Giving my photos a second life in video games
How struggling with illustration inspired me to create a game with a focus on audio exploration.
Hey, I’m Ney. I studied computer science and decided to pursue a career in game development during the pandemic. These past two years I’ve been learning about what it takes to make it big in the industry and, well, how difficult it can really be. I’ve been making small prototypes and outlined game ideas that led me to further research about specific areas of game development and I plan to share all that with you.
Today I want to talk about Living Still, an audio–focused exploration game, and how it became the best way to begin my journey in video game development, as well as talk a bit about some small systems or ideas that I’ve been working on to immerse the player in the world.
The inception of Living Still
It’s okay to struggle with something that’s cool
Although I can doodle characters and have them come out “okay”, they take too long to make and it was best to just accept is not in my toolbox.
One day I was creating a mock–up on Keynote for a game idea about a tiny world called Tiny World. It was about nurturing a—sorry—tiny world in something like a snow globe where you would pick up items to help it grow and evolve, as well as alter its climate with elements from the world outside it. So pouring water on it would make it rain and getting close to a chimney would heat the tiny world up, for better or worse.
That prototype got complicated but I stumbled onto something while casually editing one of my photographs. So at the end of the day I'm never too bummed up about not being able to create the cool things I see online; there’s always something that reminds me I can do cool things too. This time photography can help me where illustration can’t.
A tiny world inside a photograph
Photography is something I have taken the time to practice and enjoy quite a lot. It doesn’t mean I’m great but I’m proud of some of my photos.
When I came up with the idea for Living Still I wasn’t editing the cover photo in particular but it is the one that I want to see become alive in a video game. In Living Still there will be a front stage you can see and a backstage you can only hear. These two will work together and guide players by:
Displaying visual feedback on the front stage as the exterior elements influence the living photograph.
Playing sounds to orientate players as they explore the background world, set in a small area inside the woods.
I know that as the art style matures over time seeing the photograph itself may become an option in an “Extras” menu and have it replaced by cool illustrations and animations from a professional artist. I’m happy, though, that this photo has become something more already.
So, what sprouted thanks to this photograph was the idea of helping this flower grow and stay alive. The same concept of having one world carried by someone linked to another, but now the tiny world is this flower’s photograph and the external elements are located in places you cannot see but can hear, in woods you can only imagine.
Designing for audio exploration
I first discovered audio games through Blindside, by Aaron Rasmussen and Michael T. Astolfi, where you must escape creatures without sight, guiding yourself with the sounds from the environment around you. This game has stuck with me and now more than ever.
Over the course of the development of Living Still I’ve been having great ideas about accessibility. Like Blindside, I plan to make this game as fun for visually impaired players and those who are not: publish an excellent audio exploration game for all and also find out how fun it can be to have a front stage/backstage world work together.
But in all honesty, I should say: Designing for audio exploration without audio design experience. Yeah, and I don’t have a crutch that can help me this time other than free assets that get ideas across but don’t feel anywhere near the same universe.
As this game’s core is sound design I will later on be relying heavily on professional sound engineers and designers to help me let players really be immersed in the game’s world, that is if I can connect with an audience to develop more for. For now free assets will have to do so I can spend more time in game design and experimenting with new game mechanics.
Immersion and orientation
It's been a challenge finding the right way to control sound to guide players and envelop them in a completely new world. Most of these controls happen right on audio sources placed on the map like the ones shown above and audio mixers play a huge role too, but I’m not too familiar with using audio mixers at the moment other than controlling their volume—I’ve really got a lot to learn.
Usually, in most games, you see the objects that are emitting sounds and the challenge on most of these games is creating a sound that is realistic enough for the character or object that is emitting it. Sometimes you have to get creative and design a sound for things that don’t exist in our world (e.g. magic). In audio games, I’m finding out that in order to immerse players the sounds in the game should resemble things that they already know; in other words, sounds should be familiar and easy to recognize.
Immersion through familiarity
When most feedback players will receive is through sound, these sounds must be easily recognizable so that most time is spent playing and not overthinking and trying to figure out what that sound is supposed to be. Me saying this doesn’t mean that I’ve got this figured out, it just means that I’m aware of where I should be paying more attention.
Orientation
The location of the audio sources should make sense as well. Wether the sound fits the environment, the location of the audio sources and their configurations should make it easy for the player to imagine themselves standing near the river bank, like in the example above; something that could help with this would be paying attention at switching footsteps sound effects to simulate walking on a wet surface when near the water.
I’ve designed Living Still to have a top–down perspective where the player won’t be able to rotate. I have seen many audio games allow player to rotate, which also rewards them with having the world’s sounds travel between both left and right speakers; however, for now, Living Still will have other features that will help them navigate the woods and give them that experience of being surrounded by sounds. I will be talking about these features later on.
Front stage feedback
Remember, the front stage is the visual side of the game. Here players will be able to see the photograph evolving in relation the player’s location and interactions in the woods and some details will give them clues as to where they’re located within their immediate surroundings; for example, players may see the shadows of the trees above them being cast on the frame of the photograph—since they are holding it while walking and exploring the woods—and the darker or brighter it gets will help players understand if they’re near the bounds of the woods or if they’re at the center of their current path.
Backstage feedback
For the audio–only part of the game—illustrated in the mock–up maps above—there will be: collision detection and feedback to let players know where they’ve encountered an obstacle, different footsteps sound effects for different surface types and unique features that will give life the world of Living Still.
Join me in creating Living Still
I’d be grateful if you could reach out and stay in touch with me to let me know what you think about my first game, what you think I should pay more attention to or just to chat about games in general. I’m open to hearing what you have to say and if you think I can be of help to you too then don’t hesitate to write.
Thanks for sticking with me until the end! I hope that it at least gave you bits of inspiration for your own projects as well.