Tamashika is a meditation app translated into a video game. If you idle on the level select screen, a breathing exercise will appear. A clockhand will rotate around over quarters that tell you when to breathe in, hold, and breathe out. Tamashika is a first-person shooter that arms you with only a pistol, a knife, and nothing else. The only movement your’re allowed is grounded as there is no jump button and the game features just 2 enemy types. Through this, Tamashika aims to strip down the idea of the shooter to its base elements as any addition to the mechanics would distract from the meditation. It asks you to treat it as part of your daily routine, and it rewards you for it.
Besides the tutorial, you only get one level that resets each day with a new layout created using procedural-generation. It is possible to play prior levels, but only if you keep up a daily streak. If you break that streak, you lose the ability. The levels that are generated each day all follow a similar structure.Each level is split up into 4 checkpoints, with each section growing in gradual complexity and the game provides you with 3 starting lives with more earnable. The first 3 sections comprise of roughly 60% of the level and tend to be made up of simple corridors and wide rooms. In here, a series of enemies hide behind corners and walls with some even being up on the ceiling and they have two main patterns: rush you for a melee engage or throw a ball straight at you. Both can be killed in one shot and offer little danger outside of melee.After completing the level, you have the option to play a version of it without checkpoints with the aim of attaining the most amount of points in the least amount of time needed. All of this is tracked by a public leaderboard featuring the top 100.
When it comes to general difficulty, the game is incredibly forgiving in both its aiming and its mechanics. Hit registration on the enemy is so big such that flicking the mouse in a split second window to shoot it is something that can happen a dozen times in a single level. Additionally, if you are able to go on a streak with hitting targets, your gun will not run out of ammo. It is only in the cases where you miss a shot or fail a skill-check that the gun will need to be reloaded. When it comes to the knife, there are two main applications which are to deflect projectiles or to kill an enemy. However, what sets it apart is that the knife’s use cases are exclusively reaction-based. When you bump into an enemy, it will pop up on your screen with a knife and pauses for a moment. If you right click during this window, it will kill the enemy. If you miss the timing, it will send you back to the start of a checkpoint. This allows for a pretty large margin for error to course-correct if you mess up in some way. Despite this, there are areas of mastery to be found throughout a level’s runtime that, coupled with punchy effects, provides a small thrill that rarely gets old. Most of them aren’t explained in the tutorial so it’s up to you to experiment with the limited toolkit you have and discover them. As a result, the game offers both a low skill floor and a deceptively high skill ceiling, allowing elements of self-expression to come out within the gameplay.
With so little else to grasp on to for the player, Tamashika rounds out the package through visuals and audio designed to entrance. The soundtrack is largely made up by steady beats that build dynamically with more instruments the more you clear each section. There is a good amount to uncover, with some tracks only showing up occasionally. And with the gameplay scenarios being framed around an acid trip, the developers chose to take liberty with how they approached designing the UI and character designs. Little touches like the edges of your screen flaring when you get a kill or text flashing to signify a visible threat provide just enough feedback without breaking concentration. Colour plays a significant role too where the palette for a level is made up of desaturated tones that contrast harshly with the enemies and objects. It’s surprising that amidst its trippy artstyle, the game is quite efficient at conveying sensory information.
Tamashika is the kind of game designed to be played every day in very short bursts. It will give you a few minutes of high-focus gameplay that results in a satisfying finish, but asks you to enjoy it over a period of time rather than binging it. It’s a testament to its design when finishing a level feels like a release of tension that leads into a calm relaxation. If you’re someone who is looking for something to help clear your mind through some kind of daily exercise, this game might be worth picking up. As for myself, I plan to keep my daily streak going.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on PC