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You’ll know Harmonix for creating Rockband and Dance Central, but its latest game may surprise you slightly – it’s a colorful hardcore tacticaly shmup with a stylish experimental hip-hop / electronic soundtrack for PC called A City Sleeps.
In it, you play as Poe, the youngest member of The Silk, which are a clan of dream exorcists that dedicate their lives to ridding demons from people’s dreams.
As the title says, a city has gone into an eternal slumber, and Poe has to take her legendary Koto-sword “Heartstrings” to cleanse dreams and unveil the city’s darkest secrets.
As A City Sleeps is musically charged, you may think it’s rhythm-based, but it’s not – it has no beat matching, at least. The music is generated on the fly alongside the level design, as it drives player projectiles, enemy spawning, movement, and bullet patterns.
There’s also an Idol System, which lets Poe call upon her ghostly familiars to possess inanimate objects, providing assistance through area-of-effect bursts and healing bullets. Different ghost combinations provide unique effects that may help or hinder your play style.
A City Sleeps is available to purchase on Steam and the Humble Store for Windows and Mac right now at the price of $13.49 (discounted from $14.99). The Deluxe Edition gives you the soundtrack and wallpapers on top of the game for $4.99 more.
