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-----------This is my review account, because the low playtime.
+ beautiful hand drawn worlds
+ smooth animations
+ everything moves to the music
- level blocks are repeated

+ music brings the world to life
+ attention to detail
+ charming and sympathetic humor
- static text cutscenes

+ varied, high-class electric Soundtrack
+ perfectly adapted to the game
+ beatbox end voice output

+ perfect learning curve
+ tricky, but always logical puzzles
+ fair set reset points
- only one level of difficulty

+ balanced mix of puzzle and action passages
+ surprised to the end with new ideas
- little to discover

+ clever physics and switch puzzles
+ always require rethinking
+ towards the end pleasantly challenging
- constructions sometimes a bit confusing

+ rhythm as the main weapon
+ fanning vehicle deposits
- just movement and combat maneuvers
- abilities are automatically unlocked

+ interesting basic idea
+ pleasant self-deprecating
+ sympathetic characters
- many clichés
- disappointing end

+ reasonably long campaign (solo playtime around 6 hours)
+ neither dilations or repeats
- runs strictly linear
- neither co-op multiplayer mode yet


You do not love music, to have fun with the action-adventure Beatbuddy. But it helps immensely to survive.
There is a story here, but it's about as much impact on the product as a whole has worked as an average album cover. You are Beatbuddy (Beat, short), one of a trinity of gods of music style, and your fellow musical harmony spirit you have to rescue your sister Melody from the clutches of the villainous Prince Maestro. Maestro wants the world to dance to its beat alone, and this is obviously a bad thing, because the poor guy did not even have the chops on a one-hit wonder.

The beautifully hand painted worlds are full of lovely details and funny ideas. During the five to six hours of play I was always curious about what to expect around the next corner and were surprised again and again. First and just with the equally abrupt as unspectacular final is Beatbuddy from the idea of breath.

From playful core outwards Beatbuddy is really just a thoroughly conventional action-adventure. We explore the floating caverns of the six worlds, from the mine to the jungle to the temple, avoid obstacles and traps, solve a lot of switches and physics puzzles and beat with our blue fists every now and again parasite-like opponents.

The great art of Beatbuddy is that the song while the focus at all, unlike pure music games like Guitar Hero or Audiosurf but never in the foreground. We do not play the music, but with the music. A smaller, but just as fine as fascinating difference. The music is unquestionably the highlight here, and even in Beatbuddy's weakest moments, you might have a hard time refraining from tapping your feet or bobbing your head to the rhythm.

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I can't recommend this game at full price. Fun for the first couple levels, then gets tedious and repetitive. Several level breaking bugs on the last couple levels of the game that require complete restarts, buggy controls (using xobx 360), final game breaking bug that doesn't fix even with restart on last level keeping me from being able to complete the story. The soundtrack is good, along with the level backgrounds, and overall aesthetic but I found myself just trying to finish for the sake of finishing rather than because I was having fun. Couple this with the numerous bugs I ran into and I can't justify $10. Pick it up for $2-$3 or less to have a little fun. Other than that save your money. Mediocre at best. 3/5

A good break from the holiday deluge with an indie title from time to time reminds me that small teams can put out some surprising gems in the flooded console and PC market. I'm talking about those titles that fill up the lower end of the Steam Sales, and they show up as coupons that you get but you wonder what the game is, and whether or not you should commit to it despite the lower cost of entry. Beatbuddy is one such example of those games. It's not perfect, and could use a little more polish, but it's a solid idea for a first outing by the team at Threaks.

Beatbuddy stars it's titular character who has awoken from slumber and must save his friends from the nefarious prince of Symphonia. It's not a terribly deep story, but it does give you the sense of purpose necessary to proceed through the game. It's a bit of a short adventure, clocking it at just under six hours to get through your first time. Whether you'll go back or not depends on the amount of collectibles you found during your experience and how much you care to see the inner workings of Beatbuddy's development. The extras that are unlocked are a lot of storyboards telling about how Beatbuddy came in to being, and how Threaks has spent the past four years trying to get this game off the ground. Let it be known that game development is never an easy task.

