Video Game / Phigros

Phigros is a Rhythm Game developed by the China-based development team Pigeon Games^note although they do have some team members from outside of China for iOS, as well as Android via TapTap (and formerly on Google Play Store as well). It was released in 2019. Notably, the game is completely free of charge (no in-app purchases and not even any advertisements) and the songs are properly licensed^note In fact, some of the song licensing contracts, such as that for "Aleph-0", mandate that the game remain a not-for-profit project. Furthermore, the developers have removed songs where the artists have retracted the rights. This is notable because many Chinese-made rhythm games don't bother to get the proper licenses first, since foreign copyrights are more difficult to enforce in China., something extremely rare for a rhythm game. That said, the developers do accept donations.

Described as a "laneless" rhythm game, the game features notes falling down onto a white judgment line, and the notes have to be touched as they reach the line. The game's key gimmick is that the judgment line may move, rotate, multiply, jump all over the screen, or otherwise toy with the very concept of judgment lines in rhythm games.

Compare VOEZ, in which the lanes may widen, narrow, and move across the screen, Dynamix, in which notes approach either from the top or the sides, and Lanota, in which notes emerge from the center of the circular playfield as the playfield moves around.

Pigeon Games would go on to later make Rizline, another mobile rhythm game; unlike Phigros, that game does feature paid content.

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Phigros provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: The story logs manage to add some background information to the MopeMope flowers of all things.
• The Cameo: The pink-haired girl in the song art for "MopeMope" is in fact Misui, the protagonist of "MARENOL", another LeaF song that appears in this game.
• Cosmetic Award: After a Challenge Mode (a game mode which makes the notes' judgements stricter than normal) run consisting of three charts, you get a ranking with a number and a background, where the number is the sum of the difficulty levels of those three charts, and the background is chosen based on the sum of the scores you got in them. The ranking is purely cosmetic and it's there to show your abilities. The highest possible award is a rainbow 48, obtained by playing three level 16 songs and getting a φ grade (i.e. All Perfect) on all of them.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: A lot of the earlier charts are relatively tame with the judgment line gimmicks. Some of the earlier songs got new Insane charts for the 1.5.0 update that make more modern use of the game engine, although the old IN charts are still available as "Legacy" charts.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In Chapter 5, unlocking "Spasmodic" causes the game to boot back to the title screen while a glitched version of the title theme plays. A special screen shows up to introduce the song itself, only for your phone/tablet to seemingly crash with a "fatal error" and reboot. Afterwards, the song starts up.
• Gimmick Level:
  • Inverted with the Haocore Mixes of "Burn" and "Spasmodic". Both song's charts don't have any gimmicks with the judgement line. It stays stationary at the botton of the screen after the first few seconds...and the charts are among the hardest in the entire game.
  • "Random" has six different alternate versions, also known as "takes", that each differ during a specific part of the song, both in terms of the audio and the chart. The way to unlock it is to have the song highlighted, and then press and hold down the Random (as in, randomly select a song) button; one of the six different takes will be selected at random.
• Harder Than Hard: The difficulty levels go Easy (EZ), Hard (HD), Insane (IN), Another (AT), and Special (SP). Insane has to be unlocked by getting an A rank on the Hard chart. Another is only available for a few songs, requires an A rank on the Insane chart, and the fact that an Another chart exists is not revealed until you unlock it. Whereas Insane charts can only go up to level 15, Another charts can go up to level 16. Special charts are Secret Levels; they require performing actions that are at best vaguely hinted in the loading tips, or not at all, and only some songs have them. "MopeMope" is the only song to have both AT and SP charts.
• Hitbox Dissonance: In an example of this that is designed to benefit the player, notes don't have to be pressed exactly on the judgement line to be hit. As long as where you tap aligns with the note's vertical position relative to the line it falls on, you'll hit the note. This can be exploited on, say, parts where the notes scroll up to the top of the screen, so that your hands don't cover the notes. Newer charts like "PANIC PARADISE" IN exploit this, where certain patterns are only possible because of this vertical axis leniency.
• Interface Screw: The entire point of the game is that the judgment line, a Rhythm Game interface element that one would expect to be static, moves on its own all over the screen.
• Rank Inflation: After the A rank, the grades go S, ν (Nu)^note Not to be confused with the Roman letter v, and finally φ (Phi).
• Scoring Points: 900,000 points come from note accuracy, while the remaining 100,000 comes from a bonus based on your max combo. There is also an "Accuracy" rating that takes out the combo elements, but it's de-emphasized in favor of the combo-based out-of-1,000,000 system; you're informed of whether your score beats your previous record but not with accuracy, and grades are based off of score.
• Shout-Out: "Dead Soul" on Special difficulty makes use of the game's dynamic judgment line feature to reference other rhythm games, such as VOEZ^note moving note lanes, Muse Dash^note two horizontal lanes of notes, DJMAX^note four lanes of notes, jubeat^note 4x4 grid where each note appears in its own cell, and more.
• Temporary Online Content: SP charts/songs are only available in a very specific app version on a very specific day. This is especially problematic for songs with only SP charts, like "Burn (Haocore Mix)".
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Initially, only Easy and Hard are available for each song; to unlock Insane, you have to get an A rank or better on the Hard chart. Should a song have an Another chart, you'll need an A rank on Insane to unlock Another. If your Ranking Score (a player rating based on your best accuracy scores) is high enough, Insane charts will become unlocked by default.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: RocketLant made their debut in this game in January 2021 when a couple of their collaboration songs with Jiang Mi Tiao were added to this game...only for those songs, and thus any presence of RocketLant, to be removed three months later due to a dispute.
• Weird Currency: Data. By completing a song with an A rank (880,000 points) or greater, you will collect Data, measured in kilobytes and megabytes, which can be spent on goodies like songs, avatars, and background images for your profile.