I've been a videogame designer for the last several years - I've worked on a variety of games, from homebrew stuff for the Game Boy Advance, to really oddball weird stuff like Seaman, for the Sega Dreamcast, to big-budget blockbusters like the Sims 2 for consoles. Recently, I co-founded Self Aware Games with some friends - some game industry vets, and some people new to the game development scene. Our focus was to develop games for the new generation of mobile platforms - like the iPhone and the Palm Pre.
With each new generation of hardware, there are a whole host of weird things to learn about how to make effective games. With our first game, Taxiball, we ended up doing a lot of strange things while creating the soundtrack. Instead of your standard sound effects and musical score, we decided to do something pretty radically different - an all-vocal beatbox soundtrack that is highly responsive to user input.
For the Art of Sound contest, I thought it might be neat to give people a bit of insight into how we put together this unique take on in-game audio, and more importantly, why. While Taxiball isn't primarily a game about music, the music's an integral part of the game - not only does it respond to players' actions, but it also communicates some very specific information back to the player. The Art of Sound, in this case, is the way the audio in Taxiball responds to the player's interactions, and the meaning that it communicates back to the player.
Here's a video of Taxiball's gameplay - a preview video we made just before the game launched - but it's a good representation of the general style of the game's audio:
We're really happy with the way the game's turned out - and since we ended up learning so much during the development process, it seemed only sensible to share our experience with others. If you're interested in a bit of a discussion about the design and development process of a game, particularly about something that most people might not give a second thought, hopefully this will be a useful insight into the way things get built.
With each new generation of hardware, there are a whole host of weird things to learn about how to make effective games. With our first game, Taxiball, we ended up doing a lot of strange things while creating the soundtrack. Instead of your standard sound effects and musical score, we decided to do something pretty radically different - an all-vocal beatbox soundtrack that is highly responsive to user input.
For the Art of Sound contest, I thought it might be neat to give people a bit of insight into how we put together this unique take on in-game audio, and more importantly, why. While Taxiball isn't primarily a game about music, the music's an integral part of the game - not only does it respond to players' actions, but it also communicates some very specific information back to the player. The Art of Sound, in this case, is the way the audio in Taxiball responds to the player's interactions, and the meaning that it communicates back to the player.
Here's a video of Taxiball's gameplay - a preview video we made just before the game launched - but it's a good representation of the general style of the game's audio:
Taxiball from selfawaregames on Vimeo.
We're really happy with the way the game's turned out - and since we ended up learning so much during the development process, it seemed only sensible to share our experience with others. If you're interested in a bit of a discussion about the design and development process of a game, particularly about something that most people might not give a second thought, hopefully this will be a useful insight into the way things get built.
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There's a lot one can say about starting the development process. Self Aware started up in March of 2009 with the goal of developing games for the iPhone (and similar devices) that would allow people to interact with each other in interesting new ways. For the first project, the idea was simple - take something unique about the iPhone, make that really fun, and then integrate that with the first step towards building a rich experience online.
Getting to the core concept behind Taxiball was pretty straightforward - obviously, one of the big things that separates the iPhone from other mobile devices is the accelerometer. If you want to use the accelerometer, the simplest, easiest, and most obvious way to do it is to make a ball-rolling game. There are a lot of other examples of this kind of game on the App Store, and a number of them have been really successful. But we thought they were all missing something important - they were all very ... limited.
By that, I don't mean that they lacked features, or weren't necessarily fun. I mean that in almost all cases, the ball was a simulation of a real ball, and the surface was the simulation of a real surface. Your goal in most cases was to roll your ball to some destination, then switch levels and do the same thing again and again.
Why stop there?
In a videogame, there's no reason that you have to roll a ball around a surface that you'd normally roll a ball around. There's no reason that your destination has to be something, or that you have to fall into a hole, or that when you're done with one challenge, you have to stop and load a new level for another. We weren't constrained by reality! Why were all the games in this genre so boring?
There was a LOT more that could be done with the "tilt & roll" genre - and we intended to do it.
Getting to the core concept behind Taxiball was pretty straightforward - obviously, one of the big things that separates the iPhone from other mobile devices is the accelerometer. If you want to use the accelerometer, the simplest, easiest, and most obvious way to do it is to make a ball-rolling game. There are a lot of other examples of this kind of game on the App Store, and a number of them have been really successful. But we thought they were all missing something important - they were all very ... limited.
By that, I don't mean that they lacked features, or weren't necessarily fun. I mean that in almost all cases, the ball was a simulation of a real ball, and the surface was the simulation of a real surface. Your goal in most cases was to roll your ball to some destination, then switch levels and do the same thing again and again.
Why stop there?
In a videogame, there's no reason that you have to roll a ball around a surface that you'd normally roll a ball around. There's no reason that your destination has to be something, or that you have to fall into a hole, or that when you're done with one challenge, you have to stop and load a new level for another. We weren't constrained by reality! Why were all the games in this genre so boring?
There was a LOT more that could be done with the "tilt & roll" genre - and we intended to do it.
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Noyes654
says:
Aug 13, 2009. 5:01 PMReply
I bought this game not too long ago and I loved the music, i thought it was a really great idea. nice to see the planning behind it
5
helava (author)
in reply to Aug 13, 2009. 5:31 PMReply
Thanks! Great to hear you enjoyed the music. :D Hope the rest of the game held up!
MLB Baseball Guy
says:
Jul 7, 2009. 8:29 AMReply
This was totally great instructable, very detailed. Keep it up!
MarcusAvery
says:
Jun 13, 2009. 11:37 AMReply
I read this and went right to my itunes and bought this app! It was only 99 cents and it is very fun and challenging! Great job!
5
helava (author)
in reply to Jun 13, 2009. 12:36 PMReply
Ha! Thanks! Your support is definitely appreciated!
skwerrl
in reply to Jun 18, 2009. 10:22 AMReply
hey I have a question can you play this on the com. if so tell me where
5
helava (author)
in reply to Jun 18, 2009. 11:23 AMReply
Afraid not! It's an iPhone-only application for now. Sorry!
3
N1CK4ND0
in reply to Jun 23, 2009. 6:53 PMReply
Dang, just need an iPhone now! :P
tsvlasuk
says:
Jun 18, 2009. 11:24 AMReply
This was fascinating! Yes, please post more. Must go try out the game now!
Painkilla05
says:
Jun 13, 2009. 8:28 AMReply
Wow this is an awesome look behind video games. I had no idea designers put such a crazy amount of work into it. Brilliant!
5
narpas
in reply to Jun 18, 2009. 8:36 AMReply
You have no Idea when you work in games there are whole days were you could just sit down and write notes on one small aspect of the game . Working on games can take months to years!
greiss122
says:
Jun 18, 2009. 7:51 AMReply
What did you use to create this app?
5
helava (author)
says:
Jun 13, 2009. 12:39 PMReply
Also: If you like this kind of thing, please leave a comment and let me know. There are a couple other things I'd love to post about if there's interest. :) Thanks!
1
Damage, Inc.
in reply to Jun 13, 2009. 6:17 PMReply
Oh, yes, please! I enjoyed every word! It's clear that you guys put an extraordinary amount of work into this game, and apparently had fun doing so. Excellent job. Keep those creative juices flowing in your veins.
155
canida
says:
Jun 12, 2009. 9:05 AMReplyWhoa, this is entirely too neat. While I generally suck at video games (particularly those requiring coordination) the soundtrack and explanation thereof is most excellent.
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