PixelJunk 4AM

PixelJunk 4AM is the first game in the series overtly about music, and is a collaboration with Baiyon, a Japanese multimedia artist who created the graphics and composed the music for PixelJunk Eden. The developer, Q-Games, has a habit of innovating within densely-populated genres (shooters, platformers, etc.) with the series. They often emphasize pretty environments, music, and ambience, so this is a step in a natural direction for them, and they bring a healthy amount of experience to the project.

The game is hard to explain, but the first video does a decent job- you use the playstation move controller to add, remove, and manipulate any of 4 music tracks (drums, bass, etc.). There are a number of hand-held mechanics that allow you to manipulate the sound of any of the tracks in real-time, and the graphics on the screen change accordingly. The controls look natural and appealing, and the concept looks fairly simple, once you start playing. If there is more depth to the game, the developer is keeping it under wraps for now.

PixelJunk 4am is available for the PS3 from May 15th.