Audiosurf

There was a thread about this before it was released, but I don’t feel like digging it up so I’m starting a new one.

I’m splitting this OP into two posts: one that’s directed at the people who aren’t familiar with Audiosurf, and one that’s directed at the people who are.

So there’s this fun game called Audiosurf. It’s a little hard to explain, but basically you feed it a song of your choice and it generates a track based on the music and you ride on it and collect blocks for a high score. The fun is that you choose your own music and it determines the experience. There are online scoreboards so you can compete with everyone else. I’m normally not a highly competitive person, but I’ve been having fun fighting for high scores with this game.

It’s available through Steam for $10, which is a pretty good deal. There’s also a free demo which lets you play on something like five songs. Here’s a tip for those who want to squeeze the most out of their demo: there’s a limit to the number of songs but not their length, so you can do five really long songs if you want.

The game is also a good way to just listen to music. If there are songs that you haven’t paid much attention to, now you can explore them. And a lot of the fun is trying out different songs to see what kind of tracks they make.

So now this is my post for those who are playing/ have played the game. Let’s share which songs work well for the game.

Actually I’ve forgotten a lot of my favorites, but here are a few:

The Church- Under the Milky Way
Those who are familiar with this song might know why it works well: bagpipe synth solo! It makes for an interesting track shape and a lot of fun.

Patti Smith- Gloria

Johnny Cash- Folsom Prison Blues
The version from At Folsom Prison is lots of fun. The studio version, on the other hand, is kind of boring.

The Cowboy Junkies- Misguided Angel
An example of a slower song that works well.

The Beatles- anything you’d expect to be interesting
A lot of Beatles songs work well.

Stiff Little Fingers- Suspect Device

Some that don’t work too well:

Leonard Cohen- Bird on the Wire
The program isn’t good at analyzing this kind of song I guess. It just doesn’t feel right.

Johnny Cash- Folsom Prison Blues
The studio version is kind of boring. The At Folsom Prison version, on the other hand, is lots of fun.

Beach Boys- Good Vibrations
This song deserves a much more dynamic track

Some punk songs have tracks that feel lifeless compared to the song, such as Looking Out for Number 1 by The Boomtown Rats.
Here are the songs I have the highest score on, if anyone wants to challenge me:

Stiff Little Fingers- Suspect Device- casual- I was going back and forth with someone else for a while. He’s had the top spot for about a week but I finally reclaimed it tonight.

The Dead Boys- Sonic Reducer- casual

The Pogues- Turkish Song of the Damned- pro

  • Fiesta- pro
  • Bottle of Smoke- pro

There are more but I don’t know which ones at the moment. If I find them I’ll post them.