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The user interface of the game would be simple as the user would be felt complex in the gameplay, so the user here is kept in a minimalistic concept. The UI is designed in a way where the user gets maximised view of the game.
Basic prototype of the UI
The Top left portion of the UI consists of the players if it is a multiplayer game
The top centre part is designed to show the current cube where the user is at the present. The cube number will be displayed boldly displayed as that is the only visual clue for the user.
The Top Right portion of the UI consists of the map. The Map is a key element for the user to show the overall cube and the numbering of the individual cube.
The image shows the overall mapof the cube and the numbering of the individual cube.
Music is an essential part of our game in helping to communicate the unique emotions and atmosphere of each room design to the player. With the layout of twenty seven different rooms in our Rubix Cube of Memories, there is an opportunity to explore a range of different music styles and aesthetics. I have composed some musical tracks, using Logic Pro X, as examples which demonstrate the variety of different emotions and styles that we can include:
The first example is titled Mysteries seeks emulate mystery and intrigue whilst also building to a dramatic climax that keeps the player engrossed in the game.
The second example is titled Mines that seeks to the Nightmare theme of the visual designs with ghostly sounding atmospheric pads.
The third example is titled Memories and reflects on the immersive Inner World visual design that is a more calming and immersive piece.
Whilst I have used numerous different synth sounds as the instruments in the pieces, there is also an opportunity to record live instruments that can further push the music to new levels of dramatic nuance. Further styles and genres can also be explored to fit the different art designs and emotive intentions of each room.
As for the room environment, we have discussed some potential things we could create to make this experience more immersive. There’s already a spatial audio experience that would be happening inside of the room that guides the gameplay for the player, but as for the physical room itself we may have a few options if we wanted to increase the immersiveness of the experience.
One option is to use a projection to display certain textures, animations or images in the room that would correspond to what the player would be doing in the game but this is dependent on what time allows.
We could do a simple projection that would be controlled on an iPad or computer that we would manually change as we observe the player so the physical room would change as the digital world changes in the game. This is to have a kind of play on the parallel worlds between the physical and the digital since the directional sound happens outside the digital game environment.
In addition, there’s also a possibility for a more complex projection, where whatever texture, animation or image we choose to display would match the size of the wall or door we are choosing to project onto. This option requires a few members of the team to learn projection mapping, so it increases the challenges quite a bit in addition to requiring more time.
At the very least, we could create a low tech version of the experience, by changing the lights directly ourselves and switching between colors at various times to manipulate the atmosphere of the experience. Simply booking a room with dimmer light switches is also a strong possibility, and doesn’t require much of a challenge for any one of us, though it could lessen the immersive quality of the experience.
These are all options that we can decide upon, but we will continue to focus the bulk of our time on designing and programming our game since it is quite complex.
Keywords: Virtual world, Abstract Visual effects concept:
The whole scene is in a dark atmosphere
As shown in the reference image, the interior of the room is near total darkness with no walls around it and no clear shapes, the only thing that exists in the room are the doors in and out of the room and the broken planes underneath the feet. I think this particle effect will make for a great visual experience.
Game Mechanics:
The forms of models in this room may be displayed as point clouds. The room was completely dark, with only the surface composed of glowing dots. At the same time, the key prop of this room “hourglass” will be hidden in these dotted planes, and only when the player follows the sound to find the position of it, the hourglass will be rendered as a solid model.
Different from the other rooms, players are able to free from the 2D ground here and follow the 3D surround sound to move back and forth as well as up and down in the room.
Point Cloud:
Room 2
Keywords: Technology, Luminous Visual effects concept:
Object edge glow (Contour luminous)
The effect is similar to the object edge highlighting effect in the image and is achieved using the Unity engine’s Vfx shader effect by expanding the model’s normals outwards. This effect is relatively easy to achieve and visually striking. I am testing the possibility of adding a radar scan-like effect to the room, this is similar to the diffusion of sound waves and fits in with the main interaction of the game – dealing with sound.
Game Mechanics:
This room is also dark, in this room players can grab some small cubes to throw. When the cubes hit the floor and walls, there will be a loud sound, while a circular ripple similar to sound waves and radar will spread out, briefly lighting up the environment around the point of impact. Players constantly throw stones to familiarize themselves with the room’s structure and find the exit.
Reference：The Unfinished Swan
Room 3
Keywords: Hand-drawn style, cartoon-rendered style, contour lines
Visual effects concept
The effect of this room can be approached in a 2D rendering style, unlike other rooms using the PBR workflow, the model in the room will not have a lot of color variation and reflections, but instead the color of the object’s own grain and the color of the shadows, meaning that a model will only have two colors, while contour lines are added to mimic the feel of hand-drawn lines.
