The Polynomial : Space of the Music

I found The Polynomial : Space of the Music while browsing Steam today, I had been working hard and decided to treat myself to a little slice of indie game fun, and this was top of the list. The beautiful visuals caught my eye instantly, looking a playable Apple OS X wallpaper. Then I watched the video in motion and was transfixed. £5.99 down and a few minutes later and I was having a gleeful time. Dipping in and out of 3d fractal flowers, diving around colourful spiralling rainbow twists, and trying my hardest to work out what the game was all about.

In essence it appears to be a simple shooter, but while it starts out sedate enough there comes a point where you seem to be frantically fighting for your life. Your whole room glowing from the chunks of vivid exploding debris flying past. It reminded me a lot of the 16-bit classic Interphase (although without as much puzzle solving depth!) but this is really something you play for the visuals. I admit it looks like something that should have fallen out of Jeff Minters hard drive, but that isn’t the case, and it’s all the better for it.

You can throw your own soundtrack into it, and the whole game will draw itself around that. Pulsating and winding in time to the beat. There are masses of beautiful screen grabs up in the Polynomial gallery, and I’d urge anyone who has an interest in beautiful playful environments, or fractal / mathematical art, to check it out. It’s as much about the easy creation of stunning images as it is a game, but that’s no bad thing.

Available now on Steam for both PC and Mac, there’s a demo available too.

Posted on October 17th 2010 at 10:40 pm by Rich.
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