In an effort to increase cheap and independent game awareness, I’m going to showcase Audiosurf today. It has been getting tons of good press all across the internet in the past weeks so you’ve probably already heard of it, and there is an almost equally good chance that you’ve played it yourself by now, but it’s so good that I simply have to make it the first game that I talk about here.

Part puzzle game, part rhythm game, AudioSurf is a music game like no other. Import any music file and the game will analyze it and generate a track with paths of colored blocks carved out. The main objective is earn points by collecting, sorting and destroying the colored blocks. Different characters or “game modes” give the player a different ability with which to manipulate the blocks. An alternate objective can be played by selecting the “Mono” character, which changes the game mode to one where the player must avoid blocks at all costs in order to get the highest score. There is also a “free ride” game mode where a track and blocks are generated, but the player isn’t under any pressure to do anything. Think of it as a fancy visualizer.

The song played is called Waltz With Death by Nathan Allen Pinard. If you are interested in either trying or buying Audiosurf you can get it from the official website, or, as I prefer to, through Steam, for the modest price of $9.95.