{"id":136037,"date":"2024-09-03T13:59:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T13:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=34m9vbvv"},"modified":"2024-09-03T13:59:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T13:59:53","slug":"behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2024\/09\/03\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Design: The rhythms of Rytmos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A screenshot from the game Rytmos that depicts a floating cube-like shape with a puzzle covering its sides. The shape is set against a green and blue background.\"><\/div>\n<p><em>Rytmos<\/em> is a game that sounds as good as it looks.<\/p>\n<p>With its global rhythms, sci-fi visuals, and clever puzzles, the 2024 Apple Design Award winner for Interaction is both a challenge and an artistic achievement. To solve each level, players must create linear pathways on increasingly complex boards, dodging obstacles and triggering buttons along the way. It\u2019s all set to a world-music backdrop; different levels feature genres as diverse as Ethiopian jazz, Hawaiian slack key guitar, and Gamelan from Indonesia, just to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s the hook: Every time you clear a level, you add an instrument to an ever-growing song.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea is that instead of reacting to the music, you\u2019re creating it,\u201d says Asger Strandby, cofounder of Floppy Club, the Denmark-based studio behind <em>Rytmos<\/em>. \u201cWe do a lot to make sure it doesn\u2019t sound too wild. But the music in <em>Rytmos<\/em> is entirely generated by the way you solve the puzzles.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\">ADA FACT SHEET<\/p>\n<h3>Rytmos<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Winner:<\/strong> Interaction<\/li>\n<li><strong>Team:<\/strong> Floppy Club<\/li>\n<li><strong>Available on:<\/strong> iPhone, iPad<\/li>\n<li><strong>Team size:<\/strong> 5<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rytmos.club\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Learn more about Rytmos<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\" href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/rytmos\/id1673697954\">Download Rytmos from the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The artful game is the result of a partnership that dates back decades. In addition to being developers, Strandby and Floppy Club cofounder Niels B\u00f6ttcher are both musicians who hail from the town of Aarhus in Denmark. \u201cIt\u2019s a small enough place that if you work in music, you probably know everyone in the community,\u201d laughs B\u00f6ttcher. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>The music in <em>Rytmos<\/em> comes mostly from traveling and being curious.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Niels B\u00f6ttcher, Floppy Club cofounder<\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The pair connected back in the early 2000s, bonding over music more than games. \u201cFor me, games were this magical thing that you could never really make yourself,\u201d says Strandby. \u201cI was a geeky kid, so I made music and eventually web pages on computers, but I never really thought I could make games until I was in my twenties.\u201d Instead, Strandby formed bands like Analogik, which married a wild variety of crate-digging samples \u2014 swing music, Eastern European folk, Eurovision-worthy pop \u2014 with hip-hop beats. Strandby was the frontman, while B\u00f6ttcher handled the behind-the-scenes work. \u201cI was the manager in everything but name,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The band was a success: Analogik went on to release five studio albums and perform at Glastonbury, Roskilde, and other big European festivals. But when their music adventure ended, the pair moved back into separate tech jobs for several years \u2014 until the time came to join forces again. \u201cWe found ourselves brainstorming one day, thinking about, \u2018Could we combine music and games in some way?\u2019\u201d says B\u00f6ttcher. \u201cThere are fun similarities between the two in terms of structures and patterns. We thought, \u2018Well, let\u2019s give it a shot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos-1.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos-1.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A *Rytmos* screenshot showing a deconstructed series of dark floating puzzle pieces against a blue and green background.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p>Puzzles in <em>Rytmos<\/em> \u2014 like the one set on the planet \u201cHateta\u201d \u2014 come with a little history lesson about the music being played. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The duo launched work on a rhythm game that was powered by their histories and travels. \u201cI\u2019ve collected CDs and tapes from all over the world, so the genres in <em>Rytmos<\/em> are very carefully chosen,\u201d says B\u00f6ttcher. \u201cWe really love Ethiopian jazz music, so we included that. Gamelan music (traditional Indonesian ensemble music that\u2019s heavy on percussion) is pretty wild, but incredible. And sometimes, you just hear an instrument and say, \u2018Oh, that tabla has a really nice sound.