This Week In Retro: PixelJunk 4AM (Patreon)

May 15, 2012: Q-Games invites everyone onto the world stage at 4AM

by Diamond Feit

I think I speak for everyone when I say this ongoing, seemingly unstoppable pandemic has been an ordeal for all of us to endure. It's not just a matter of whether the disease directly affected you or a loved one; perhaps your finances took a hit during the economic upheaval, or maybe the general stress of seeing global society get upended just dealt a blow to your mental health. COVID-19 has touched all our lives in ways no one could have predicted.

Personally, I've weathered this storm pretty well, all things considered. My family and I have remained healthy, and even though I lost my job last year (after a full year of worrying about it), that shakeup gave me the opportunity to write and podcast more often, which has empowered me to contribute more to Retronauts and stretch my legs, creatively speaking. As a means to explore my many curiosities, I joined a gym, took dancing lessons, found an acting class, and signed up for a talent agency to seek background roles in entertainment. Not all of these ventures have panned out, but they're all activities I've wanted to try.

There's one big item on my eternal to-do list, a creative endeavor that has fascinated me since childhood but has always seemed out of reach: I wish I knew how to make music. I like singing and adore karaoke, for it scratches my performance itch and makes me feel like a star, but that's not on par with what musicians can do. The skill required to pick up an instrument or log on to a computer and produce melodies looms too large in my eyes; it is a path that surely requires more time and commitment than I have to spare.

This week, we look back at a video game that isn't a video game. The developers behind it have a history of making wonderful games (they've got "Games" right in the name of the company, so you know they're good) but in this case, they developed a unique piece of software that falls somewhere between "toy" and "tool." Ten years ago, Q-Games released PixelJunk 4AM, a brilliant idea that never had a fighting chance in hell to reach an audience.

As studios go, Q-Games is more "retro" than most. The company recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and most of its signature titles have combined old-fashioned graphics and gameplay with a modern flair, particularly their PixelJunk lineup of titles. I bought a PlayStation 3 because I was enamored with Grand Theft Auto IV, but the moment I found PixelJunk Monsters on the PlayStation Store, I abandoned my life of crime in favor of living my best tower defense life. Once PixelJunk Eden arrived with its trippy visuals and funky soundtrack, I was hooked.

However, PixelJunk 4AM is entirely unlike any other game in that series, and unlike most games in general. Q-Games classifies it as an "Audio Visual Composer" according to its official genre. When I visited the developers in Kyoto to preview the game many years ago, lead designer Rowan Parker told me "We're pushing it less as a game, more as an instrument, really." While this is a fair description, as every user will no doubt create music once they start playing, PixelJunk 4AM is actually more of a music platform, an online space where everyone can be a performer or a listener.

There have been programs for making music since the concept of a computer program existed, but most of them revolve around building a sequence of notes and pressing "play." PixelJunk 4AM makes the very act of laying down beats fun, just as Super Mario Maker would later do for creating an obstacle course. Knowing how to read sheet music or recognize scales is unimportant; there is no GUI to learn, and the music starts to flow from the moment gameplay begins. What PixelJunk 4AM offers to players is an assortment of virtual instruments and effects to manage as they see fit, while an on-screen visualizer reacts to their choices to create a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. Everything happens in real-time, erasing the barrier between planning and performing. Should users wish to just relax and enjoy the show, the visualizer can also playback and respond to MP3 files on the PlayStation 3's hard drive.

When I use the word "perform" I do so purposefully, as PixelJunk 4AM contains a built-in broadcast function that shares what players create live on the PlayStation Network. The audience is not limited to other users who purchased the software, as Q-Games also released a free "viewer" app for any PS3 owner to download and enjoy. Unlike modern streaming platforms, the artist's face is not shown and there is no chat window for two-way communication, but members of the audience can offer "kudos" to performers as a means of offering feedback during the show.

As exotic and exciting as PixelJunk 4AM was, it had a couple of strikes against it. Firstly, gameplay requires the PlayStation Move accessory, Sony's "me-too" peripheral that tried to copy Nintendo's successful Wiimote for the PlayStation 3. That device launched in 2010 but by 2012, it was already viewed in the past-tense as the number of Move owners was but a small percentage of PS3 owners. Secondly, the abstract nature of PixelJunk 4AM impacted the media coverage Q-Games was able to draw. In a post-mortem for Game Developer magazine, Rowan Parker wrote "Many review sites and journalists clearly didn't know how to approach the title, and either chose to not review because it didn't fall within their definition of a game, or reached in with a lukewarm reviewing hand without really wanting to shake the boat."

A larger issue facing PixelJunk 4AM was the difficult nature of communicating to users just what to do with it in the first place. I don't think my description above does it justice, but even if you watch Rowan explain the software himself, I think PixelJunk 4AM only really makes sense if you pick it up and start playing. While I've come to appreciate the importance of "learning while doing" (hence all those aforementioned lessons I've taken), it can be very intimidating to dive headfirst into a new activity without knowing in advance how it works. As Rowan put it in his post-mortem, "it's kind of like asking players to read a book and then play a saxophone."

I don't know if PixelJunk 4AM met sales expectations or if Sony/Q-Games consider it a successful product or not. I do know that 2012 was pretty late in the lifespan of the PlayStation 3, with its successor launching in 2013, and a scan of YouTube/Twitch today shows precious few clips of the game in action. In that regard, I'd say PixelJunk 4AM was a victim of poor timing. Had it been an early PlayStation 4 release, relying on the default DualShock controller instead of an opt-in peripheral, it might have been discovered by more users. Certainly the rise of built-in sharing tools and console streaming apps would have aided both Q-Games and users in getting the word out. Instead, the only way to experience PixelJunk 4AM is to buy a PlayStation 3, a PlayStation Move, and a PlayStation Eyetoy—a big ask in 2012 but an even taller order in 2022.

I enjoyed my time with PixelJunk 4AM, and judging by his post-mortem comments I'd say Rowan did as well. I believe that any attempt to gamify a complicated task is both noble and good, but in the case of PixelJunk 4AM, it is also entertaining. I hope that developers continue to push the envelope and explore areas of video gaming beyond traditional genres and seek to create new ways for players to express themselves. If that doesn't sell as well as a box of plastic instruments with a karaoke microphone, well, that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

One trap that I have struggled to avoid my entire life is looking at everything I do not accomplish and judging myself for tasks undone. This has been especially challenging during the pandemic, as I found myself with fewer obligations at work yet I could not take advantage of the situation to my satisfaction. What I've come to realize is it doesn't matter if you have an infinite amount of free time, no one can tick off every item on their to-do list. If I had spent the past two years learning to play the guitar, that knowledge and rehearsal time would have come at a cost. Maybe I wouldn't have had time to write this column or host episodes of Retronauts or lose all that weight. Can I say with any amount of certainty that trading one creative outlet for another would make me any happier or a better person? Of course not.

Besides, if the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that change comes faster than you think. If I can reshape my body and realign my career in less than two years, who's to say that making music is beyond my reach? Maybe the next company to release an "Audio Visual Composer" will stick the landing and I'll find myself grooving at 4AM with a controller in one hand and an energy drink in the other. That's no less far-fetched than 2019-me imagining myself as a professional podcaster.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.