Recent reviews by Polyhop

FRACT OSC is a compelling audio/visual experience. Throughout the course of the game, the player completes a variety of puzzles, sculpts the soundtrack, and slowly deciphers a symbology highly resonant of electronic music synthesis and sequencing. I found the greatest reward of the game to be exploring beautiful neon clad low-poly environment, which was a great experience in and of itself.

I thought the puzzles were decent - nothing amazing, but well crafted, and they ocasionally had me stumped. I wish there were more "ah-ha" moments, and some instances felt repetetive, or draged due to the necessity of repeatedly traversing its physical strucutre. On the whole they were enjoyable, but I did not find them to be the strong suit of the game.

The music elements are quite nice. The soundtrack is frequently derived from the actual solution to various music puzzles, yeilding a personilized experience. The only "downside" to this connection between solution and soundtrack, was that often working solutions did not yeild the most musical results (noting that this opinion is solely due to my own subjective musical tastes). Overall, I found this to be a very minor detail, and almost a moot point next to the highly polished sound design and music production.

The "studio" is a nice feature - allowing you to compose your own music using various sequencer and parameter modules unlocked through completing puzzles. As someone used to writing electronic music outside of the gaming experience provided by FRACT OSC, I did personally not find it to be a particularly useful tool. Especially using an xbox controller, the system is time consuming to navigate and somewhat limited in its parameters. That said, I could see the Studio being enjoyable to someone new to the experience. To me it was primarily novel for its existence, rather than its functionality.

I definitely suggest checking out FRACT OSC, especially if you like electronic music, puzzle games such as Antichamber, and exploring open audio/visual worlds. It's not perfect, but few (if any) things are, and this exprience is certainly worth a play.