Doodle Music: ODDADA

Let your inner child drop some tracks.

‣ ODDADA
From: Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann
Platforms: PC
Release: Q3 2024
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

Legend has it that blues musician Robert Johnson got his playing skills by selling his soul to the devil. Chances are, he probably just practised a lot. But most of us aren't really up for Faustian bargains or music lessons. We just wanna… play. For us, there's ODDADA.

This game won't compose the next knee-slapper, but you'll pump out a few fun melodies in some very unconventional, even child-like, ways.

Calling something a 'music' game usually implies one of two gameplay styles: either you play approximations of real instruments, or you try to match some kind of rhythm or beat. ODDADA strikes a third path. It's a "chaotic" music maker. You don't play instruments. Instead, you interact with a series of gadgets that loop to create sequences of sounds. Only one of the gadgets had a passing resemblance to an actual instrument. The rest are not what you'd expect.

Some look like apartment blocks, others like giant crabs. They are toys, and interacting with them feels like playing with toys.

A few are more surreal. For example, one gadget is composed of a large grid of cubes resembling a hilly landscape dotted with tiny houses near a lake. The cubes move in waves, making sounds when the rotation meets a house. ODDADA then presents you with a stack of extra houses, which you can arrange around the landscape grid. Hit play, and the gadget will generate a new melody based on your spread.

All the gadgets operate in this fashion. Each loops a sequence of sounds, and you alter those sounds by placing objects on them or manipulating parts of the gadget. You can also select between day, night, and cold to alter the loop's audio style. But it's the gadgets that create the most variety. That stops you from overthinking things and lets you enjoy the slightly unpredictable escapism of making fun music tracks. The demo is very linear, but the full game promises different random gadgets to mix things up.

Of course, one looping melody or percussive track is not a song. ODDADA tackles this aspect with a clever idea. Following you on your journey (or rather, you follow it) is a toy train. Every completed track becomes a car behind the train that travels along to the next gadget. You can play the recorded tracks while you fiddle with a new gadget, and once you have recorded five tracks, you can arrange them into a proper song.

📽 Demo Moment: Mixing the final track

This is the kind of game you'd want to play over and over again, creating and mixing new tracks. As the train puffs along, you trigger the different tracks and adjust their volumes to create a short composition. You can make unlimited arrangement attempts, then record it on an old-school cassette tape, and listen to your song on the adorable little radio. My first attempts didn't sound great, but luckily, the developers included a few sample tracks to show what is possible. 

ODDADA's name makes sense. It sounds like a word a toddler would say, which is exactly how this game plays. A toddler making music, though not of the bashing doors and pans variety. And no diabolical bargains are required. Just playing with toys and enjoying the rhythms of inconsequential music doodling.

ODDADA releases in Q3 2024, on Steam.

---

Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:

• 📽 00:26 Even the logo is interactive!

• 📽 02:13 Landscape music?

• 📽 04:50 Daytime, nighttime, and colder

• 📽 05:26 Apartment complex tunes

• 📽 07:36 Are those giant crabs?!

• 📽 08:50 An actual instrument!

• 📽 11:23 Round and round it goes

• 📽 15:17 Time to mix our track

• 📽 16:38 Let's try that again

• 📽 17:40 One more try!

• 📽 19:00 Making a cassette

• 📽 20:33 Enjoy the track!

• 📽 21:53 Some sample tracks

---

Thanks for reading Adventures in Indie Gaming! Subscribe to receive new posts.