The biggest star of Beatbuddy though is its excellent soundtrack that contains some choice tunes from Austin Wintory, Europa Deep, Parov Stelar, Sabrepulse, Curtis Newton, and La Rochelle Band. Each stage features a song by these artists and serves as the backbone to the experience of Beatbuddy, and it's interesting to see how the guys at Threaks managed to break down elements of each song and make them part of the gameplay. The only negative here is that the stages tend to be thirty to forty minutes long, and while the tracks themselves are good and are broken up really well, there is still that same sense of music droning on, and if you happen to get stuck during a particular puzzle, it starts to get a little grating.

At its core, Beatbuddy is a puzzle-adventure game with musical elements that make timing on some puzzles a much bigger factor than you'd normally expect. The rather gentle tutorial stage gets you in the swing of things, showing you how each stage's musical elements come in to play. Like snare crabs that when knocked out cause the surrounding slugs to retract, opening a path forward. But the hook here is how the creatures and puzzle elements all move in time with the music, and knocking out the crabs will cut that part of the musical track out, but you'll be given audio cues along with visual ones to let you know that they're about to come back and potentially impede your progress once again. Once the tutorial is complete, more puzzle elements come in to play that require you to deftly maneuver Beatbuddy through some tight situations and eventually some light combat comes in to play. It never gets to the point of being overly challenging, although there are a few times where some of the ricochet puzzles seem to be a bit too clever for their own good and require a little too much precision from the player, making them seem overly difficult.

This game also has a fair share of bugs that can wipe out the progress you've made on a particular level. I ran in to one instance where I died against some enemies and when I respawned and defeated them, the puzzle elements that they blocked did not become available. And since this was tied to the auto-save, I had to restart the entire level. This wouldn't be a problem if the levels weren't so long. These aren't rampant bugs, but it pays to be very careful when playing through, and thankfully Threaks has been issuing updates to address some of these, so it's quite possible that this may be resolved by the time you're reading this review.

This game is certainly pleasant to look at, thanks to its wonderfully colorful aesthetic. The animation of Beatbuddy and his friends is also rather impressive, even though they don't move around a whole lot, their idle animations show a lot of love went into making each of them feel unique. And hearing their speaking as beatboxing to the music is also a clever addition. The hand-drawn backgrounds have an element of Rayman to them, though they can get a little repetitive if you stop and stare for too long.

I don't really talk about controls much, but I have to say, play this game with a gamepad, or even a keyboard, because the mouse controls make a lot of the timing puzzles difficult to deal with. I spent a majority of my time playing with a mouse, and found it to be a bit detrimental to the experience, especially after I switched to a gamepad. The keyboard option is there as well, though the devs don't recommend using it.

The music is a big draw for the game, and while the levels could have benefited from a bit of fat trimming, they complement the music nicely. For a first effort, the guys at Threaks have certainly gotten off on the right foot. Hopefully they'll have more titles in the future that combine their excellent audio work with their well-crafted visuals.


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I would really like to recommend Beatbuddy, but I just can't... at least, not fully. While it's got a lot going for it, I just can't get past how buggy it is. Although I did manage to complete it, it wasn't without some serious issues. Several times I got stuck in various ways that prevented further progress - sometimes it was a matter of a game event not triggering properly, and sometimes it was due to going some way the game wasn't expecting me to (apparently). I also encountered issues where the controls would just stop working for no reason. Restoring to the last checkpoint sometimes fixes the issue, but this is rarely the case. Most times, there is no choice but to start the level (or entire chapter) from scratch. Do you know how annoying it is to have 30-40 minutes of progress wiped out, have to start over again, and hope you don’t make the same game-breaking mistake again (whatever it was)? Let me tell you - it's really f%@*&g annoying. I ended up having to do that multiple times. And would you believe, as a final bug-ridden cherry on top, the very end of the game also glitched out on me as well? Well, believe it. So on top of all the other frustration I experienced just getting through the game, I didn’t even get to see the full conclusion of the story.

Now, putting all of that aside, what’s actually good about Beatbuddy? Quite a bit, actually. The hand-drawn layered 2D graphics look great, the controls are responsive, the puzzles are generally well-designed, and the music is decent. And that’s a good thing, because the music plays a large part in the gameplay - the environment works in time with the beat of the music, requiring specific timing to pass obstacles or solve puzzles. The first couple of hours are great, as the basic mechanics are introduced. Unfortunately, it starts to lose its luster a little bit after that, as most of the subsequent puzzles are pretty much variations on things you’ve already done several times. So you might start to get tired of it after a while (or maybe I was just burned out from having to replay several areas). I would estimate the overall playtime to be somewhere around 4-6 hours.

