EGX 2015 - Thumper Preview

Thumper's crazy visuals and intense music made me feel as if I was witnessing some catastrophic, universe ending event. It is pure psychedelic, timing based madness. It's hard to describe what the game is actually like. At its core it seems to be a rhythm game. On the website for Thumper they describe it as, "A RHYTHM VIOLENCE GAME".

The timing and rhythm based gameplay of Thumper makes sense considering the two behind it, Brian Gibson and Marc Flury, both of whom worked at Harmonix in the past. Harmonix has a long history of making influential rhythm games going back to the likes of Amplitude, up to the first two Guitar Hero games, as well as the Rock Band franchise. They have now formed the two man team, Drool LLC.

Thumper is fast. Very fast. From the 15 or so levels I got to play it was like one big crazy trip. I was immediately pulled into the fast-paced gameplay as soon as I sat down to play. I jumped and drifted my way through the games track as electro blazed. It was that type of game where every time I had to try something again, I felt myself get better and wanted to keep trying until I got it perfect.  

From what I played I didn't really get any sense of the set up for the game. I was a rad metal beetle fighting this big face. They describe it as seen bellow:

"Thumper combines classic rhythm-action with breakneck speed and brutal physicality. You are a space beetle screaming towards confrontation with an insane giant head from the future." 

To get some sort of sense of the what the game looks like here is a short trailer that shows off its visual style and speed.

Thumper is set to debut on the PlayStation 4 and Steam some time in 2016.