Lock & Key Signature is a game-like interactive experience that serves as a learning tool for music theory as well as an aural training tool. The set up is you are in a maze where you have to pass through doorways to get through. Each door has a corresponding key that represents the key signature of the door. The doors play spatialized audio of recognizable songs and the key plays the base chord of their corresponding key signatures. In order to obtain the key, you must identify the key signature of the key on a music staff by placing the sharps and flats in the key signature. Once you place the correct sharps and flats for the key signature on the musical staff, you can collect the key and use it to open the door. Overall, the goal of this experience is to allow players to practice their knowledge of key signatures by identifying key signatures as well as help with aural recognition and ear training through listening to how the chord, song, and key signature sound and mesh together in addition to sound localization through the spatialized audio in the game.
They say design is done when you’re out of time and boy did that ring true for me on my final deliverable. Given that this is the final, I wanted to have something more polished so I focused on the aesthetics of the mechanics and general game design of what I already had based on suggestions from the in class feedback. The black void in which the key signature identification portion was not popular, so I made it a part of the main scene. I spruced up the maze (literally) and designed the maze such that the player could hear the other doors in the distance but it wouldn’t mask the sound of the door who’s key signature they’re trying to identify. I also wanted the keys to be close to the door and the music staff so that the player can distill the song into its chord to help them identify the key signature. I also made it this way for a future version of the game where the songs are transposed into different/incorrect key signatures and the key will clash with the song as well as help the player tell what key the song should be in. Fearing that changing the mechanisms in the game would destroy the whole thing or give me a very rough and unpolished final deliverable, this version of the game sadly had to go into the ‘next time’ category. However, it’s not all bad news because this class is hopefully just the beginning of my design career and I hope to further develop Lock & Key Signature into a more robust aural training and music theory learning tool!
The thing at the forefront of my mind when working on my second milestone was how I wanted the overall experience to sound, which was a question Ge asked me to keep in mind during my Milestone 1 critique. This gave me some pause as this is not a synthesizer and can’t exactly have background music either given that the game is centered around the user identifying the key signature of the song(s) they hear. I was also struggling with how I wanted the game to be laid out as I can’t just have a lineup of doors all playing different songs as I had in Milestone 1. I also wondered what is the goal? What is going to keep the user moving forward, gathering keys and unlocking doors? I came up with an extremely simple solution but one that I believe addresses all three concerns: make the experience into a maze! This arranges the keys and doors in a way that allows them to together create an interesting, spatialized soundscape and also blocks off some of the sound playing from different objects in the scene. I thought it could also be an added challenge of having to focus on one sound at a time given all the distractions and still being able to determine what key signature a song is in.
For my first milestone, I have a very rough draft of the game Lock & Key Signature, an interactive musical gaming experience that helps the user learn how to identify key signatures both by ear and define them using sharps and flats. The game opens on a scene of various doors playing spatialized audio clips from different tunes. Thus far I only have “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, which is in F major. In order to obtain keys, the player must correctly identify the sharps and flats in the key signature which the key represents. The keys will play chords in their respective key signatures (so far I only have F major for the demonstration). After identifying the key signature correctly, the key will become collectable and the player will be able to use said key to open the door.
The most obvious next step is to add more tunes to the doors and more keys/key signatures, but I also have to figure out what happens after the player successfully opens the doors. This audiovisual experience is primarily a learning tool, but I want to ensure that it doesn’t become too sterile and keep the player motivated and having fun. These are some of the things I’ll keep in mind moving forward. I'd also like to take more advantage of Chunity and potentially act effects like filtering to make the experience more interesting.
My first idea is one that has been floating in my head a while but hopefully now distilled into a more achievable goal. As a dancer, I always felt that dance is the ultimate form of audio visualization and I would love to express that using Chunity. At the core there will be a sequencer of sorts (bear with me) made up of around four dancers. You can then select a dancer and dance style, pair it with music, and control sound effects on the music such as rate, filters, maybe even be able to add more advanced effects like FM. For the dance style, perhaps different dance styles could be paired with a matching sound and you can change the effects by dressing the dancer in almost a Sims like experience. For example, maybe the varying hats represent different filters, especially since what a dancer wears tells you so much about the style of dance they do and the type of music they’ll dance too. The idea behind this is for the user to learn about playing with sound and what sounds good--as I’m still learning--with the help of visual cues. They would also learn about different dance styles and accompanying attire.
I didn’t think my chess shuffle made much sense as a sequencer for homework 3, but it could be a really fun audiovisual gaming experience! An overview of the basic concept that I outlined for the first milestone of homework 3:
“The basic concept of this is the black and white tiles of the board will shuffle with the music, kind of like a light up dance floor. The way you move each piece will stay in line with the original game, however you must take into account what colored tiles are before you to determine how to move. For example, a pawn can move one space on any opposite colored tile from its current one and can only take another piece if it’s on a same colored tile. The music will come from the tiles and the piece that is ‘picked up’ / being moved.” -- Me, approximately 2 weeks agoI’d really like to incorporate Kunwoo’s idea of turning the beat into a sort of timer and force the player to keep playing the game. I also noticed that the positions on a chess board could potentially line up to notes, so what if the players had to sing pitches to move as well? For example, the selector could be on the piece and you have to sing the position, like an A4, to make it move there. I know pitch recognition can be very difficult and the vocal range required for this would be kind of insane, but it’s just an idea. Now I’m giving bad ideas to myself. I really like the idea of this game. The implementation would be difficult, but I still think it might be worth pursuing.
This is another idea that started from how much I liked something visually then thought about how audio can be incorporated in a fun and interesting way. I really like old timey keys and I found the flying keys scene from the first Harry Potter book to be really memorable. Then I thought about how keys in the music world makes me think of key signatures. My third idea for the final project is a game that would help the user learn about key signatures. Much like in Harry Potter , the aim of this game is to unlock a door by figuring out which key will open it. The door will play a song in a particular key signature. The keys will visually denote what key signature they represent and when you choose a key you have to name what sharps and flats are in the key signature. I’d like to add some sort of musical puzzle component to this part and also have the door change tunes at random times to make the game more difficult plus it will force the player to identify more key signatures!