Info about Audiosurf 2:

Official game description:
By blending gameplay with music visualization, Audiosurf puts you inside your music in a way nothing else can. Use your own music to create your own experience. The shape, the speed, and the mood of each ride is determined by the song you choose.  
**What are the biggest improvements from Audiosurf 1?**  
Ever-expanding new ways to play with over 500 and counting player-created mods and skins on Workshop.. Additional layers of strategy tied to the song’s biggest moments. In-game leaderboards let you compare your score moment to moment against your friends and rivals even when they’re not online. Enhanced graphics quality. Ability to search for music. Available on Mac and Linux!  
**What’s new about Mono mode in Audiosurf 2?**  
In Audiosurf 2 your timing in mono mode is more important than ever. You’ve got to strategize to get your grid full at the most intense moments of songs to get the most points. Look ahead in the distance for corkscrew loops with powerups to know when these moments will occur.  
**What do I get in the demo?**  
The demo allows players to play any song they want, for their first 3 songs. After that, they can play the Song of the Day, everyday, as many times as they want.  
**Is there a mode that focuses on dodging blocks?**  
Yes, there's a new Ninja mode. It has a big bonus for hitting no spikes and creates intense spike fields to weave through. It’s faster than regular Mono and the second-to-second challenge of avoiding spikes is harder. For even more challenge there’s ninja turbo. It’s too fast for you.  
**What’s new about the Puzzle modes in Audiosurf 2:**  
Just as with Mono mode, your timing on Puzzle modes is now more important than ever. Push, Shuffle, Erase, or Scoop blocks at the just the right moments to take full advantage of multiplier powerups that come at the most intense moments of songs.  
**Can players make their own mods and skins to share on Steam Workshop?**  
Yes! There’s detailed documentation on making Audiosurf 2 skins available here:  
Also, every mode and skin in the games comes with the script source code and assets. Players can use any of the official modes/skins as a starting place.

Release date: May 26, 2015

Categories: Music-based Gameplay, Rhythm Game, Mod Support, Customization, Score Attack, High Score Chasing, Steam Workshop Integration, Casual

Feature scans:
- Mods: score 30; verdict: Buggy but Playable; summary: The analysis of user feedback reveals a significant reliance on a community patch to restore and enhance features in Audiosurf 2. The most prominent theme is the necessity of the community patch to enable YouTube streaming, which was officially removed. Users consistently mention that the patch is easy to install and greatly improves the gameplay experience by adding essential features. Overall, the community patch is viewed positively, as it extends the game's longevity and enjoyment.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $5.00 - $17.00
  - Reasoning: The evidence suggests that while some users find the game worth the full price, many others recommend waiting for a sale or discount. This indicates that the community generally considers the game to be fairly priced at a lower range, typically during sales. The mentions of specific price points and the emphasis on sales suggest a fair base-game price range that is lower than the full price.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 34.0h
  - Story completion: N/A
  - Session length: 4.0h
  - Endgame: 100.0h
  - Reasoning: The evidence provides direct and indirect indications of playtime metrics. The first quote explicitly states the time it took to complete the game, which is 34 hours. The second and fourth quotes mention having over 100 hours of playtime, indicating extensive gameplay and suggesting high replayability and endgame content. The third quote mentions a single session of over 4 hours, which can be used to infer typical session lengths.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The game becomes fun after players spend time understanding its mechanics and learning curve. Co-op mode and the lack of a failure state enhance the enjoyment.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: Understanding the game mechanics
  - Time to anchor: 0h 30m
  - Friction: Tedious menus; Lack of fluid gameplay; Boring visuals
  - Unlock drivers: Understanding game mechanics; Co-op mode
  - Conditions: Playing in co-op mode; Willingness to spend time learning mechanics
- Player Archetypes:
  - Chill Music Enthusiast (sale)
    - Motivation: Relaxation and enjoyment of music.
    - Playstyle: Casual, focusing on visuals and music enjoyment rather than competitive play.
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: music lover; casual player
    - Reference games: Audiosurf 1; Rocksmith; DDR
  - Competitive Score Chaser (deep sale)
    - Motivation: Achieving high scores and mastering the game.
    - Playstyle: Competitive, focused on leaderboards and high scores.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: deep sale
    - Labels: hardcore player; competitive player
    - Reference games: Audiosurf 1; Tetris Attack
  - Franchise Fan (buy)
    - Motivation: Nostalgia and appreciation for improvements over the original game.
    - Playstyle: Mixed, enjoying both casual and competitive aspects of the game.
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: franchise fan; rhythm game enthusiast
    - Reference games: Audiosurf 1


