izigame.me

TL;DR
The game is a true masterpiece, inducing a deep state of flow through it's gamefeel, challenging gameplay, and presentation. While technically being mechanically comparable to an auto-runner, it does not feel like one, it feels more like speedrunning mirror's edge.
10/10
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THUMPER
I am a sucker for games that pull you into a state of flow. Doom eternal with it's funzone design, when you fight bosses in darksouls and momentarily forget that you exist, the entire original mirror's edge, which was my previous favorite flow game that would have me breathing in synch with the pov character. Thumper is the platonic ideal of this concept, there is no game that captures it better.
Thumper is strange if you try to describe it. You're a beetle going along railways in space at maddening speed, reacting to obsticles that appair in time with the dark synthy music, and which occasionally service the goal of fighting a boss. But not a single part of that is really relevant, because Thumper is a game about two things.
RYTHM GAMEPLAY
The game has you push buttons in a predetermined pattern which are telegraphed to you visually and audiably 2-3 seconds before you encounter the obsticle. This is basically like guitar hero or rockband, but you have more sophisticated rythms and inputs. What makes this game imo far superior to other rythm games is it's willingness to explore. There are odd time signatures, absurd patterns, and I'm pretty sure I have already encountered some polyrythms.
In addition to the exiting rythms, and unlike other rythm games that often fall into the category of either being entirely about perfect inputs like guitar hero, or having only a basic beat but more freedom in gameplay like crypt of the necrodancer, Thumper manages to grant both complex rythms and demanding challange, but also some sense of freedom. While the game is literally on rails, you relatively early uncover that you can choose multiple ways to solve individual sections which may have different results, and while there is likely an arguably best way, you will find that sometimes you will have to choose between the optimal method for ranking (based on hit percent), point score (there are some manouvers that grant more points) or survivability (only some obstacles damage you, get damaged twice without recovering and you are forced to restart from last checkpoint), and even within each category there are occasionally multiple options and ways to balance the different parts.
Survival is the base challenge, but points and ranks grant the game plenty of replayability, which is easily and swiftly managed with the ability to replay earlier levels individually, and jump back if you fail getting the result you want from a section during a level.
This combination of sophisticated rythm and limited but engaging choice, makes the game feel a lot deeper than it's peers, and I believe basically all the other games in the rythm family (that I have played) could learn from it.
VIOLENCE PRESENTATION
The music uses a mixture of spacy synths and harsh industrial sounds, both given enough reverb to make you feel like you really are in space. The trippy visuals with reflections and twirling geometry mixed with vague eldritch allusions create this sense of vastness and serenity that makes a lot of this game feel calm and zen-like, but not quite safe at any point. You get a strong sense of this by just opening the game. Then you press play.
You move with the velocity of a bullet train, and the slightly shaky camera and the way sparks fly when you touch things makes you feel like a rocket on rails that could explode any moment, and you might, if you crash into most obsticles you withness parts flying off as your beetle exoskeleton is smashed of and the shattered pieces fly into space. If it happens again, you see the same happen to the rest of you, but in both instances you don't slow down, but the camera keeps wooshing ahead and merely fades to black for a moment to reload you. The speed is constant, and it is devestatingly fast.
Jacob Geller mentioned in a review the feeling of crashing into walls in mariocart so you can turn without slowing down, only you're moving much faster, and I find this a very apt description of the feeling of playing the game. You don't feel as if this beetle you're controlling was ever meant to move at these speeds, much less grind along turns and smash through hinderances, and every move feels like you have to force it, but rather than frustration it envokes catharsis.