Brace Yourself Games has released a demo of its upcoming new entry in the Necrodancer series; one that looks mighty colourful and akin to your Guitar Hero titles and Rhythm Heaven entries.

The game is called Rift of the Necrodancer, and it stars Crypt of the Necrodancer main heroine Cadence in a brand-new look and in a brand-new strange world where she engages in musical combat against monsters pouring out of the rift. Meanwhile, she also goes in dance battles and yoga classes in quirky minigame fashion much like your Rhythm Heaven-style entries.

The demo features three tracks featuring Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty. There are also tutorials to teach you how to deal with the enemies when doing music battles. You have a music lane, and monsters come on down. You press either the left, up, or right key to hit monsters when they’re on the corresponding arrow and when they’re in sync with the beat. If you time it right, you get either a “Great” or “Perfect” and deal with the rest of the monsters/notes until the song is over. Get hurt too much, and you start all over again.

Different monsters/notes require different inputs. The blue bats require an additional hit AND will shift onto the lane they’re facing, while shielded skeletons require two quick hits in succession. Coloured skeletons run off after a hit or two, then come back. When all of these monsters mix together, it makes for a challenging time especially when you want to get all the notes and in perfect harmony. It’s already hard enough trying to survive a song, so my suggestion is to play through the song on a difficulty multiple times before bumping up the challenge, so that you know how the song and its bass and rhythm goes.

Check out the full demo playthrough & features list below; Rift of the Necrodancer will be out in 2024 for PC.

Features

• Showstopping Music: Brand new soundtrack with 30+ Rhythm Rift tracks at launch by Danny Baranowsky, FamilyJules, Alex Moukala, Josie Brechner, Sam Webster, and Nick Nausbaum, with more on the way!
• Choose Your Intensity: Four difficulty levels in each Rhythm Rift – EASY, MEDIUM, HARD, and EXPERT
• Endless Replayability: If you’ve conquered our hand-crafted levels, Remix Mode throws fresh, procedurally generated monster patterns your way every playthrough, with new Daily Challenge leaderboards to see how you rank against other players!
• Race to the Top: Compete globally for the top high scores.
• Change the Beat: Push your limits with gameplay-altering modifiers.
• Mod Your Mayhem: Custom music and mod support!