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Custom music integration (weight 0.6): The game allows players to use their personal music files, including uploading and streaming their favorite tracks, which enhances the gaming experience by letting players enjoy their preferred music.
- Variety of game modes (weight 0.58): The game offers multiple fun and enjoyable game modes, providing a wide range of options for players to explore and ensuring high replayability.
- Highly praised music game (weight 0.45): The game is widely regarded as one of the best music games, offering a wonderful and fun rhythm game experience that is suitable for music game enthusiasts.
- Community mod for YouTube (weight 0.39): Community mods have restored YouTube integration, allowing players to use YouTube features and song leaderboards.
- Enjoyable with favorite music (weight 0.3): The game offers an enjoyable experience, especially when playing with favorite music tracks, making it relaxing and fun.
- Addictive gameplay (weight 0.27): The game features addictive gameplay with endless replayability, keeping players engaged for hours on end.
- Strong modding community (weight 0.24): The game has a strong modding community with great support, enhancing the game's features and content.
- Improved track generation (weight 0.23): The game features an improved track-building algorithm that generates tracks based on songs with high accuracy.
- Relaxing experience (weight 0.22): The game is great for relaxing, especially during breaks or after work, allowing players to unwind with their music library.
- Enjoyable and fun (weight 0.22): Players find the game enjoyable and fun, offering long-term enjoyment and casual gameplay.
- SoundCloud integration (weight 0.22): The game supports SoundCloud integration, enabling players to play songs directly from SoundCloud.
- Positive overall reception (weight 0.21): The game is generally well-received, with many players considering it a good to excellent musical game.
- High customization (weight 0.19): The game provides tons of customization options, including workshop tracks and visual styles, keeping the experience fresh.
- Community patches (weight 0.18): Community patches have added significant features and improvements, saving and enhancing the game.
- Workshop integration (weight 0.18): The game includes workshop integration for user-generated content, adding more variety and options for players.
- Fun music listening experience (weight 0.18): The game is fun to play and listen to music, especially with a large music library, enhancing the overall enjoyment.
- Visually appealing (weight 0.17): The game features trippy and visually cool graphics, making the visual experience more interesting.
- Variety of skins (weight 0.17): The game offers a variety of skins and visuals, providing players with more choices for customization.

Common complaints:
- YouTube streaming feature removed (weight 0.63): Multiple players have expressed frustration over the removal of the YouTube streaming feature, which significantly impacts their experience.
- Unfriendly and cumbersome menus (weight 0.31): The menu design is criticized for being not user-friendly, tedious to navigate, and visually unappealing.
- Off-sync music notes (weight 0.31): There are issues with the synchronization of music notes, making the gameplay experience less enjoyable.
- Outdated and overwhelming visuals (weight 0.26): The game's visuals are considered outdated and overwhelming, detracting from the overall experience.
- Game feels abandoned (weight 0.21): Players feel that the game has been abandoned by the developers and lacks updates.
- General dislike for the game (weight 0.2): Some players simply express a general dislike for the game, finding it confusing and less enjoyable.
- Lack of rating and level systems (weight 0.18): The game lacks a rating system and level system, reducing replayability and player engagement.
- Gameplay performance issues (weight 0.18): There are reports of gameplay stuttering and performance issues, affecting the overall experience.
- Removal of SoundCloud integration (weight 0.17): Players are disappointed with the removal of SoundCloud integration, which was a valued feature.
- Increased difficulty (weight 0.17): The game's difficulty has increased, which may not be favorable for all players.
- No improvement over first game (weight 0.13): Players feel that the game has not improved over the first game and is worse in some aspects.
- Unpleasant visual effects in second part (weight 0.12): The second part of the game has unpleasant visual effects and a boring interface.
- Complex scoring system (weight 0.12): The scoring system is criticized for being overly complex and less scientific.
- Less popular than original (weight 0.12): The game is considered less popular and initially worse compared to the original.
- Eye strain issues (weight 0.11): Playing the game can cause eye strain after a while.
- Poor color recognition (weight 0.11): The colors in the game are not easy to recognize, and there is a lack of color settings.
- Difficulty with gray blocks in mono mode (weight 0.11): In mono mode, the gray blocks are harder to see and dodge, making gameplay more difficult.
- No menu music (weight 0.11): There is no music on startup or in the menus, which detracts from the overall experience.
- Lack of video settings (weight 0.11): The game has poor video settings and a lack of setting options, limiting customization.
- Missing Spotify support (weight 0.11): Players are disappointed with the lack of Spotify integration.

