-style rhythm tapping, and a puzzle memory exercise. There are a total of eight mini-games in all, five of which can be unlocked through an in-game currency (of sorts).

Puzzle Family will launch as a ad-based "free" download this July 7, but you'll be able to support the title and get a leg-up on unlocking the extra five modes and other in-game items by purchasing the premium ad-free version, Puzzle Family Starpack for $1.99.