Game Mechanics

"*Remember, **the pink**, **it's bad**!*"
— Loading tip

*Just Shapes & Beats* is a rhythm bullet hell game with the goal of avoiding pink obstacles, enemies and hazards while reaching until the end of the level to advance further. The game has a number of **Mechanics** in which pulsates to the beat, creating a more eventful challenge and atmosphere.

## Controls

These are the **default** controls for the game, which cannot be changed.

## Dash

The Player can **dash** towards the direction it is moving by pressing the dash key (Spacebar in PC/A, B/Left, Right, Down in Nintendo Switch). When it dashes, it gains a brief period of invincibility, allowing the player to dash through obstacles without harm. It needs to be controlled in moderation though, otherwise, the player might crash to an obstacle by accident.

Dashing is crucial for almost every level in the game (especially when getting an S rank in Challenge or Playlist modes), as the player character can dash through obstacles that would normally be impossible to dodge and dash to another location if a player is in the warning zone, though it is possible to complete most levels without dashing. Doing so will earn extra beatpoints.

## Health Points and Lives

**Health Points** (also known as **Hit Points** or commonly abbreviated as **HP**) are the number of points that the Player can hit before breaking. Should the player get hit by a pink obstacle or a boss, it'll take damage, losing a single health point and gaining a brief period of invulnerability. Its HP can be indicated at their character. If all of the player's health points are lost, it will break and rewind to the last unlocked checkpoint. Health Points are never regained until the end of the level, if a new checkpoint is unlocked (in multiplayer mode and if revived) or if all players break and restart.

The number of HP of the player depends on the type of level that it is playing. At normal levels, the player can take 3 hits before breaking. But in Boss Levels, the player can take 6 hits. This is the compensation for having no checkpoints during a boss level. When Casual Mode is enabled, the player's HP is increased by 6 and 12 at normal levels and boss levels respectively.

In a multiplayer or a Party Mode game, if a player loses all of their HP, instead of breaking, they will stop moving and helplessly float toward the left. In this state, which is known as drifting, they need to be rescued by another player (which is simply done by moving to the player that needs help). Following their rescue, they'll gain a brief period of invulnerability before returning back to the game with one HP left. Should the broken player pass the edge of the screen, they cannot be revived until another player reaches another checkpoint. Likewise, if a checkpoint is triggered, all drifting players are revived. A player would be revived to full HP if another player triggers a checkpoint whereupon the player went off screen, if they are still drifting onscreen as soon as a checkpoint is triggered, they'll be revived with one HP remaining.

Like HP, the player has a limited number of **Lives** (also known as **Rewinds**) it can take before receiving a Game Over. If all of the players break, they will lose one life and rewind to the previous unlocked checkpoint (or the entire level if it is a Boss Level). All players share lives with each other, meaning as long as the other players are still alive, they can continue the level without them.

An exception to this is in Party Mode. All of the players can take damage in this mode, their HP is doubled, but the players will never lose lives. When broken, they drift but deflect off walls they touch instead of passing through and may revive themselves at any time. In Playlist Mode, the player can be damaged and be broken normally, but they have unlimited lives.

However, if a player gets hit in Challenge and Playlist modes, they will fail the requirements for S rank and downgrade to A rank if not broken. And if a player loses lives, their rank will downgrade to B until C.

## Game Over

"*IT'S **NOT** OVER*"
— Onscreen text

If the player(s) loses all three lives in Story Mode or in Challenge Mode, they'll receive a **game over**.

A scene will display their player character shattering before its pieces start falling down on to the floor, accompanied by the phrase *"IT'S OVER"* and Kubbi's track *Formed by Glaicers*. If the player presses the Enter key, or presses A if they are playing on the Nintendo Switch, the scene will rewind for a moment and show the player character trying to fix itself. Pressing Enter or A five times will successfully fix the player character as it floats up to the screen; the text changes to *"IT'S **NOT** OVER"* and the track changes to *Pathfinder* by the same artist, then the player character reassembles itself seconds later. This will continue the game back to the start of the level where the player hasn't completed yet.

If the player presses the Enter key five times before the shattered pieces fall to the floor, the sequence will be shorter. With much of the events during this scene played as a much faster speed, effectively a quick retry. *Pathfinder* will not play.

If the player receives a game over in Challenge Mode, the process of retrying is simplified. The player can just press Enter once before retrying Challenge Mode over again. If they don't want to retry, the player otherwise can press Escape and return back to the main menu. Additionally, the player character is not present, the "IT'S OVER" text is centered, and *Pathfinder* does not play when the retry is triggered.

