Play TuneXeso to test how acquainted you are with music
TuneXeso is a music matching game that lets you pick any artist on iTunes, hear samples of the songs, then try to match them with the duplicate sample using your memory as you flick through the unlabeled collection. With the 16 songs the app presents, you have to make eight pairs. It's all about remembering the specific sounds to test how well you know some of your favorite artists. TuneXeso is completely free for iPhone.
The game comes totally without any bells or whistles. Just start a new game by tapping "New Game" in the center and type in any artist that comes to mind with music on iTunes. If you want a randomized artist or don't want to pick any specific one of your own, hit the "random" button and TuneXeso automatically selects one.
Gameplay simple as is the app's overall design, but it might be simple to a fault. It offers no instructions on how to play or how many people can play. Even the app's description in the App Store is vague. I fiddled around with the game for way longer than I'm willing to admit before I figured out how to start playing. I guess I shouldn't have such high expectations from an app named "TuneXeso," whatever that's supposed to be.
Anyway, here's the explanation: samples of music start playing instantly when the game begins. A card is shown to you with a Check button at the bottom, a "Show Hint" button above that and a link to buy the song in iTunes. When you hear the song and feel like you've memorized enough of it to know what it is, you hit the check mark to temporarily select it. Then, flick left and right until you find the song that's identical in sound. Hit the Check button on that card to successfully pair the two and gain your rightfully deserved points.
With 16 songs and inconsistent excerpts of music playing between pairs, it's not as easy as it sounds. The easy route is to pick an artist you're very familiar with, but tapping the "Random" button in the beginning provides more of a challenge. I noticed an odd amount of the songs often appear right next to each other in the list, which makes the game unnecessarily easier. They seemingly need better randomization.
If you choose to show a hint, the card reveals the album artwork for the song currently playing. That's the only hint throughout the game. Use it as many times as you want, but bear in mind you score less points when you use hints. To beat your high score, you're better off going solely off of sound memory.
The game also has a Compass mode that, when enabled, goes through songs on its own when you tilt the device. It works so poorly that it's not ever worth using though. Seriously, it's that bad, just use your fingers to swipe through.
TuneXeso is relatively new. Down the line it could use improvements to the design and feature set, e.g. the ability to play songs by an entire genre like holiday music or from a specific album rather than artists alone. For now, it's a solid start and a great game for parties and music connoisseurs alike. Get it in the App Store free for iPhone.
Update: Version 1.1 of TuneXeso, released after the completion of this review, brings easy and hard playing modes plus new opportunities to improve your score and earn bonus points. I also noticed that card randomization and the stability of the Compass feature are slightly more polished as well. That update is available in the App Store now.
