British post-punk band Squid have a new single out, ‘Undergrowth’, ahead of their second album, O Monolith, in June.

Playing on the song’s title, they have released an interactive online game – also called Undergrowth – that they describe as “the bastardized love child of Super Mario and Space Invaders, with an English Folklore twist”.

It’s a 1980s-style platform game where you have to navigate your character (which looks a bit like a bedside dresser) along various levels and collect coins as you go. On level one, you have to avoid rats (bumping into them scatters your coins and you have to start collecting them again). On the next level, you have to shoot aliens (again making sure not to lose your accumulated coins). This is followed by another level where you have to avoid flying daggers and tiny helicopters (once more, watch those coins).

On and on it goes as the ‘Undergrowth’ track plays on a loop.

The ultimate goal is to defeat the mysterious monolith, ensuring the title of the new album is seared on players’ memories.

Players can share their scores on Twitter and, of course, click through to pre-order the album and buy related merchandise.

It is a daft but addictive game that is a rare example of where the music is as much a key component of the creative as the game play. Often games see music lazily bolted on and there are a lot of fingers being crossed that it actually works. Not so here.

Frank Force, who designed and programmed the games, explains, “Imagine the game itself as an interactive music video where gameplay and animation is synched up to the music and changes as the song progresses, moving into different phases.”

It is, quite literally, a Squid game.