Gameplay feedback:
- Custom music integration (weight 0.47): Players can use their own music files, including those from YouTube and SoundCloud, enhancing the customization and personalization of the game.
- Online music play and selection (weight 0.33): Players appreciate the ability to play and select music online, allowing them to surf on visualized music waves.
- Music-based track generation (weight 0.32): Levels and tracks are dynamically generated based on the music, creating a unique experience for each song.
- Dynamic and competitive gameplay (weight 0.28): The game offers high-speed gameplay that adjusts to the track, including speeding up, slowing down, and changing colors. It also features new and competitive gameplay modes.
- Extensive mod support (weight 0.28): The game supports mods, including community mods and Steam Workshop integration, enhancing its moddability and multiplatform support.
- Rhythm-based music gameplay (weight 0.25): The core gameplay revolves around music and rhythm-based scoring, creating a unique rhythm-puzzle experience.
- Variety of game modes (weight 0.23): The game offers a variety of game modes, providing more options compared to the first game.
- Revamped scoring system (weight 0.23): The game features a revamped points system that allows for score comparison and global scores.
- Mono mode challenges (weight 0.22): Mono mode involves hitting colored blocks and avoiding grey blocks, but players find it difficult at times due to the placement of grey blocks.
- YouTube streaming integration (weight 0.21): Players can stream gameplay directly to YouTube using the YouTube URL feature.
- Gameplay synchronization with music (weight 0.19): The gameplay interacts and synchronizes with the music, providing a dynamic and engaging experience.
- Workshop integration (weight 0.13): The game supports Workshop integration, allowing players to download custom skins and modes.
- New Wake Boarding mode (weight 0.12): A new mode called Wake Boarding has been introduced, adding variety to the gameplay.
- Color customization (weight 0.12): The game features color recognition and customization options.
- Skins and visuals (weight 0.12): The game features skins representing music and various visual customization options.
- Puzzle modes feel inferior (weight 0.11): Some players feel that the puzzle modes are of lower quality and feel like a cheap rendition compared to other parts of the game.

Performance notes:
- Performance issues and crashes (weight 0.33): The game frequently becomes unresponsive, lags, and crashes. This includes freezing issues and stuttering, which significantly affect gameplay.
- Graphical and compatibility problems (weight 0.19): Players report various graphical issues such as buttons flickering and visibility problems with gray blocks. Additionally, there are compatibility issues, particularly with Macs.
- Optimization and loading issues (weight 0.18): The game suffers from optimization issues, including FPS drops and slow loading times. These issues detract from the overall gaming experience.
- Menu and control issues (weight 0.17): Menus are described as cumbersome and buggy. There is also a lack of gamepad support in menus, which affects the user experience.
- Mixed performance feedback (weight 0.12): Some players report that the game looks and runs worse than expected, while others find it runs well even on older systems.
- Minor bugs and glitches (weight 0.07): There are various minor bugs and glitches reported by players, which can be annoying but do not significantly impact gameplay.
- Game lags with steam notifications (weight 0.06): The game experiences lag when steam notifications pop up, which can be disruptive during gameplay.
- Increased difficulty (weight 0.06): Players have noted an increase in difficulty, which may affect the enjoyment for some users.