Overall, the game is not bad, and I enjoyed it while it was working properly. The frustration from all of the technical issues I had just ended up being too much for me to give it a full recommendation. If you enjoy action/puzzle sidescrollers, music-themed games, and/or games with pretty 2D artwork, it’s definitely worth a look. Just be aware of the potential issues. I suppose it could very well be possible that you'd encounter no glitches at all… but I doubt it (several posts in the Steam forums seem to corroborate my experience). At the very least, don’t buy it at full price unless the developers hire more QA people and/or release a patch that fixes the game-breaking issues.

I wish I could select both yes/no. I will put down NO. NOT because the game is bad. NOT because it isn't fun. NOT because the graphics are pretty nifty. I am putting NO down because this game has TOO MANY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BUGS! I've had to restart COUNTLESS levels because of the buggy game interaction. It's freakin' ridiculous. Like, at Chapter 4 of the hive, after narrowly escaping death, i get to the end point and... NOTHING HAPPENS?!??!?!?! What in the actual freight train is up with that?! I had to restart that whole chapter because of that. And, it's not the only chapter where this happens. When the game first introduces the option to turn on/off beats you get thrown into a world of fury with switches turning beats off and the beats NEVER TURNING BACK ON AGAIN. In my case... I had to restart the whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ level, NOT just the chapter, but the WHOLE... DAMN... LEVEL...

It's enfuriating. But, once you get past that, it's a lot of fun and I'm still playing it.

Beatbuddy pairs great music and wonderful art with poor execution. I have encountered multiple bugs (Mac version) while playing and the controls can sometimes be a bit frustrating. The difficulty level swings abruptly between way too easy and maddeningly difficult pretty regularly, and it can sometimes be hard to tell if it's the software bugs or level design that causes it.

Aquaria: the Musical!

More words? Okay. It's a puzzle game about finding your way through labrynth-style caverns and dealing with various timing based boundaries as well as some enemies. It's not a bad game by any stretch but within the first hour you will have a very good idea as to whether it is "your jam". The artwork is absolutely sublime but the gameplay is excessively repetitive and the controls can be quite unwieldy at times. The vehicle sections are particularly obnoxious but are thankfully beaten by force alone.

I would not buy this game on it's own. If it's in a bundle or extremely cheap on sale and it sounds appealing then you should give it a shot. It's a short and unique game: with even a little bit of patience you can probably finish it in about four hours and not feel robbed.

Way too many bugs. Sometimes its a matter of just leaving the game and returning. Other times you had to restart the entire level. Finally got to the point where the annoyance level exceeded the fun level. Otherwise its not a bad game. If they ever fix all the bugs I might return to it.

(Linux Version reviewed)
For a game that advertises a great musical experience, it sure is devoid of music. “Beat Buddy” is actually an action-puzzle game, with a heavier emphasis on puzzles (and drums) than I was expecting.

The production values are great, with slick, captivating graphics and smooth controls. But after an hour and a half of playing, I didn’t get to hear one song in the heavily-promoted soundtrack. All you’ll hear are drums and cymbals, with an occasional snippet of sampled music. Basically, you’re listening to a drum machine for hours on end, which I found so irritating that it killed the game for me.

It’s a shame that the “drum machine” aspect ruins the game, because it’s otherwise a decent-enough game.

Horribly repetitive and the music isn't even that good. I can't help but feel that this is nothing but a iOS port. This game is not worth the money or time.

0/10 Game breaking bug right at the start of the game. No fix.

I want to like this game so much, awesome concept, fun music, but the gameplay just sucks. The levels go on for too long, making me sick of the song by the end of each level. The controls/level design feel sloppy/sluggish, there's no way to avoid bumping into stuff all the time, slowing down your progress and ruining the mood. The game also can't decide whether to focus on puzzles or platforming, neither of which are designed all that well. I could be asking too much, just finishing playing Rayman Origins, but this game just isn't well polished.

Beatbuddy is a game that incorporates music into everything.

The art is beautiful, the story is great, the characters are adorable, and the ending... Well, sadly the ending is a bit of an anti-climax, but it's also fitting for the style of Beatbuddy.

I loved every second of this game, though I won't deny it was infuriatingly frustrating at times XD

I highly recommend to anyone out there who loves music and cute little blue guys! :D 10/10

"Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians" is a sweet music and beat based game.

