Final Project

Pitch Miner

Pitch Miner is both a game and a journey. By exploring and mining pitches hidden in the orbs, the player, acting as the little hero, gradually gathers all unique pitches needed to complete the nostalgic melody, along with the improvement of timbre.

Instructions

• Press up / down to move forward / backward.
• Press left / right to turn left / right.
• Press space to mine the orb in front of the hero.

Production Build

Windows: Download

Unity Project

Download

Reflection

This project is mainly inspired by two games, Minesweeper and Unrailed. While in Minesweeper, the player figures out where the mines are using the sum of mines hidden in adjacent blocks, in Pitch Miner, the player looks for different pitches using the chord consisting of adjacent pitches. From Unrailed, I simply introduced the verb – "mine." Westminster Quarters is a melody almost everyone has heard at least once in childhood. It only uses four unique pitches. I hope to feature the process where with the first one or two pitches, it may be hard to picture the entire melody, but as the third pitch is acquired, the player starts to recall this melody deep in the memory.

Originally, I planned to add one more feature, pitches that do not participate in this melody. If the player mines wrong pitches, a random shift of pitches will be triggered. However, from the last milestone, I noticed that the experience would be incomplete if the mechanics were hard to grasp. Therefore, I changed my focus to providing more visual feedback and hints, improving the movements and animations, and refining the audio design (specifically three stages of timbre: electronic sounds, simulated chimes, real chimes).

Acknowledgements

• Unity assets: Stylized Low Poly Clouds, RPG Tiny Hero Duo PBR Polyart, Glowing Orbs Pack Vol. 1, Polygonal Flower Fairy
• Music: Westminster Quarters

Milestone 3

For this milestone, I updated a few assets, including ground tiles, mines, and indicators for correct pitches. Animation and visual feedback for sounds and interactions are also implemented, making the world more continuous. There is a simple melody running behind as well. I may add wrong pitches which lead to distortion in the audio and need to be destroyed for the final submission.

Milestone 2

Based on my first idea, I implemented the basic environment settings and player controls. There are blocks which either contain pitches or not all over the ground. The player can hear the combination of pitches from four adjacent blocks, and if the block is mined, its sound will disappear.

Milestone 1

Ideas:

• Pitch Miner: This is a game where the player chooses which block to mine until the background music is filled with all necessary pitches. As the player walks around the grid, a chord consisting of pitches from four adjacent blocks can be heard. Not all blocks contain pitches, and if the player mines empty block, the background music will return to silence.

  

• Sing Your City: This is a city building experience where the player uses voice to control the appearance of the city. Mountain, house, farm, and other possible constructions can be selected from the left panel. Then, the player sings to modify its color and size with various pitches and loudness.

  

• A Band Journey: This is a narrative where the player starts from nothing and finally forms a complete band. There will be several stages with their corresponding terrains. Within each stage, two instruments are placed randomly and they will make noise to indicate their locations. The player wanders to find one of them, and only that one joins the band, so the player has to make choices. In the end, a band with all chosen instruments is formed.