## Checkpoints

"*Broke and drifted off? No worries, **you will come back** at the next **Checkpoint**!*"
— Loading tip

During a normal level, a blue broken line passes from right to left, passing through that line will unlock a **checkpoint**, in addition to reviving any broken players left in play. Checkpoints can be seen at the game's progress bar. The last blue line (at the progress bar's triangle) is not a checkpoint, however, that signals the end of the level before its track fades out (or finishes).

If the player breaks during the level, they'll rewind and go back to the last checkpoint, but they'll lose one life. For multiplayer, one player can pass through a checkpoint and every other player(s) can rewind back at that checkpoint if all players break. By default, the player already unlocked one checkpoint, that is, the beginning of the level. There are no checkpoints during Boss Levels, which make these said levels harder.

It takes five seconds for a checkpoint to sweep the whole screen, not assuming any players pick it up. Players respawn at the point in the song which would have been (or was) the checkpoint's fourth second on the screen.

## Other Mechanics

**Other mechanics** that are not covered in the game.

In Story Mode, the player can 'annoy' the Blue Square by repeatedly inputting directions in the map that ultimately take the player character nowhere. This will make the Blue Square respond in frustration as if it is cursing something. This also happens in Chapter Select, and if you get hit multiple times while controlling the helicopter.

In New Game and Close To Me, there are some parts of the respective levels that contains obstacles that are colored blue as opposed to a pink color. They can be passed through without damage and they don't count as hazards.

The camera moves in most levels. Often it's just a passive movement that is just cosmetic, but sometimes it is an active scroll that moves the play area. There are four types of movement: active, swaying, shaking, and flicking.

* Active movement does not reset after finishing. The play area will move with the camera, and the players will be pushed by the borders. An advancing hazard might discourage this "camera drag", such as sawblades in Cool Friends.
* Swaying is the camera easing around.
* Flicking is the camera jutting towards one direction and then back.
* Shaking is exactly what it sounds like: The camera will rumble and move quickly in random directions before resetting after a bit. Some shake events are violent, while others are much harder to notice. As a shake progresses, the magnitude will drop, causing it to get less violent.

## Story Mode Exceptions

**Mechanics that are exempted in some way or another** when featured in Story Mode.

* Throughout Corrupted - a tutorial level, the player has an unlimited number of lives. The HP remains unchanged, however.
	+ Additionally, the player unlocks checkpoints by collecting triangles and not by going through the blue line, only one invisible checkpoint will be triggered after the introduction to the last section. Although a blue line will appear after the player finishes the level.
* Whenever the player is control of a character in Story Mode, the square/companion can get damaged and will be knocked back to where it was before. Though it will not break. In some story sequences, the square can break if it fails to move out of a hazard, if that happens, the game will rewind back for a few moments and continues as usual.

* The blue line that ends the level does not appear during New Game, Annihilate (Original Mix) and Till It's Over. Instead, the Boss finishes the level during their respective levels. Playing these levels (except Till It's Over) in Challenge Mode or in normal Playlist Mode, would have the finish marker appear normally.
* There is a nonstandard game over once the player completes Annihilate in Story Mode, the scene proceeds as usual, but as soon as the Square fixes itself, the main antagonist appears on top of the screen, smashes the Square and shatters it before floating back offscreen. This process repeats if the player tries it again. After leaving the Square broken for a few moments, the next story sequence will begin.
	+ The next story sequence **will not** begin unless if the Boss smashes the player atleast once.
	+ If the player breaks before the level ends, the game over scene proceeds as intended.
* The following level after Annihilate - Till It's Over - the players must bring down the main antagonist's HP to zero by damaging it, in a form of a "Shoot 'em Up" game. This is seen at the bottom of the screen, where it displays a health bar. Once the health bar is depleted, the level will end. The player's HP is unlimited.

## Gallery

Game over screen (in Story Mode)Ditto, after continuing
## Trivia

* The music heard before the player character fixes itself in a game over is *Formed By Glaicers* by *Kubbi*.
	+ The music that plays once the player character fixes itself during the same sequence is *Pathfinder* by the same artist.
	+ Both soundtracks share the same leitmotifs from eachother. They are also omitted from the official Just Shapes & Beats Soundtrack List, though they share the same album, *Ember*.