EbiTapes is a hand-drawn wonderland that turns random sounds into musical puzzle pieces

It’s always interesting when an indie game uses music as a central mechanic, turning it into a tool that can be adapted to whatever the player is trying to achieve. EbiTapes is a game that does just that, coupled with an adorable hand-drawn art style, challenging sound-based puzzles, and colorful characters around every corner. 

EbiTapes, developed by Geese & Goose, is a melodic puzzle game that revolves around everyday sounds being used to make tunes that help you progress. It breaks music down into rather unexpected parts, such as the noise of bugs in the bushes or the clicking of a button, reminiscent of the way children hear the world. 

We will not be silenced

In EbiTapes, you play as Ebi, a little frog that loves music and is looking forward to the annual Festival in his town. Except the Festival was recently cancelled thanks to the Shushinator, the main villain of this tale. He seems to hate music or sound of any kind and is apparently determined to remove it from the town, going as far as to use his vacuum cleaner to suck the sound out of the very air. 

Ebi wants to save the Festival, and he’s not the only one; all around the town, people are split between those lamenting the fact that the Festival is no longer happening and those who seem to agree with the Shushinator. Through recording sounds and bringing music back to those who want to hear it, Ebi has the ability to save the Festival from cancellation.  

Puzzling it out

Solving puzzles in EbiTapes isn’t always as simple as playing the right sound for the right person, although there definitely are individual puzzles that can be completed in that way. A lot of the time, solving puzzles requires you to mix different types of sounds together in “concerts”, with the combinations becoming increasingly more complicated as you progress through the main story of the game. 

As early as the second section, in the Suburbs, you need to work in tandem with other characters, adding your sounds to theirs to fulfill certain requirements. There are some characters who absolutely do not want a certain type of sound, like the runner in the Suburbs who hates melodies. You need to collect as many sounds as you can, but not every sound is recordable, and even the ones that are aren’t necessarily easy to get. 

Then there are additional challenges in the world, such as chests that need to be unlocked using the same concert mechanic. From what I’ve found, these chests contain cosmetics that can be donned by Ebi, changing his look and giving him even more personality than he already inherently has. 

A treat for eyes, ears, and soul

While EbiTapes definitely revolves around music and sound, the first thing that drew me to it was the art style. The hand-drawn visuals remind me of the artwork my daughter brings home from school on a daily basis, with wobbly lines, barely filled-in sections, and slightly bizarre designs for creatures you meet. Everything in EbiTapes feels like it’s full of childlike wonder, which is strangely in keeping with the idea of hearing the world around you as musical components. 

The ability to hear random sounds in the world and imagine them as parts of a musical ensemble is something many of us lose as we grow older, with the noise instead blending into the background or, at times, becoming overwhelming. When I hear the washing machine spin a little too loudly, I start to worry it might be off balance. My daughter, who is learning the drums, has told me in the past that it sounds like a drumroll.

EbiTapes brings that childlike ability back to the forefront by design, forcing you to take sounds from the world around you and organize them into something that sounds vaguely like a tune. It’s not always that easy, admittedly, to make something worth listening to, but there are certain combinations that become increasingly earworm-ish the more you hear them. 

Cozy and comforting

Playing EbiTapes feels inescapably cozy, like slipping into a particularly charming cartoon world that needs saving from the threat of silence, and you’re the only person and you’re the only person capable of saving it. Even the villain, Shushinator, doesn’t seem all that threatening when you figure out that he probably just has a headache and wants a little bit of peace; I think we can all relate to that. 

EbiTapes feels like a musical that doesn’t happen without you to make the music possible, even if that music sounds like a drum kit falling down the stairs at times. The random occasions when two sounds go together absolutely perfectly are worth the multiple times you’ll wince at your own creations.

EbiTapes was released on Steam on September 22, 2026, and it’s well worth a play if you’re looking for something cozy to distract you from the noise of real-world worries.