Easily my favorite title out of the past number of years, Fract OSC is a game unlike any other. I should start with a note that I strongly prefer music and rhythm based games as I feel that a powerful soundscape is what adds strength to a games atmosphere. Dynamic sound that changes with the environment, and spatial sound that a player with stereo or surround speakers, strengthens this environmental impact.
Fract takes this a step further by putting the soundscape into the hands of the player. To complete the game, Fract places a number of puzzles in front of the player, grouped into collections of about 8, and sharing a color. Each colored collection represents a track of a musical piece, specifically synth, lead, and bass. Completion of these tracks restores that section of color back to the gray environment of the game, restoring functionality to the environment.
Solving puzzles to bring light to an environment is but one facet of Fract’s dynamic atmosphere. Potentially it’s most impressive feature, is that these puzzles each have a sound that goes along with them. Based on your unique solution (of which there are many for each puzzle), a specific puzzle will take on a unique tone or musical pattern. That pattern then, becomes a part of the overall soundscape of the game. In short, your solutions to the puzzles, create the soundscape to the game around you! Fract achieves this dynamic sound nature by doing something that I’ve never seen in any other title. Fract live synthesizes its entire soundscape as you play the game, dynamically changing the tone and soundtrack of the game based on your own puzzle solutions, and interactions with the world.
Fract is a fantastic title that transforms a silent and colorless world into a vibrant symphony of color and electronic sounds as you explore its vast world and solve its puzzles. It’s unique control scheme and screenspace visual effects make for a very unique experience. As an added reward at the end of the game, upon completion of each color, you actually repair a portion of this “machine”, and when you return to the overworld, or hub, segments of it are now lit, ultimately activating portions of a fully functional analog modeling synthesizer, and sequencer, allowing the player to design their own music in the game, once they’ve repaired enough of its components.
