WEB EXCLUSIVE

Deemo is a free-to-play rhythm game on both Android and Apple devices. It is focused around a benevolent silhouette of a man, named Deemo, and a small girl, named Alice. Despite it being a rhythm game, it is surprisingly story-oriented, beginning with Deemo simply playing his small piano to himself in an all-white world, which is dramatically changed as Alice falls through a hole in the invisible ceiling into Deemo’s arms.

The story revolves around the player completing levels, as Deemo, by playing the piano to a seedling tree, which, somehow, encourages it to grow towards the hole Alice fell through. The objective is to ultimately return Alice to her home.

The main menu to the game is a very well-done point-and-click world that slowly builds itself as the game progresses. Hidden secrets and songs, cleverly scattered amidst the world, puts in an element of a find-the-hidden-object style game as well.

Even more: there is a large concept to the story that you can only find through investigating things closely.

Nothing in the game is there simply for show. It all has meaning, even down to the titles of the songs and their respective art covers. The game itself plays in a way similar to Guitar Hero, but lacking set lanes for the notes. This permits the notes to come in very odd, free-form patterns that test one’s ability to adapt quickly.

With three separate difficulty settings spanning 11 sub-levels of intensity, there’s a full experience for both the veteran rhythm gamers and the newly introduced. The songs themselves also are made to appeal to people of all kinds. Ranging from the classical genre that one would expect this type of game to have, to jazz to rock and roll to EDM and dubstep, there’s no shortage of songs to play.

Recently, the creators added the stunning conclusion to the story, which was so long hinted at by easter eggs and tidbits that seemed like nonsense. There is a new set of rooms to support this, hundreds of new songs and a feature to replay the story. Each repeat of the story features new songs to unlock, new major themes in the art of the world, new speech lines from the characters and a new kind of secret to discover, which spawns off the ending.

Another large bonus to the game is that the whole game is accessible offline–meaning it can be played on long car rides without wifi or cell signal, or on planes, or anywhere you have a phone–without any slowdown or limitation.

The only two major downsides to the game are 1) that the difficulties are sometimes deceptive, depending on the song, as one may say that it’s a low-level, easy stage, but is actually rather difficult, and 2) that a large number of songs are only accessible through in-app purchases. A huge number of songs are given to the player for free as they are completed and the story progresses, but hundreds more can only be played by buying $4 albums, which contain 7-20 songs.

I personally massively enjoy this game, and while I’ve not been able to find all the secrets yet, I still have a great time just messing around with it. I recommend the game to people who love in-depth stories, people who enjoy rhythm games and people who are just looking for another free, fun game.