The project I’m working on also started from a game jam. I absolutely love participating in these. The constraints of a time limit and a theme help me come up with new concepts that I would never think of otherwise, and the feedback from others has made me a better designer as well as helped me determine which projects are worth pursuing in more detail.
This game is an abstract puzzle game about molding splines into interesting shapes.
Here’s a snippet of the game so far:
I am aiming for a calm and fluid (though nontrivial) gameplay experience, and I’d like the sound and visual design to evoke those vibes. I will say, however, that not much has changed to the sounds since the first iteration. So it may be that the sound design influenced the direction of the gameplay. It’s a thought that I find interesting.
The sounds for “target hit” and “control point selected/deselected” were the first things created. All these sounds were created with synth1 and doused in Acon Digital Reverb SOLO.
Hitting a sequence of targets in the correct order outlines an ascending note sequence in the key of Bb major. The note sequence is based on the number of (ordered) targets in the level.
| number of notes |
Note sequence (in scale degrees) |
Actual notes |
| 2 |
1, 3 |
Bb, D |
| 3 |
1, 2, 5 |
Bb, C, F |
| 4 |
1, 3, 5, 6 |
Bb, D, F, G |
| 5 |
1, 2, 3, 5, 7 |
Bb, C, D, F, A |
| 6 |
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 |
Bb, C, D, F, A, C |
| 7 |
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 |
Bb, C, D, F, A, Bb, D |
I kinda just followed my ear when choosing these sequences. I think I reduced potential cheesiness by:
- avoiding long runs of the major scale (nothing longer than 3 notes here)
- avoiding outlining the I chord (I do this in the 4 note sequence though
)
- ending the longer note sequences on chord extensions of the I chord.
- (and perhaps ending on the 3 and 5 in the first sequences helps establish the key?)
For the “Target improperly hit” note, I landed on using Eb (perfect fourth above Bb). I experimented with using dissonances like the tritone, but these sounds clashed with the chill mood that I am going for. I’d like to encourage players to experiment and play around with modifying the spline. Having a dissonant tritone play when they make a mistake would discourage that. The perfect fourth seems like a good balance between consonance and dissonance for this interaction.
“Unordered target hits” will play random notes (w/o repeats) in the Bb major pentatonic scale.
“Anchor point selected” notes will randomly choose a note in the scale degrees {1, 2, 3, 4} (w/o repeats). The “anchor point deselected” note is a perfect fifth below the “selected” note.
Because of the musical nature of the interactions, as well as the fact that the timing in which they are played is determined by the player (and not a tempo/grid), I’ve decided to experiment with free time for non-interactive (or non-direct) music. This has led me to learn about ambient/generative music.
The current iteration of the backing music follows the same formula as Brian Eno’s 2/1 from “Music for Airports”, with a different set of notes and interval lengths (learned about the method from this article). I play single notes in the key of Bb at different intervals. Through scripting, I can add more variance to when each note will be played. The sounds are Lounge Lizard → Valhalla Supermassive.
So this is the current pass of what I have so far. There are definitely some things I could play around with more:
- In general, I think the actual sounds could use another pass, I’m sure I could find some more interesting textures. I will say that it is hard for me to be unbiased when comparing a new sound with an old one that I’ve already become accustomed to, however.
- Could add more variety to the note sequences, and perhaps modulate the key when going from level to level?
- Could add more logic to which note to play for “anchor point selected” and “unordered target hit” (instead of just a random note).
- for example, I like what Psychonauts 2 does when you cross a bridge in this level (at around 4:00).
- On mobile, you can select multiple anchor points at once, which can lead to some harmonic dissonances that I’m not a fan of.
- The current mix is pretty sparse, I think there’s room to add more textures (for example a drone that responds to the current speed of the orb).
I’m sure there is a lot more that I’m missing. I’d love to hear feedback and may update with more if that’s cool.
