For my entire life, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of synesthesia, an extremely rare trait where someone’s brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses. You might have heard it referenced as people who can taste textures when reading, or see colors when hearing music. When watching movies or playing games I’ve often gone back to the idea — trying to wrap my mind around how having synesthesia would integrally change the way you experience art. How different your entire relationship would be with film, music, games, or anything else.
The interactive nature of video games has always seemed the perfect vessel to explore that concept, and for decades, a designer named Tetsuya Mizuguchi has been at the forefront of doing just that. Mizuguchi is the creator of Rez: Infinite and founded the studio Enhance, which would go on to create Humanity and the award-winning Tetris Effect. But Mizuguchi is also the creator of the Lumines franchise, and has been involved in every single entry — with things now coming full circle at his studio Enhance.
Enhance’s games have always aimed to evoke a multi-sensory experience, but Lumines Arise truly feels like it’s taking it to the next level. The hands-on demo I had is almost a blur, a 30-minute fugue state where I genuinely forgot there were other people in the room. It’s an entrancing puzzle game that creates a sensory assault like nothing I’ve ever played, and it’s quite suddenly become my most anticipated game — especially after hearing about the game’s design philosophy.
“In order for any creator to try and get into the multi-sensory experience, you have to mix a few things that make sense to get as close to that feeling of having synesthesia” director Takashi Ishihara tells Inverse, “With Tetris Effect, I think we leaned heavily into the game design aspect of it. Sure, there are visuals and music, but the game design allowed instantaneous clicking of the senses. With Lumines Arise, it’s the same, but I think it’s using all the learnings from Tetris Effect and applying it in a different way.”
Lumines is a classic PlayStation puzzle series that revolves around rotating and aligning 2x2 blocks, stacking them up into squares that will dissolve when the timeline goes through along to the music. The goal is to eliminate blocks as fast as possible and survive, but music especially, has always been a crucial component of the games.
“Lumines was designed from the ground up, literally starting with the idea of how do we make synesthesia in this game?” Enhance SVP of production Mark MacDonald says, “We have a sound team, and we’re not using licensed music, it’s all original. When they’re making stuff, they might be inspired by a stage that’s the original inspiration for Ishihara-san, both the thematic one and visuals, and they come up with sounds for it. While the visual team is working, they all have the same concept art. With Lumines, we have no restrictions on the gameplay, visuals, or anything, so if we have an idea on one side or the other, we can just do it. That iteration is where the magic sauce of synesthesia is.”
Arise uses the same tried-and-true gameplay of past Lumines games, but splices that together with a fantastical visual and auditory experience, while also integrating a new mechanic called Burst. A gauge fills up as you play through stages, and when full, Burst lets you focus on one specific color to wipe out as much of the grid as possible in a single go. It’s a simple system that’s easy to pick up, but creates layers of complexity.
That’s especially true when you factor in the sensory changes that make every level feel unique. In one, my blocks turned into wispy lines pulled on strings like a puppet by skeletal hands — the next shifted to a hard techno beat as multicolored Chameleons bumped along to the music. Yet another features a man slumped on the ground dejected, rising from defeat into a strong stride as you do better and get closer to completing the stage.
Arise feels great to play, and its sensory experience is jaw-dropping, but it’s also astoundingly thematically complex.
“In Tetris Effect, looking at all the stages in Journey Mode, it’s a little more based in nature, or ocean, or the sky. They’re very grand and epic in scale, and within that you go on this journey and you feel something,” Ishihara says, “Wheras with Lumines Arise, there is that sort of storytelling, a narrative park we’re building, but it’s a bit more on a micro and closer to you the human. There are even stages based on daily objects from your life.”
That’s perhaps what has me most excited to experience Arise as a whole, seeing what kind of story and narrative experience can play out through this fusion of presentation and puzzle mechanics.
“It sounds funny to talk about the story of a puzzle game, but overall it’s a positive message. There’s a message about the duality of people in life, there’s darkness and light, tough times you go through and celebratory times. But ultimately, it’s a good thing when you get through those hard periods,” MacDonald says, “It’s almost like showing you a snippet of a novel here and there, to show parts of the different emotions. But the final thing, including transitions between stages and stuff like that, hopefully feels like an album.”
The more micro approach of Arise means it might connect with more people on a personal level, and I was actually surprised to hear how much thought went into something so simple, the game’s title. While Arise does denote the return of a long-dormant franchise, Ishihara explains that the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge effect on the creation of this game, and ultimately is where the name came from.
“When the development team was near completion with the Connected part of Tetris Effect, it was COVID. We’re all going through that together, and obviously there are uncertainties. Me personally, the team, you, and on a global level,” Ishihara says, “There were dark times, but even through those, I think we all look forward to even just having one good day, some uplifting spirits or words you get from peers or friends. In that moment, we were trying to be that for each other, so we wanted to make something that was going to bring out a positive feeling. Hopefully, we can communicate that, and it will help you have a positive and happy day.”
It might sound simple, but at the end of the day, that’s the entire reason I play and write about video games. Throughout my life, games have elicited moments of joy and introspection and helped me connect with others. In that 30-minute demo of Lumines Arise, it’s like I was reminded why I do this, why I’ve dedicated my life to talking about games — and I’m not sure I’ve ever had that kind of experience previewing anything.
Seeing Lumines come back is exciting in and of itself, but seeing a studio like Enhance tackle the task is even better. And a large part of that is because Enhance’s games are singularly unique — even though some are based on established IP, there’s nothing else like them. And that’s something Ishihar has thought about when it comes to Enhance’s future.
“There’s always a chance for us to want to take on the challenge of an existing puzzle franchise if the opportunity is there. But there’s also a chance that we give ourselves an opportunity to work on something brand new, from scratch. I’m going to leave those possibilities available for myself,” Ishihara says, “We’ve come to a point where I don’t know if anyone else can do what we do. I’m very confident. At the end of the day, it is a puzzle game, but if you try to do the puzzle-x-synesthesia experience, I don’t think there is anyone else out there that can do what we have done, and what we’re trying to accomplish with Lumines Arise.”
