The game is a dreamlike journey on an intricate network of staircases hovering thousands of miles above the ocean. Solvepuzzles to move deeper in to the mysteries.
Full development
This was the first game I created fully on my own. I used different DAW’s along til Unity 3D and C# to make the game, along with blender for assets and fMOD for implementation. Also it was what made me fall in love with game development.
With the sound i tried making the player feel very small in a very big place. The experience shold be reflecting the cold and harshness gradually growing more dream-like and out of place.
In this post you will get a detailed description about parts of the game I really enjoyed creating.
Sound profile
The genereal sound design is cenceptualized in 3 categories:
1. The player
starts on a platform in nothing but thin air around them and a staircase leading upward. I made the sounds of the character, like footsteps, very small and light-sounding, as if they could blow off the staircases every second.
2. Magic and the sorrounding world
The world around the player is inherently magical. I made the genereal sound profile of magic with the sound of air and frost in mind – thus to make it feel cold and un-welcoming.
3. The significant events
of the game I made to sound much more impactful than in the rest of the game. The teleport-sounds and the sound when the worlf flips up-side-down are carefully created to sound way more heavy than the other magic sounds.
Technical points
I learned a lot during development. I focused on making everynthing coherent to the concept of the dreamwork. I also wanted repeatability of much used sound to be high while taking up as little space as possible with the audio. This resulted in a lot of different use of the same files.
The following video showcases the lift-system created in FMOD to bring variety and still use up the least amount of disc space possible.
The Music System
I made almost all of the music with my guitar and a lot of reverb. The music reflects the airiness and vastness of the world. But it also develops with the character as they progress though the game. I made a music system that evolves through 16 different phases – a long with the wind ambience and roomtones as a part of the composition. it is an adaptive system with smooth transitions knitted together with the sound design.
In the following video I showcase the system, showing some of the music and how it avoids repetition.
Personal experience
What really made this project great was that I learned so much. Being maticulously structured in concept and time management from the beginning made me wanna do that alway and any project ever.
Getting an understanding of level design, Unity, C# and how everything comes together in a project hit me right in the heart. Programming the scripts for respawning, death, everithing needing to be turned on and off, the world turns upside down… I found out that I love programming systems and would like to do that in the future as well.