Tempopo review: Conducting a delightfully dippy orchestra
Brisbane-based Witch Beam impressed us in 2021's Unpacking, a thoughtful synthesis of Tetris-esque puzzles with poignant storytelling about moving house. Tempopo dials back the sentiment, foregrounds the soundtrack and weds it to a set of 3D puzzles that echo the influential Lemmings or the more recent Humanity from 2023.
Each level contains a handful of flowers to be collected, obstacles to be avoided and a mazy 3D structure with an exit as your final goal. You control a small party of sprites who wander aimlessly unless you plant movement instructions such as turn, fly or push block.
The bouncy tunes underpin the little helpers' energetic and infectious dances. But your squishy friends effectively go nowhere except off the edge into the abyss until you start conducting their progress by drawing from a limited set of moves. You might need to squash a prickly bramble bush, plug a gap with a block or waft a helper upwards like a helicopter to a higher level.
Mercifully, there's no punishment bar a rapid restart for screwing up and your principal step in every level is to watch the sprites fail over and over until you've grasped the choke points and begun to plan their ultimate route.
Witch Beam has made Tempopo with all ages in mind, from the vividly coloured visuals to the forgiving difficulty options. A hint system goes as far as telling you what to plant and where but is graduated to the extent that you can seek just a single nudge in the right direction.
The 60-plus levels offer a gentle on-ramp to the concepts within but by the 10th mission or so, you'll be juggling the simultaneous interactions of multiple sprites, orchestrating their criss-crossing paths like a superpowered traffic cop. The ultra-compact nature of the levels does mean it can be quite the challenge to mentally untangle the 3D space, no matter how much you rotate it before pressing start.
Outside of the puzzles, Witch Beam lets you experiment with a lightweight music generator that remixes the in-game tunes based on sounds and notes placed on the playfield. It's hardly GarageBand but might just catch the attention of a younger player hankering for a breather from the main game's brainteasers.
Tempopo won't have the same impact for adults as Unpacking but it's a fun diversion brimming with cheer and pitched at a very reasonable €20.
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