Edge Of Perception is a "audio" based game by Philippe Ajoux with amazing music by Eugene Kang. Eugene is a CMU Senior in some sort of writing but is also in a band and makes music. He is helping me out in some of my audio needs for these games.
Controls: [up arrow] to jump, [q] to quit.
Note: Unlike my previous game, "Gravity Edge", this game is very much a prototype and lacks almost all the features I had in mind. However, this game also is the most interesting idea I had so far. I was simply too pressed for time and inexperienced with sound to do what I wanted.
NOTE: When playing the first sound you hear, right at the begining, is the cue to jump. So, when you hear that sound throughout the song/level, you must press [up arrow] to jump. You will get the idea.
For this week's game, I really thought a long time about what I could do. Most of my time was just spent coming up with an idea. I first decided to define the topic as a game in which sound is "integral" to the game-play. This means that without the sound, the game is nearly un-playable. With this in mind, I came to realize that almost all the "sound" games I like and know about (Rez, Audio Surf, Guitar Heroe, Lumines, etc...) do not actually fit in the category. It's kind of funny actually. These games suck and would be boring without sound, but they would be playable. The reason behind this is simple. For the most part audio is a feedback mechanism. And this holds true in real-life. Sound that originates from me is a direct side-effect of an action. Thus, this type of sound cannot affect my input. Only environmental sounds could really affect a user's input. However, often times, there would also be a visual element that makes the audio not wholely needed. So, I was at an interesting point. How can I make sound vital without sacrificing visuals? Sure you could just have a black screen and do something with your eyes closed (and that would be cool, but not what I wanted to do). In fact, whatever game I came up with, a test would be playing with eyes closed. If you could do it, then that's good.
My solution to this problem was to realize that traditionally audio is a feedback for input and visuals are what affects the actual user input. So, I wanted to swap this. I wanted audio to affect input and visuals to be a feedback of input. While playing "Tasty Static", I realized I could achieve this in a very strange way.
The way to achieve my goal is to make a very simple "jump-and-run" game. One in which the user really only has one or two buttons. The user is simply always running on a linear path. Then, they must jump or duck to avoid obstacles. There are many such games. In these games, the user knows when to jump or duck by looking at one part of the screen and waiting to see a gap letting them know they have to jump. Music in these games is usually only in the background (or some sound effects). My idea is simple. Have the user in first-person view facing backwards!!! That way, the visuals cannot help the user decide when to jump! Instead, the music would be the level. Thus, a level would be a song that had various audio-cues letting the user know when to jump, duck, etc... Thus, the user would need to listen to the song, once a cue is heard, they would act on it, and the result of there action (feedback) would be visually seeing the obstacle they just cleared. In my mind I think this is a really cool idea, and especially when listening to songs you could imagine points in the song where you would be jumping over a long canyon or something. Very cool stuff.
I have never seen or heard of a game like this. I think it is quite unique. At its core it is an observation of how audio and visuals interact with user input. Then, noticing that visuals typically affect input which in turn generates some audio feedback, I merely came up with a situation that switches the roles. What is very cool about this idea is the visuals can be a rich and robust as possible and will still never be able to affect the user input! But, the visuals would still be a pleasure to look at while playing the game.
What I came up with is pretty much a very, very sad attempt at capturing my dream. The essential gameplay is visible and playable, however. And this is good. You can sort of imagine where this would go. Unfortunatly, my lack of time and artistic talent caused my prototype to kind of suck. The level does not last for the whole song, the jumps get off-beat sometimes (due to various song/timing issues), and there is only one input/action--jumping. I imagined various kinds of jumps: short hop, long jumps where you actually slow down in the air (including audio), ducking under objects. Different types of sounds or song parts would indicate when to do what type of jump. Sadly, what you can play is just one jump on a rather regular beat. In the prototype here the jumps are at regular intervals, but you could imagine that in the real game, this would not be the case.
The name is essentially that we are changing the perception of a normal game. You are always looking back, and that really puts the player on the edge--of perception! (p.s. this "edge" bussiness is a joke on http://www.tigsource.com/pages/edge-games).