Masaya Matsuura / NanaOn-Sha / 1999 / Japan For Sony PlayStation Console Systems

vib-ribbon takes its understated aesthetics to an extreme. The visual imagery is reduced to simple two-dimensional, black-and-white line drawings, drawing attention to the music that drives the action, and literally determines the terrain of the game.

Though it comes with a collection of infectious, original pop music, vib-ribbon is unique in that it allows players to insert their own music CDs for gameplay, running the simple program of the game itself on the PlayStation’s internal memory. This allows players to generate all new levels with their own music collection, ranging from smooth jazz terrains to impossibly challenging house music paths.