By Brad Cook
Your iPod contains thousands of songs, so put them to good use with musika. Designed by Masaya Matsuura of PaRappa the Rapper fame, musika plays a song from your iPod library and challenges you to press Select as soon as you recognize a letter or number in its title. The faster you do so, the more points youll earn, thanks to the scoring multiplier that increases by one with each correct response.
Press the forward or backward skip button to pass on a character not contained in the songs title doing so also increases your scoring multiplier. The scoring stops when the track does, or when youve correctly identified each character in the title five times, so react as fast as you can.
Ups and Downs
Each character comes into view via a different graphical effect, depending on the gameplay level. It might manifest itself from a swirl of blown leaves, or reveal itself in a sea of blinking lights. Correctly-identified characters add to the level meter, sending you to the next level when its full. There are more than ten levels total.
When you accidentally press Select for the wrong character, or if you mistakenly pass on a correct character, youll see a line appear in one of the titles characters at the bottom of the screen. Thats known as a block, and youll need to correctly identify that character again to remove the block. Receive too many blocks and your game will end. Blocks also reset the scoring multiplier, forcing you to start at 1x again.
Luckily, musika features four bonuses that can get you out of a tight situation: Almighty, which gives you protection against misses, incorrect passes, and blocks for the next three characters; De-block, which removes all blocks from the title; Double Score, which doubles the score you earn from each correctly-identified character for the next three characters; and Double Clear Points, which gives you two correct identifications for each time you press Select during next three characters (you need to correctly identify a character five times to clear it).
The Perfect Environment
If youd rather just enjoy musikas ethereal graphics, you can select the Visualizer option in the main menu and listen to your music while letters and numbers flit by. Either way, you have the perfect way to pass a few minutes of downtime during your hectic day.
Well leave you with some thoughts offered by Matsuura when musika launched: The iPod is a device that revolutionized music and it is now poised to be a progressive gaming platform. Many years ago, Apples tools first opened my eyes to the power of music and multimedia, so its exciting to release my first game for this device.
Tips and Tricks
- If you simply let an incorrect letter or number sit on the screen, rather than press the forward or backward skip button to pass on it, you wont earn a multiplier. Youll also waste valuable seconds.
- Read the tutorial and memorize the symbols for the bonuses, so youre ready to press Select when you see them.
- Unless youre playing on the hardest difficulty level, case sensitivity doesnt matter, which means, for example, you can press Select when you see an uppercase N even though the title contains a lowercase n.
- Choose songs with short titles to make the game easier. If you keep shuffle turned off, you can select the next song when a game ends. Otherwise, youll get a random track.
iPod Games FAQ
Do you have questions regarding any of the iPod games available from the iTunes Store?
- Publisher: Apple Inc.
- Developer: Sony BMG
- Genre: Puzzle
More iPod Games
System Requirements
- Mac OS X version 10.3.9 or Windows 2000
- iPod (5th generation). Not compatible with iPod nano, iPod classic, the iPhone, or other iPod models. Please check which iPod model you have.
- iPod Software 1.2 or higher
- iTunes required to download (games cannot be played in iTunes)