The Sound Of The Future

Use musical time capsules to operate your time machine and SHAPE THE FUTURE!

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The Sound Of The Future

'The Sound Of The Future' is a music puzzle game that utilises the Microsoft Hololens and it's mixed reality capabilities. The player must use the Hololens' special audio and speaker functionality as well as it's visual display to combine musical components to a hi-tech time machine that has the power to shape the future, through the sonic power of audio!

What It Does

At the start of the game, the player inhabits a ‘play area’, the focal point of which is a large machine with (a number of) buttons and three empty sockets, and above it (possibly connected to it?) an ominous window or portal to the future (past??). Before long, six ‘sound canisters’ fly out of the portal and are scattered around the play area. Each sound canister emits a single complex, yet distinctive, electronic-type sound, and as they fly from the portal the player is surrounded by a complex mix of sound before the canisters fall to the floor. Using the 3D audio capabilities of the Hololens, the player will be able to approach and inspect each canister and listen to its unique sound in turn. By this point, the machine has begun to emit a ‘goal sound’, which is a composite of three of the sounds emitted by the sound canisters. The player’s objective is first to listen to the ‘goal’ sound, then to listen to each of the sound canisters in turn in order to determine which combination of canisters creates the correct ‘goal’ sound. The player then fits their three chosen canisters into the machine, which either accepts (win) or rejects (canisters ejected, try again) the player’s choice. With 6 canister sounds, there are 36 possible combinations of ‘goal’ sound if it is a composite of 3 canister sounds, and this can be randomised for playability. There may also be an event in which (something cool here) comes out of the future portal and throws all the canisters out of place if they player doesn’t press an ‘abort’ button on the machine, or perhaps the machine could automatically eject canisters after a certain amount of time. This event would be heralded by a ‘warning’ sound. In summary, the game is a straightforward aural matching game, with an emphasis on interaction with and immersion in the game environment through the Hololens.

How We Built It

The game was built inside Unity and exported as file the Hololens can run. All the audio was produced through various methods of recording and sampling in various programmes such as Logic Pro and Reaper.

Challenges We Ran Into

Sadly our team has had some set major backs. After day one, our artist sadly was unable to join us for the rest of the project, dropping our team down to 3. As well as this we've had bugs, crashes, glitches and every issues you could expect to run into when developing with software. We have since named our team 'FOR RORY!!!' In honour of our fallen team member.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

After trying what we have built, we're all incredibly impressed at how clear all the audio is within the game and it's surprising clarity of location within the game world. Although after all the setbacks, we're all also over the moon at the fact that all the game objects are easy to interact with and respond to our physical movements.

What We Learned

We've all certainly learnt how to mange our efforts as a team. Deciding on what type of game to build was a challange especially for 2 musicians and 1 game developer. As well as a few personal tips and tricks we've each learnt to further our talents, we've all greatly enjoyed learned how to adapt our work flow and process for mixed reality, as well as designed a game for a new platform.

What's Next For The Sound Of The Future

Sadly as the Hololens isn't accessible for two members of our team, the game will be left to the one developer to alter, polish and improve until it becomes more presentable. We all plan to share assets in the future however to help with the games future production. Then once we release it to the general public, we estimate the game will make us £300,000,000.87.

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