Audio-visual creative sandbox ArtPulse comes to PSVR (Paid)

Today I’m very happy to tell you about a new interesting VR indie game just released for PSVR by VRKiwi, called ArtPulse.

NOTICE: This is a paid post, published thanks to a collaboration I established with MeKiwi Ltd. for the next months. For me paid posts are a fundamental way to sustain the expenses of my blogging activity. I care a lot about you readers, and for me “paid” just means that I will write some more articles about MeKiwi’s products and initiatives, not that the articles will be biased, nor that they will be shallow, nor that they will be too many. All the content is written by me. I’m also using this collaboration to provide some values to you, like giveaways of keys for their games. I hope you will enjoy reading it 🙂

ArtPulse is a mix of a rhythm game, an artistic sandbox, and an acid trip. It is quite an original mix, and it is hard to fit it in exactly one genre. I think you can understand that by watching the official launch trailer here below:

Actually, I wouldn’t even define ArtPulse a “game”. It is more an “experience” where you let your creativity flow. In ArtPulse, you enter the game and you find yourself in an empty space, where you can hear a base background music. At this point, you can start filling the space around you with shapes. These shapes may be geometrical shapes (e.g. cubes, prisms, etc…) or just free form drawings, where you 3D paint the air with your controllers. With shapes and free-hand forms, you can create objects and environments, a bit like in modeling tools a la Google Blocks.

But here the true purpose is not the one of modeling 3D object, or better: that one is only one part of the experience. The main part of the experience is the one of creating a piece of music: each shape will emit a typical sound, that will start playing in sync with the background music. Depending on the color the player will assign to the shape, this sound will change a bit. Since there is a full color wheel with many colors the user can choose from, the possibilities of different sounds emitted are endless. All these sounds emitted together by these shapes, blending with the background music, will form a song, that the user can enjoy listening. The user can also move and freely fly inside his creations, enjoying them from all sides.

As you can see, this is an experience that is at the intersection point between a game, a creative tool, and a relaxation app. There is not a true purpose in ArtPulse: you just create for the sake of creating, to enjoy some time with yourself, to make your inner artist come to light. What I love of this idea is that it mixes audio and visual creativity in only one single experience. Personally, I’m a disaster as an artist (I’m better at written stuff like blogging and coding), but I see myself entering an experience like ArtPulse for the sake of relaxing myself during stressful days. I could just enter there, start creating, listening to music and let my right part of the brain take the lead while listening to relaxing music.

The concept of this game is actually not completely new to me. When I spoke with some psychologists about some relaxation apps we could do together, some concepts somewhat similar to these ones have come to light. I honestly think that with some modifications, ArtPulse could also be used in therapeutical settings (e.g. to help curing anxiety). It is a simple game, it is absolutely stress-free, and it uses music, that is known to have a real healing power (see all the binaural beats hype that there is on the web). I see some real potential here for use in healthcare environments.

And regarding creating shapes that form a music together, it was the original idea of our boxing game HitMotion: Reloaded, that in our first demo followed exactly this concept (proposed by our sound designer Enea Le Fons): every enemy had an associated beat, that added to the one of the other enemies and a base soundtrack, formed the music of the level. We later one had to abandon this idea because of a change in the game design, but it was very fascinating and when it worked, it worked very well, so I’m actually intrigued by what VRKiwi is doing here.

ArtPulse can be played in 3 modes:

• Standard: limited in time and with shapes that disappear after a while;
• Endless: no time limits and shapes that don’t disappear;
• Cinematic: the AI plays for you and you just stay there watching shapes appearing and listening to music. This is for the lazy people 🙂

The game studio says that Standard and Endless come also with an easy mode to help newcomers in understanding how to play the game.

I asked VRKiwi what are the features that make them proud of having developed this game. They answered me mainly these 3 things:

1. The game is a unique mix of audio and visual creation, that anyway doesn’t require particular skills to be played. Everyone can be a creator inside ArtPulse;
2. The game is great for parties and family reunions, since it can be played by everyone: children, elderlies, etc…
3. It has ASMR vibes. ASMR is a very popular trend, and consists of audio or video media where you hear certain kind of sounds (soothing voice, caressing, slow cracking of plastic, etc…) that trigger a relaxation state in your brain (check Wikipedia for a more detailed description). This game, according to developers, can offer a somewhat similar brain response, can make you enter in a deep relaxation state.

Personally, I agree with point 1 and 3, but not much with 2. A similar relaxation experience is something that connects you with your inner self, it is an intimate and personal experience, and I wouldn’t use it during parties, but I would use it when I am alone. But that’s just my opinion.

The future developments of ArtPulse include new customization features and new base songs (for now they are only six), with also the possibility that you submit your own songs to be used as base songs for other people. Devs also told me that they are thinking about porting to other platforms in 2020, but for now, the game is available only for PSVR.

My personal opinion about ArtPulse is that it is a quite original and unique experience, and for this reason, it is not something that suits everyone. If you are the kind of person that wants an action game like Gorn, this content is not for you. If you are looking for a party game to play locally with friends probably something like “Acron: attack of the squirrels” suits better your needs. But if you are more on the creative side, or you are looking for something different in the VR realm, or you need an experience that can relax you, ArtPulse may be really worth checking out. I know some creatives that would really love to play it. As I’ve highlighted before, also if you are in the psychology field, you can see if it fits some of your professional needs.

Personally, I like that VRKiwi is trying to offer an original concept, and not just the classical VR game. It is a brave move, and we need more of this to make VR compelling to mainstream: the more different experiences we have on the marketplace, the more people will be attracted to VR, and the more VR can become popular. ArtPulse is the kind of game that can be appealing for people of all ages and all genders.

I see myself playing this experience in some very stressful days, when I need to truly relax myself, in alternative to other experiences like Guided Meditation. I see it as very original and interesting because it solves one of the problems of relaxation apps, that are usually very static and so a bit boring. Here, since you can create, you can add and modify the shapes, the brain is busy doing stuff and so it doesn’t get bored. My only worry is about the quality of the music that can come out of all of this: I am not an artist, and if adding random shapes the resulting music was not pleasant enough, probably I would get frustrated by this. VRKiwi people said that this won’t happen for sure, but I want to verify it myself of course 😉

If you are interested in ArtPulse, you can find it on the EU PlayStation Store or US PlayStation Store for $12.99. If you instead want to contact the developers, to ask questions, give feedback, or just say hello, you can find them on Discord. And if you want some discounts and giveaways, well… let’s see if I can do something in the future 🙂

(Header image by VRKiwi)