I want to let you know a little something about me. Despite my rugged good looks and manly personality I have a huge (some might call girly) soft spot for the piano. I can’t play it, I just like it. Often I will hear a new song on the radio, have a strange like for it right away, and notice many listens later that it has piano underlying. I also like “string” music. Basically if it sounds like a piano or an orchestra, I like it. There, now you know.
With that new found knowledge in tow you may find the following review of Auditorium to be biased. It has lots of piano and string music. I assure you I did my best to keep my personal feelings for the tickled ivory aside.
In Auditorium you guide light particles (called The Flow) into containers that respond by playing one piece of the musical composition for that particular portion of the Act. An Act is what the developers call the “levels” of the experience. Each Act gets progressively harder and offer new methods to guide the light particles. When you are successful in filling the containers you are rewarded with some amazing music and a soothing light show. I like to think of it as being the Enya of video games.
You have two aims: guiding the light particles into their respective containers and activating the music to create the final composition. It’s rather simple in premise, but can be mind bendingly hard in later Acts. Because the whole system is based on physics there are multiple ways to solve each puzzle, which allows for some sanity to remain as you work your way through the music and light.
As you progress through the Acts new controls are given to you to help direct The Flow into containers. By the final Act you’ll have direction arrows, attraction circles, speed circles, repel circles, and deflection circles. Using only the mouse, you can grab one of the controls and place it on or near the light particles to see its effect. You can expand the size of the control by pulling on its edge, resulting in a greater area of influence for that control. I found that I usually had a general idea of where the controls would need to be placed to fill the audio containers, but I relied on a lot on guesswork and testing to find the right positions. Most of the time I didn’t mind the somewhat unguided approach to the placing the controls, though at times it could be frustrating as the particles whizzed by, just missing their container.
Auditorium runs on Flash and requires some beefiness to play smoothly (it ran fine on my iMac 2.93Ghz). For slower machines Auditorium offers lower quality settings. Sometimes I found moving the controls to be unresponsive or awkward. It seemed as if my mouse movements or clicks were not always registered and made the controls feel “fuzzy” every now and again. It certainly didn’t ruin the experience, just made it a little tedious as I took extra careful measure to ensure I was clicking and dragging with authority and precision.
My only other complaint with the experience may or may not be fairly lodged. Auditorium is a beautiful experience both audibly and visually, as such the developers have provided a full screen mode. Unfortunately, when using fullscreen mode on a 24“ monitor it doesn’t look as good as one would hope. The result is a rather muddy appearance. I have a sneaking suspicion this is because Flash just blows up the original screen to fill the entire area, much like YouTube clips doing the same thing. Playing it full screen on my 13” MacBook resulted in less blur, but it still didn’t look as good as just leaving it in a browser window to play. This is a shame, as Auditorium really should be played full screen for the complete effect. Had the developers created their own engine, I believe the results could have been staggering.
For $10.99 you get fifteen Acts that have about five “levels” per Act. I have yet to complete them all, but would anticipate it would take you upwards of 2-3 hours to complete them first time through. You can play them in any order and as many times as you like. The cost of entry is well worth the experience. If you aren’t sure this is for you, you can play a demo at the site to help guide your decision.
There is also an iPhone App that mimics the browser version. I paid $0.99 for it and it is worth every penny. In fact I liked aspects of it better than the browser version. I found the controls lent themselves better to finger manipulation. The layout of the Acts of Auditorium allows for it to be played in bite sized pieces, which is great for the iPhone. The only downside to playing on the iPhone is that the screen size does not provide the optimal experience and the need for headphones or a quiet area isn’t always plausible. The Auditorium App is notably shorter in length than its big brother, but it makes up for this in price and the ability to download more Acts via in-app-purchase. There is also a lite version if you would like to try before buying.
Personally, I see the two versions as being complimentary. They both offer the same unique experience in drastically different venues. If you like one, you’d enjoy the other.
If I were a woman or just more comfortable with the feminine psyche I would conclude by saying, “The only way this experience could be any better is if it was safe to play it in a tub of warm water and epsom salts, surrounded by flickering candle light”.
But because I am neither of the above mentioned I will instead conclude with, “When nobody is home, turn off the lights, turn up the sound, and relax with Auditorium while you eat some manly beef jerky…after you killed and smoked the cow yourself…with your bare hands”.
One last thing, does anyone out there remember a title by the name of “Tranquility” from way back in the day? As I was playing Auditorium I was reminded of something from the past that seemed similar. I finally put it together and remembered that little gem.
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