By: Omar (@siegarettes​)

• Inside My Radio
• Developer - Seaven Studio
• Publisher - Seaven Studio
• PS4, PC (Steam)

Platformers tend to have a certain rhythm to them. There’s a beat, an ebb and flow to movement. Inside My Radio takes that rhythm and makes it explicit. Actions are tied to the beat of the music, lose the rhythm and you’ll fail basic actions. It’s a hybrid that makes it unique in its genre, but also adds several complications.

I had some initial difficulty with the timing of moves, I found myself losing the beat and stumbling in the middle of chains of actions. Thankfully, there is a metronome-like rhythm assist, and with some time I eventually settled into enough of a rhythm to play without it. There’s a sweet spot where the groove caught me, and Inside My Radio gave me the same kind of satisfaction as a good round of Lumines. 

A lot of that satisfaction comes from the play between soundtrack and sound effects. Inside My Radio deals primarily in three styles, electronica (with an emphasis on dubstep), funk, and reggae. While it at times feels underproduced (there’s a couple guitar samples that can’t help but feel distracting to anyone who’s played around in GarageBand), for the most part it maintains a consistent level of quality to complement the action. This all plays off sound effects that pair with the music, making each correctly timed jump, dash and slam feel almost like another instrument. 

It hits its high point in the second act, where the funk soundtrack takes over and a glamorous club scene plays out. You hit the dance floor, mingle with musicians and weave your way through a group of punks whose presence adds an overpowering guitar wail to the scene. That’s mixed with some sequencer style interludes that give you a chance to produce some freeform beats. It’s a showcase of the strengths of the genre hybrid that Seaven Studio has made.

The last two chapters, by comparison feel like a let down. There’s a switch to a reggae soundtrack that I couldn’t get into, and it made it difficult for me to stay on beat, which meant frustration as I continued to miss the timing for basic moves. It was exasperated with the truncated introduction of sliders and switches. Each of them felt as if it could have used more time being explored, and I never got to grips with one before I was asked to move onto another. 

Inside My Radio also the inexplicably uses spiders for its climactic confrontations. Aside from my surprise at having yet another videogame with spider enemies, it felt thematically inappropriate. Disappointing, especially after the integration of scene and sound during the dance club section. The final boss fight does use some of the moves you learn well, though it leans a bit too much into safe patterns of sidescroller boss design rather than give you anything particularly climactic to build on what came before. In fact, I was a bit surprised to find the game ended where it did, as it felt as if there was another chapter that had been left out. 

Inside My Radio is a unique vision, but one that feels truncated and disparate. It could use more focus, with individual moments showing promise, but not leaving them enough room to breathe. It’s more experimental mixtape than concept album. A mix of danceable tracks, one banger ready for radio play, and some playful tracks that don’t quite work out what they’re trying for.