Recommendations:
- Recommended for music lovers (weight 0.4): The game is highly recommended for those who have a large music library or are music enthusiasts. It is seen as a great way to experience your own music collection.
- Original Audiosurf preferred (weight 0.31): Many players recommend sticking with the original Audiosurf unless you are looking for a tougher experience. Some suggest that the first version of the game is better overall.
- Future potential with updates (weight 0.21): There are suggestions for improvements such as Spotify integration, YouTube streaming options, and a more polished version, indicating that players see potential for future updates.
- Buy on sale (weight 0.18): Several reviews suggest that the game is worth buying, especially when it is on sale. This indicates that while the game is valued, it might not be worth the full price for everyone.
- Recommend for rhythm game fans (weight 0.18): The game is recommended for fans of rhythm games and those who enjoyed the original Audiosurf, indicating a strong appeal to a specific audience.
- Unique and varied experience (weight 0.13): The game offers a unique experience with your own music and endless ways to play, making it appealing to a wide range of players.
- Not recommended in current state (weight 0.12): A few reviews mention that the game is not recommended in its current form due to incompleteness or other issues, suggesting that it might need more development.
- Support the creator (weight 0.07): Some players recommend buying the game at full price to support the creator, highlighting the importance of supporting indie developers.
- Try the demo first (weight 0.07): Some reviews suggest trying the demo before purchasing the full game, indicating that the game might not appeal to everyone and a trial is advisable.
- Recommended for alpha/beta fans (weight 0.07): The game is recommended for those who understand and appreciate games in alpha or beta stages, indicating that it might still be in development and not fully polished.
- Not recommended for 2021 (weight 0.06): Some reviews mention that they would not purchase the game in 2021, suggesting that it might be outdated or not relevant to the current gaming landscape.
- Recommended for hyperactive players (weight 0.06): The game is recommended for hyperactive players, suggesting that it offers a high-energy and engaging experience.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Disappointment (weight 0.15): Players feel disappointed due to the game's perceived decline in quality compared to its predecessor, including the removal of features like YouTube streaming, incomplete development, and various gameplay issues such as rhythm mismatches and lack of improvements.
- Frustration (weight 0.1): Frustration stems from the game's mechanics not syncing well with music, the removal of the YouTube streaming feature, and various performance issues like stuttering and intrusive YouTube ads. Additionally, menu design problems and character encoding issues contribute to the frustration.
- Excitement (weight 0.09): Players are excited about the game's high replayability, the ability to upload and play their own songs, and the flashy, fast-paced gameplay. The visual effects, competitive modes, and improvements in graphics and effects also contribute to this excitement.
- Joy (weight 0.09): The game brings joy through its fun and colorful gameplay, trippy visuals, and the ability to use custom music. Players enjoy the long-term pleasure of listening to music and the overall positive experience the game provides.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.07): Players feel nostalgic as the game reminds them of childhood memories, previous versions of Audiosurf, and other classic games. The desire for future iterations and the comparison to past experiences evoke a sense of nostalgia.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.07): Satisfaction comes from the game's pleasant and unique way to engage with favorite music, its performance on older hardware, and the large music library. The improvements, mod support, and Steam Workshop integration also contribute to player satisfaction.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.07): Players enjoy the game's fun and relaxing rhythm gameplay, the ability to play their favorite songs, and the variety of game modes. The visuals and community content add to the overall enjoyment.
- Positive (weight 0.05): Players have a positive experience with the game, enjoying its features, effects, and the ability to use different music genres. The improved game and mod support enhance this positivity.
- Happy (weight 0.04): Players are happy with the game's features, its usefulness for learning instruments, and the extensive customization options. The new modes and ease of use also contribute to their happiness.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.04): Enthusiasm is driven by the game's improvements, new features, and the community patches. The strategic and engaging gameplay also fuels this enthusiasm.
- Relaxation (weight 0.02): The game helps players relax after work and allows them to play relaxing tracks. The overall relaxing experience is a significant aspect of the game.
- Happiness (weight 0.02): Players are happy with the positive updates, improvements, and Soundcloud integration. The dynamic interaction with music adds to their happiness.
- Hopeful (weight 0.01): Players are hopeful for future improvements and updates to the game, anticipating further enhancements.
- Disappointed (weight 0.01): Players are disappointed due to the leaderboards being down and the gameplay being worse than the original Audiosurf.
- Love (weight 0.01): Players love the game for its ability to let them play their favorite songs in various ways, enhancing their overall experience.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Players have hope for the game's future due to community patches and potential improvements.
- Negative (weight 0.01): Players have negative feelings due to frustration with the game's layout, tutorials, achievements, and the state of the community.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Players are surprised by the improvements made in the game, which exceeded their expectations.
- Enthusiastic (weight 0.01): Players are enthusiastic about the game due to positive experiences, new features, and improvements, leading to strong recommendations.}