Just Shapes & Beats

Just Shapes & Beats is a music-based bullet hell shooter where players move to the beat of the music while dodging attacks from various shapes. The game supports single-player and multiplayer modes, allowing up to three friends to team up and challenge 48 levels of varying difficulty. Enjoy the dynamic music and the thrill of life-or-death situations. The game offers different difficulty levels: master the basic gameplay in story mode, hone advanced skills in casual mode, and push your limits in challenge mode to achieve the highest score.

Gameplay of Just Shapes & Beats:

Just Shapes & Beats consists of multiple levels based around individual music tracks—predominantly chiptune—by artists including Nitro Fun, Danimal Cannon, Noisestorm, and Pegboard Nerds.Up to four players control one small shape each, represented by either a cyan square as player 1, a yellow triangle as player 2, a green pentagon as player 3 or an orange circle as player 4. Players dodge attacks in the form of various shapes typically coloured in pink, such as beams, bouncing waves, pulsating shapes, and bouncing circles. These attacks appear and move in rhythm to the music, with difficulty increasing the further players progress. All levels are divided into normal runs where the goal of the player is to survive until the checkpoint appears, and harder difficulty boss battles, where the player survives till the end without any checkpoints

Getting struck by an attack causes the player to lose hitpoints. Players can take up to three hits in regular tracks before breaking, and six during boss tracks. If the shape breaks entirely, the game rewinds to the previous checkpoint or back to the start in the case of the boss battles; if it breaks in multiplayer, other players can touch the "dead" floating spot (if it has not gone off the screen) to revive them with one remaining hit point. Three breaks within a single level results in a game over screen, with the text stating "It's Over" and the cyan square breaking into pieces. Tapping Enter multiple times causes the square to fix itself and changes the screen's text to read "It's NOT Over", allowing the player to continue from the beginning of the level. At the top of the screen, a bar with a white triangle at the end serves as the progress bar for each level. In story mode, mini-games involving additional character movements exist as filler between levels.

Features of Just Shapes & Beats:

Rhythm Game: At its core this is a rhythm game, but it's different than most others in this genre. Most rhythm games have you pushing a button or performing an action according to the beat. Just Shapes & Beats crafts the boss's attack pattern around the beat and you must avoid the attacks and survive throughout the whole song.Each stage has a different type of song and they can last just a minute to several minutes. Some are very slow while others are exceptionally fast. Regardless of the song though, the attack patterns will be challenging and difficult to overcome.

Attack Patterns: Each stage has a different attack pattern and the game will often shift between different shapes and designs to keep you on your toes. Some stages predominantly have bullet-like shapes that come at you while others might use serpents, saws or lasers.Most bosses have several different stages to overcome. This means you'll usually have to overcome three or four different attack patterns to survive. This is a challenging game where you must learn the attack pattern and quickly react in order to win.

Different Shapes: You can choose from different shapes to play with, such as a triangle, oval or square. Each one contrasts well with the background so that you know where you are at all times. Up to four people can play at once and the shapes and colors are simple to discern. This ensures you don't accidentally follow another player as you try to survive the round.You will notice that your shapes crack whenever you are hit. This gives you smaller shape and it's somewhat easier to dodge, but if you get hit too many times then you'll lose a life. Make sure you avoid the enemy's attack to survive the round.

Strategies of Just Shapes & Beats:

Use a controller if you can. The joystick is much more useful and versatile with an additional 352 axes of movement. HOWEVER, there will also be parts of levels where a D-pad or even keyboard will be better suited to move along a certain straight line parallel to 45°/135°/your computer's borders. I will include this information where possible.

DO NOT HESITATE. If you're stuck between whether to dash, move, or do nothing, it is generally best to dash out, BUT this does not mean be reckless with it. Generally, your fight or flight sense will improve during gameplay and should become inherent over time. (At the same time, don't be reckless.)

Don't immediately rush over to the place you're looking to be. In Hardcore, warning indicators last shorter and your reaction time will be tested. If you rush, it's likely you'll get struck.