In our game, there are rooms the player enters that is a distorted view of reality that represents a memory or a feeling in each. I’m designing three of those rooms.
The architecture and environments has been inspired by dreamscape architecture and surrealist photography/art.
Room 1 – Peace & Serenity
In this room, the player enters a water environment that’s empty except for the ocean and some architecture. Some potential objects in the room may be a building, furniture, fog, mountain or arched walls to help create some boundaries but also tell a story.
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Room 2 – Loneliness
In this room, the player will enter a desert like space, with a dark atmosphere that feels almost like nighttime. There will be very few models in this room, one of them potentially being a large spiral staircase that’s tall enough to reach the sky or something more abstract.
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Room 3 – Childhood Book , The Princess and the Pea
In this room, the player will enter a room where it’s a scene from one of the character’s favorite childhood books, The Princess and The Pea. It’s a fun, cheerful memory that’s in a more warped perspective with a highly pastel and dreamy look.
“The Rubik’s Cube of Memories” is a game project aiming at exploring the interesting features of Non-Euclidean space and the physical nature of sound. It is designed to be an spiritual journey in a maze of memories where the player wanders across 27 rooms of memories set up spatially as a Rubik’s cube.
Unlike Rubik’s cube in real world, each of whose cube is only connected to a specific set of other cubes, our maze is placed in a non-Euclidean space and the connection of each cube becomes uncertain. Heading through the left door from one cube room, you might find out yourself end up in a room which is located at the lower right side of the original room mysteriously.
To anchor yourself in the dizzying Non-Euclidean space, the physical nature of sound will be your humble and reliable assistant. The sound waves bounce back when they hit physical obstacles thus help you distinguish real and false entrances. The directional hint of sound source makes it possible for you to listen for a clue of revealing spatial position relations between rooms.
The essential difference between each individual lies in their unique experience and memory. Explore the memory room that belongs to you alone, and find the anchor of a peaceful mind from the chaotic spiritual world.
Project Handbook
The project handbook explains the inspiration, game setting, mechanism, gameplay and work allocation of the project visually to give a more clear illustration of the project’s aims.
Sound plays a vital part in our game not only as core game mechanism, but also serves the need of emotion building for our memory rooms. You can find sound design demos and research from below links:
As one of the core mechanisms for our maze escape game, players need to find the direction of sound anchor hence to determine the spatial position relation of different rooms.
To make such process more intuitive, we provide visual guidance for more clear sound direction check in companion to spatial audio system.
Here is a short demo video, a headset with spatial audio support or a 2 channel speaker is required to hear the spatial sound in this video:
Description： Perhaps it was a nightmare the protagonist remembered. This room is designed to evoke the suspense and terror of being lost in a nightmare. The room may be in shades of green and brown, along with spooky elements, such as eerie lighting, such as flickering candles, or strobe light. The door is surrounded by creepy vines. When the player is close to the monster in the room, he will be randomly sent to other rooms. Only when the player keeps trying to overcome the fear, will he get the key to pass the game.
Sound Style： A background soundscape of creaking doors, howling winds, and whispers.
Visualstyle：
Room2——Theme：Inner world
Keywords: tranquil, peaceful
Description： It is a room that belongs to the inner world of the protagonist, a world of tranquillity. At first, this room is very dark, with only one firefly that follows the protagonist. After the player finds the rose in the room and triggers the lighting, the number of fireflies becomes twice as many. When the room is bright enough (e.g. more than 50) then the room can be lit up and the key to the pass can be found.
SoundStyle：Sound effects can be designed to add the sound of leaves and breeze, as well as streams and birdsong.
Visual style：
Room3——Theme：Space Capsule
Keywords: exciting, mirage
Description： Becoming an astronaut may have been a dream of the protagonist as a child, and upon entering the room, the protagonist feels very excited. This is a weightless room with items floating in the air, the room can be in a single shade, or in shades of white and blue. The player needs to find the puzzle among the chaotic items and complete the puzzle on the console to open the ship successfully.
Sound Style：The room can also play the sounds of a space station, such as beeps, the hums of engines, and other sounds associated with the workings of a space station.
I have done some searching and research into implementing multi-channel audio for games in order to enrich the sound as much as possible, and have included some solutions and relevant information below.
In Unity——Convert multi-channel sound to video files using VideoPlayer and Audio Source playback.
I checked some Unity documentation and found a setting in the Unity manual for AudioSpeakerMode. I tried this but without success, so if we only use unity for this function, we can play it by turning the sound of a multi-track into a movie.
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