Zengence: Take Aim With Every Breath is a relaxing action game that borders on tranquility if you improve the breath detection.
When I first heard about Zengence, I couldn’t believe the premise. Combine one of the most fast-paced, reflex-driven genres from the arcade heyday with the meditative art of deep breathing? It’s a bold idea, but one that’s perfect for the world of VR. Having played the game so far, I love the overall execution, with its EDM beats, minimalist aesthetic, and quick elemental hand blasts, but there are some hurdles the update needs to overcome.
The core of the game is to breathe in quietly and exhale audibly. With each exhale, enemies hidden in each level will slowly slide forward to reveal them. Enemies can only be revealed by exhaling, so it’s important to take a long exhale and slow your breathing while aiming.
Dodging incoming bullets is as easy as crouching and moving. The game is room-scale but can be played sitting or standing. Taking a breath brings the environment into sharper focus. Shooting is fairly easy – just aim and shoot, no ammo management required, just a variety of magic spell twists that change with the level.
It’s all intuitive, immersing you in a minimalist environment and a soothing electronica soundtrack. Visual and vibration prompts are provided for the hearing impaired. Zengence really makes a compelling case that it’s poised to become an effective means of cathartic immersive meditation. It sits somewhere between Flower and Pistol Whip on the PS3, and it’s a great combination.
Well, except for one problem.
See, I have a stuffy nose that easily messes with the microphone’s detection of whether I’m taking a deep breath or not. So instead of breathing out naturally, I had to yell an Inception-esque “whoa” sound to expose my enemy. To be fair, I was laughing afterwards, so it still works as a release mechanism, but I was terrified that my family would walk past my office door, so… Yelling.
If you’re playing alone, this is of course not an issue, but I think it needs a bit more tweaking. Either way, I had a good time with Zengence, but it needs more updates to be properly polished. It has a Zen Garden mode where you can practice your deep breathing, a daily challenge map with remixed enemy locations for 30 stages, and good replayability. If this sounds like something you’d like, I recommend giving it a try, but be prepared to test your lung capacity if you plan on hitting 100% on each stage.
Zengence: Take Aim With Every Breath is currently available on the Meta Quest platform.