If you're playing with others, you can keep to the left of the screen since it's where broken players drift towards. You being on the right side of the screen while the others are dying on the other side won't help much. HOWEVER:

- DO NOT RISK YOUR S-RANK (ACTIVELY) TRYING TO SAVE PEOPLE. This is harsh wording I couldn't find a better substitute for, but unless you're really passionate about helping others, really good at saving others without getting hit, or simply playing for the fun of it, it is not worth losing 20 or 30 BP to save someone. Additionally, if they float offscreen before you hit the next checkpoint, they respawn with full health as opposed to one hit point if you save them before going offscreen.

This doesn't mean that you should avoid saving players altogether!- save them when it's safe to do so, OR wait until the next checkpoint as discussed above.

[EDIT: I was considerably smaller when i wrote this. My viewpoint has changed significantly since then and I am not as BP-gain focused now. So my revised advice is: save them where possible AND IF YOU WANT (nothing obligates you), but if it involves a 95% chance of you getting hit, do not attempt. This is a BP guide, after all.]

Low-end computers like my old one (4GB RAM, half the minimum amount but still could run it somehow) can run into issues ranging from minor framerate drops to severe lag spikes that can last for several seconds. If this occurs, it MAY help to turn off VSync in settings. Some of the graphics will appear a little choppy, but it's a small tradeoff for a more consistent framerate and making sure this monstrosity doesn't happen.

Player Comments of Just Shapes & Beats:

There seems to be a bit of correlation between Geometry Dash and this game community-wise. I ended up finding out about this game a couple months after it came out through GD levels on this game(though I bought it on Switch at the time). And then I got the game here on Steam as it certainly was worth the re-purchase, and being able to play online without a subscription.

Gameplay: The gameplay here is quite simple, you are are colored shape in an empty space, and you have to dash and dodge the pink obstacles. The obstacles themselves move to the rhythm, but the gameplay itself is not inherently rhythm(though it could be if you make it). The tutorial does a pretty good job at showcasing this as it progressively gets more intense as you master certain parts of it, reflecting the chaotic nature the gameplay can have. In the campaign itself there are minigame sections for lack of better word that were also insanely fun to play through(and are generous checkpoint wise). There is also bossfights in the level, and these lack checkpoints unlike the regular levels, but they give more HP for better balancing. They're pretty fun to play through as well. The campaign plays through in a normal difficulty, but post-game when playing levels individually you can ramp up the difficulty in a Hardcore mode, which has either more obstacles, faster obstacles, or little visual warnings for them.

Soundtrack: This game's soundtrack had an insane influence on my modern music taste, really getting me more into EDM and introducing me to artists I still listen to today(e.g., Pegboard Nerds, Tokyo Machine, MDK). If you are a fan of electronic music or decently like it, you'll enjoy the game's soundtrack. They got the big artists from the big labels(e.g. Monstercat), and songs from lesser known artists(at least at the time). While I obviously didn't fully enjoy every song, there's one for everyone in this game. They also did video game collabs and remixed tracks from those game's OSTs which I think was pretty cool.

Performance & Polish: Not really much to say here. Due to the simplicity of the gameplay, the game itself is also really simple to run. Only thing to worry about is the amount of particles on screen but a potato PC may be able to get away with running this. I believe there are also certain graphical options you can look into as well, including a photosensitive mode as the game does contain a lot of flashing lights.

Value: This is probably my only real gripe about this game, and it's that it really does not have a lot of replay value after completing the campaign. You can unlock bonus songs/levels in your playlist, and there are post-game challenges to amp up your menu screen, but that's really about it. And some of the bonus songs have to be unlocked through collecting Beat Points, and I would be fine with it if they didn't give you so little points for completing a song, or a challenge run(a set of 3 random levels, 1 boss included). And some of the levels require such a high Beat Point count that it would take hours upon hours, unless you're going for point optimization guides. And given that the game has not had an update in quite a few years, it's really brought down the attention and value of this game. I would say $20 is a good max price, anything higher may not be worth it. And if it's on sale, it could be a good steal.

Final Verdict:

Just Shapes & Beats is a good fit for players who enjoy rhythmic challenges, chaotic visuals, and games you can either play solo or share with others. It’s also a perfect pick for parties, casual hangouts, or even quick gaming sessions when you need a little adrenaline boost.