Neon Rush

A side-scrolling platformer whose level design is written against its soundtrack. Obstacles arrive on the beat, hazards pulse in time, and the consequence is that the game is easier to play by ear than by eye — the visual cue and the audio cue arrive together, but the audio one is more reliable under pressure. That makes it a rhythm game wearing a platformer's clothes, and it is honest about it. Levels are fixed rather than generated, so learning one is learning a piece of music, and the satisfaction of clearing a hard stretch is the satisfaction of finally playing a phrase correctly. The movement itself is simple — run, jump, occasionally a second jump — because complexity in the controls would fight the timing. It needs sound to be enjoyable and is significantly harder without it, which is worth knowing before starting. Levels are a couple of minutes, deaths send you back to a checkpoint rather than the start, and the difficulty curve follows the tracks: the early songs are slow, the late ones are not. It runs on anything and plays fine on touch, though a keyboard feels better.