The level of adorableness of this game is too damn high. So let's take it from the top.

The environment is underwater. The beautifully made areas are hand painted, and filled with rock formations, plants, and cute sea creatures. It is all very pleasing to the eye, and generally forces me to smile throughout the whole experience. Also, the environment is not motionless, it is all vibrant, pulsating, bouncing, and swinging to the soundtrack.

The main character is called Beat Buddy. It's a small, blue, bubbly creature with big eyes, and... earphones. Whenever you stop to figure out a puzzle, he floats in the water bouncing his head and swinging his arm, like a real DJ. Did I mention it is adorable?

The game is basically an action-adventure with loads of puzzles, all focused around the music playing in the background. Each obstacle, element, creature has it's own unique sound which always incorporates nicely with the music, creating a beautiful, energetic soundtrack. From jazzy oldschool sounds, through clubby electronic, and even funky-rocky sounds.

While you can solve any puzzle and go through any obstacle without even turning the sound on, listetning to the soundtrack gives you an advantage. The beat, the sounds actually give you small tips and clues, when and how you should move to go through a challenge effortlessly.

The puzzles slowly progress from absolutely obvious to very complicated. It requires logical thinking, timing, and a good ear.

For me, the game is very relaxing. As I traverse the underwater environment, searching for my friends, hoping to save them.. as I bounce, float, punch my way through complicated labyrinths, I feel myself unwind. The music, the soft but vibrant colours, the sweet personality and feel of the game have a wonderful, positive impact on my mood.

So if you would like something gentle, soothing, and adorable. Something that will make you smile, but will still challenge your gaming skills, try "Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians". And don't forget to wear good headphones or turn your speakers up.

It felt like this game was 90% slow, annoying puzzles and set-up, 10% fast, fun, rhythmic motion.

Although lots of people think this puzzle game isn't hard at all and the music sometimes just become annoying while players stay in a scene for a long time, I would still recommend this game.
First of all, with the beat music here, I say the developer team has a good intention to make the undersea lively and they succeed. The scenes of undersea here aren't dark and quiet but lively and bright. The design of the stages with the concept of the beat sound from objects which are interative and those which aren't have their own styles.
Second, the puzzles here are simple. However, the standard about difficulty of puzzles is different based on players' different gaming experience and the experience they're seeking from thie game. To me, puzzle games don't have to be hard to challenge but simple to relax myself.So, in my opinion, if you don't want to beat it one day after playing several hours but just relax yourself by playing games, it's good for you, too.
Last but not least, the game will be around 2 bucks on sale, which is pretty cheap to get. If you're pretty sure that this game is your type or at least you won't hate this game, I would say it's worth the price with the hours you spend enjoying youself.

I don't know if this is a review or a warning. This game has more FPS drops than CoD Ghosts. They never mention this game also comes pack with Stress DLC. The game mechanics/controls are sometimes terrible. Finish it to feel badass, not really though :(

6/10.

well well well, I got this game from an indie humble bundle and my sole purpose for download was to receive the trading cards, this game was mildly entertaining for the first five seconds of gameplay until you realize that it is the world’s most repetitive and disappointing game, your character is a small blue lump that produces a mildly annoying yet amusing beatboxing noise, after the first five minutes it got on my nerves so I muted the game and enjoyed myself slightly more, the only difference between levels are the background colors which change from one shade of blue to another, I played this game for almost an hour and regretted every second of it, if I could remove from my steam library and banish it into some pit of despair where all failed indie games go I would, the only reason I would ever buy this game would be for a gift to my worst enemy.
Salaam,
Stoic Muffins

despite all the not recommended reviews, overall for this little game is good for me. This game contains colourful underwater-like environment.
Although this game have low replay value, but the music here is very enjoyable. I haven't finish the game yet because I'm stuck at a certain level. You won't get frustrated like other games when you're stuck. You'll just swim around and enjoy the ever looping music which it's hard to get bored on.
It's worth the 10 dollar, but it's worth more on sale, coz I bought it during sale.

Go, buy buy buy! and discover some nice music

5 minutes into the game.
Already kinda annoyed by the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weird ♥♥♥ beatboxxing whenever anyone speaks.
More ♥♥♥♥♥♥ beatboxxing.
More ♥♥♥♥♥♥/boring gameplay.

This is literally the only game ive installed to uninstall the next day.