The objective of Thumper is to guide a beetle-like creature along a single or dual track through a series of unnerving worlds. The player must press a button to hit lit "notes" on the track in time with the background music, while also bracing against obstacles, turning against curved walls, jumping over spikes, and defeating enemies. The game is played in a third-person point of view with an extremely fast scrolling speed. Each level is broken up into segments. After each segment, the player is given a score and a rating showing how well they did. The beetle can sustain one hit, and at certain places it can regain its shield if it is lost. However, taking a second hit without its wing-shield in place will destroy it, and the level starts over at the last checkpoint. The player can repeat the segment as many times as is necessary to beat the level. Each level in the game features rhythms corresponding to a time signature related to the level number, from 1/2 through to 9/8 A secondary mode, 'Play+', is unlocked for each level after it has been completed. In this mode, the player must progress through the level on one 'life'. Dying requires re-starting from the beginning of the level. In addition, the speed increases with the player's score multiplier.
Development
Thumper was developed by the two-man team of Drool, consisting of Marc Flury, the programmer of the game, and Brian Gibson, the bassist for Lightning Bolt, who composed the music and created the artwork for the game. The design of the game was a collaboration between Flury and Gibson. The game runs on a proprietary engine of Flury's design and has been ported to many different platforms and includes VR support. The game was praised for its rejection of the object-oriented programming paradigm in favor of a procedural programming approach. Much of the game's code was organized via a small handful of large files, some of which reached 6000 lines of C++ code. This approach resulted in levels and music that can extend or shrink flawlessly to match the progression of the player. The game was released for the Nintendo Switch on May 18, 2017. A version for the Xbox One released on August 18, 2017. The game was released on iOS devices as Thumper: Pocket Edition on January 24, 2018. The game was one of the launch titles for Stadia on November 19, 2019.
Reception
Thumper received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregatorMetacritic. PC Gamer declared it "one of the best rhythm games ever made." Chloi Rad of IGN wrote that "Thumpers trippy sights, sounds, and intense rhythm action create a terrifying VR experience I won't soon forget." The Official UK PlayStation Magazine listed it as the second best PS VR game.
