Lumines Arise

[h1] 1. Play. Start. (Arise) [/h1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlTOFJboyqQ I was no stranger to the works of Tetsuya Mizuguchi. A game designer who worked at Sega during the 90s, designing arcade machines. Mizuguchi was initially interested in the power of visual media when interacting with the human senses. Earlier in his career, when attending a music festival, he observed how the audience reacted when faced to the music. It wasn’t just a group of people, standing in the same space, listening to the same set of songs. More than that, It was a communal experience, one moment, which could elicit a shared emotion, a sort of invisible connection, communicating with feeling, a sort of “unspoken language”. In this unexpected community, everyone could be anyone, a completely different individual and yet, the same. United by their common understanding of this moment, their shared passion. He was inspired by music and visual arts to make experiences that could evoke that same feeling, that same physical connection through emotions, with image and sound, and music. After his years at Sega, he cofounded Q Entertainment where he continued making video games in a more independent way. One of these games was called Lumines… [h1] 2. Shapes & Colors (O H) [/h1] Lumines is a puzzle action game in which you place falling pieces of different colors into squares or shapes of 2x2. It was created as a musical puzzle game, for the portable PlayStation console, since Mizuguchi saw the portable device as a sort of interactive Walkman or moving music player. He originally wanted to make a Tetris game with music but, due to licensing issues it was not possible at the time and instead, devised a similar concept of falling blocks within Lumines. …. However, that wasn’t all there was to this story… You would often hear the word “Synesthesia” related to these games: “A perceptual experience in which stimulation of one sense could spontaneously trigger sensations of another”. “Seeing sounds as shapes of colors, tasting words, arranging sequences of numbers in space or feeling the touch of someone else being touched.” “A bridge between the five senses that can also include other types of perception…” The concept of Synesthesia has been studied for many years, well before the existence of any modern media and yet, as incredible and implausible as it sounds, the most simplified explanation of it would be that it is the effect of an increased communication between sensory regions or cognitive pathways of the human brain… and, it occurs only on a small percentage of the world population (probably not you or me). Since most players are not “Synesthetes”, Mizuguchi was always looking for a certain visual representation of what Synesthesia could feel like in a game, on how music would move (and be moved) in that visual space and paint our emotions with colors… [h1] 3. Something I can’t explain. (Sky Falls) [/h1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5PUldkWxdk When playing Lumines Arise each level has its own visual identity: a musical theme sets the scene between two abstract layers or objects, one in direct contrast with the other, they are opposites and they attract each other. They clash together, and yet they dance around their shapes, united by an untold bond. When playing through these levels of Lumines arise, moving the pieces of the puzzle you feel like moving through the music, you are changing the songs. They react not only to your progress through the stage, but also to how you play it and if you play different the song will reflect that. It’s not just the tempo, but the actual content of the song may shift and change. Your connection with each level will be unique, it depends on how much you connect with the musical theme as well as the visuals. It will come unexpectedly. This close relationship of music and sound with the way you play and move around feels like a representation of Synesthesia. Chromesthesia is a sound to color type of synesthesia (a sound can evoke an experience of color, shape and movement.) I’ve noticed when moving the pieces around that each color was in direct relation with my movements making them feel almost tactile, and they were increasing in size and intensity almost coming out of the screen… And then… suddenly… one day something happened… something I can’t explain. While playing late at night, I was fully immersed in a particular level, in front of me, moving shapes were dancing through the screen, outside of it, a faint light that separated my room from total darkness. The city was darkness. The darkness became infinite. Colors where taking shape as music followed my every move… I could swear my screen was getting brighter than ever before, but also I was getting faster (and for some reason wasn’t failing like before). Colors were becoming brighter, shapes were getting out of control, they seemed to be moving slower, by themselves (or was I moving them still?) I was getting out of control. Shapes were melting into strokes of color, and colors were turning into music, and music was light, light that in one second, filled my entire screen, but then it went beyond that and filled my entire field of vision. All I could see was light, and in that moment all was filled with music and emotion…. And then, everything became dark again. [h1] 4. Only Human (Pulse) [/h1] I tried to understand what happened to me that night. Did I experience Synesthesia? Were my senses failing me that day? Was I getting blind?! Many months have passed since the event and I was never able to replicate it. Always taking care of repeating the same conditions, on the same space with the same lighting, same headphones. Many times. The gameplay was fun, I even replayed it sleepy at late night some days (I do not recommend it!) but it never happened, my room never filled with light again. There is however something that changed after that night. Pieces were moving slower… It is said that Synesthesia could manifest on someone who is not Synesthete. There is the possibility. This could happen by “sense overloading” which could trigger sensations of another kind. Overloading the senses could be forced by causing sleep deprivation (play while being too tired and exhausted) or even by drug stimulation. This can not occur just by overloading your senses alone of course, there needs to be some kind of external stimulation coming at you. And then I realized… all this time, Mizuguchi was not trying to make a “visual representation” of Synesthesia but he was actually trying to make us “experience” Synesthesia through his games. Through the power of visual arts and music and using interactivity as far as it can go, he was trying to stimulate our senses to reach the Zen state of induced Synesthesia. Did he achieve that? Did I experience it? Or was I just too caught up in the moment, being too tired and unprepared by the novelty of the effects happening on screen for the first time? Good news is I am not getting blind any time soon. But… something has changed. After that day, it became easier to move the pieces. I became faster. Before that night, I was always trying to find my way around them, (over)thinking it. Now, I was breezing through them. This time I wasn’t looking at the pieces anymore, I was feeling them. This time, I was moving through the music. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjeOIcKUog Arise - Performed by Hydelic & Krysta Youngs [b] ©2026 Krysta Youngs & Noboru Mutoh [/b] Only Human - Performed by Hydelic & Krysta Youngs [b] ©2026 Krysta Youngs & Noboru Mutoh [/b] Sky Falls Down - Hydelic & Luma [b] ©2026 Brittany Cannarozzi & Noboru Mutoh [/b] [b] This review (finally!!!) written ©2026 Aleena. [/b]