Sound maze is an exploring game done through the sounds of a nostalgic game from my past (and I imagine the pasts of many kids in my generation). This project asks users to investigate the space by exploring and uncovering sounds from pokemon diamond and pearl by using their voice. This highlights an interplay between an interesting game mechanic--the voice, and a the reflective act of recalling what was when these sounds felt more familiar.
This game requires a MAC to be played. To play this yourself and investigate the space, download this file and open the application.
To navigate your character, there are two main controls, volume and pitch. Sing higher pitches to move right, and lower ones to move left. To move forward sing quietly, and to move backward sing loudly. This can take some tweaking and learning so be patient and you will be sure to get the hang of it!
The unity development files can be found here Download Unity Files
This project was actually fun to work on. Which is so funny because the past few were so painful at times. For this one, I came into it with several chips on my shoulder after that sequencer. I really was about ready to give up. But in my despair I decided to try something different for this project. Instead of focusing on what the end product would look like and how polished and perfect it would be, I decided to come at it with the goal of learning. I wanted to learn how to find and work with assets off the unity store, so I just started playing around with it. It was so fun to do!!! I wanted to be nostalgic and remember some of my favorite computer music sounds from my favorite video game, Pokemon Diamond, so I did just that. I had a lot of fun buidling this scene and working with my voice and literally building a world. I am really happy with how this turned out, as simple as it might be. I think it does exactly what I want--which is make you defamiliarized with controling a character to serendipitously explore a nostalgic space. That is where my head is at right now. One small frusturation I had was that the game operates a bit worse when I build it than when I play it in unity, but for all intents and purposes I have what I want to play with and that is enough for me now. Maybe I will revisit this someday and make it adapt to other peoples voices, for now I am ok with this being just for me :)
I officially have the movement functional!!! I am really happy with where I am at with this. I find the movement super learnable and fun to discover where you can go in the game by using your voice as the controller. I have been working a lot with Raycasting and have used it to set the y position of the dragon and am still working through some distance calculations for the sound files that will be present in the game. Currently one plays at the same volume all the time, but once I finalize the distance calculator, the sound will be mapped to increase its loudness as you approach the object that omits it. This will allow players to explore the space and to figure out what elements make what sounds.
In sound maze players play as a dragon who can fly around and explore an environment by controlling their character
with their voice. Higher pitches move the player to the right, lower pitches move the player to the left. Being
louder moves players up, quieter moves players down. There may be some goal of collecting pieces that produce sound
to encourage exploring the game, but I am not sure about that yet. I am excited to create the environment that can
be explored
As it exists currently I have a barebones structure of what the environment might include, but I hope to add more
mountains and trees, etc to fill up the space, I might also have
This audio visual tool asks users to input things they are hopeful about. In doing so it populates a list of reasons that they are hopefull that can be seen at all times. Upon each addition of a reason to be hopeful, a new note in a predetermined song (that is happy) is revealed and played in a loop. Users must continue adding reasons to be hopeful to uncover the song that is playing and to hear hopeful music while they are being hopeful themselves.
Voice maze is an audio visual game that has users playing as a waveform display of their voice. Players must escape the maze by controling their character with their voice. Singing higher moves players up the screen, lower notes move them down. Singing quietly moves them left, and singing loud moves them right. This game can also be toggled off to have users play with their voice to watch their character move around.
This game allows users to place various fruits in the game world. Players play as a tiny red monster that moves around the screen and tries to eat as many fruits as possible. Each time a fruit is eaten a noise is generated. Users can chose to place specific fruits in specific ways to generate their favorite sounds or discover new patterns.