\u2019 So the music in <em>Rytmos<\/em> comes mostly from traveling and being curious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The game took shape early, but the mazes in its initial versions were much more intricate. To help bring them down to a more approachable level, the Floppy Club team brought on art director Niels Fyrst. \u201cHe was all about making things cleaner and clearer,\u201d says B\u00f6ttcher. \u201cOnce we saw what he was proposing \u2014 and how it made the game stronger \u2014 we realized, \u2018OK, maybe we\u2019re onto something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>Success in <em>Rytmos<\/em> isn&#8217;t just that you&#8217;re beating a level. It&#8217;s that you&#8217;re creating something.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Asger Strandby, Floppy Club cofounder<\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Still, even with a more manageable set of puzzles, a great deal of design complexity remained. Building Rytmos levels was like stacking a puzzle on a puzzle; the team not only had to build out the levels, but also create the music to match. To do so, Strandby and his brother, Bo, would sketch out a level and then send it over to B\u00f6ttcher, who would sync it to music \u2014 a process that proved even more difficult than it seems. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sound is very dependent on the location of the obstacles in the puzzles,\u201d says Strandby. \u201cThat\u2019s what shapes the music that comes out of the game. So we\u2019d test and test again to make sure the sound didn\u2019t break the idea of the puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos-2.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/behind-the-design-the-rhythms-of-rytmos-2.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A *Rytmos* screenshot showing a puzzle set on a floating cube-like shape set against a light red background.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p>Puzzles in <em>Rytmos<\/em> are all about getting from Point A to Point B \u2014 but things are never as simple as they seem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The process, he says, was \u201cquite difficult\u201d to get right. \u201cUsually with something like this, you create a loop, and then maybe add another loop, and then add layers on top of it,\u201d says B\u00f6ttcher. \u201cIn <em>Rytmos<\/em>, hitting an emitter triggers a tone, percussion sound, or chord. One tone hits another tone, and then another, and then another. In essence, you\u2019re creating a pattern while playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>We\u2019ve actually gone back to make some of the songs more imprecise, because we want them to sound human.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Niels B\u00f6ttcher, Floppy Club cofounder<\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The unorthodox approach leaves room for creativity. \u201cTwo different people\u2019s solutions can sound different,\u201d says Strandby. And when players win a level, they unlock a \u201cjam mode\u201d where they can play and practice freely. &#8220;It\u2019s just something to do with no rules after all the puzzling,\u201d laughs Strandby.<\/p>\n<p>Yet despite all the technical magic happening behind the scenes, the actual musical results had to have a human feel. \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with genres that are analog and organic, so they couldn\u2019t sound electronic at all,\u201d says B\u00f6ttcher. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually gone back to make some of the songs more imprecise, because we want them to sound human.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Best of all, the game is shot through with creativity and cleverness \u2014 even offscreen. Each letter in the <em>Rytmos<\/em> logo represents the solution to a puzzle. The company\u2019s logo is a 3.5-inch floppy disk, a little nod to their first software love. (\u201cThat\u2019s all I wished for every birthday,\u201d laughs B\u00f6ttcher.) And both B\u00f6ttcher and Strandby hope that the game serves as an introduction to both sounds and people they might not be familiar with. &#8220;Learning about music is a great way to learn about a culture,\u201d says Strandby.<\/p>\n<p>But mostly, <em>Rytmos<\/em> is an inspirational experience that meets its lofty goal. \u201cSuccess in <em>Rytmos<\/em> isn\u2019t just that you\u2019re beating a level,\u201d says Strandby. \u201cIt\u2019s that you\u2019re creating something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/design\/awards\/\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\"><em>Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rytmos is a game that sounds as good as it looks. With its global rhythms, sci-fi visuals, and clever puzzles, the 2024 Apple Design Award winner for Interaction is both a challenge and an artistic achievement. To solve each level, players must create linear pathways on increasingly complex boards, dodging obstacles and triggering buttons along [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}