Wormholes

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.26
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.65
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.27
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.93
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.25
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.92
Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.69
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.48
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★48%
WORMHOLES is my 1st attempt at any solo jam !

It's a Unity project, and primarily an exercise in generating meshes from audio data. The game starts by recording 10s of audio through your computer's mic input, so you have to allow access to your mic. A hundred levels are generated from these 10s, but you'll be lucky to even reach level 2.

You play as the pilot of a small spaceship, folding space to return home after years of space travel. The tunnels of space/time are long and narrow, and haste is your worst enemy, so make sure to use the hyperbrakes once in a while. They charge in 10s.

The music was made around a 51.2Hz bass, which is the 1st audible frequency to be a multiple of 0.1Hz, a frequency of which the period is... 10s. Also, the time signature being 10/4 and the tempo 120bpm, 2 bars last... ok fuck that, enjoy the trip.

__________

CONTROLS:

Up/down arrows: navigate
Space: hyperbrakes!

______

NOTES:

On Win7, some laptops are set so the mic is inactive when running on batteries. If you're getting flat tunnels, you might want to check that.
Linux version lacks the executable flag, just chmod it.

___________

MAKING OF:

The timelapse video is now available ! :)
>> http://vimeo.com/themushroomsound/making-of-wormholes

screenshot

Comments23

rylgh26 Aug 2013, 08:25
Very neat! Not sure if my ambient audio was loud enough for a tunnel it was flat for quite awhile. Made a few snapping noises, which probably coincided with me hitting the first jagged peak that appeared. Oh well, going max velocity was really exciting, especially with the drum n bass. Great music :)
themushroomsound
themushroomsoundauthor26 Aug 2013, 12:59
Hey, thanks! :) Yes, the recording is normalized prior to generating the level, which means the highest peak will be the highest edge, and anything that's low level will look flat in comparison...

That was probably a poor design decision, I realize only now it didn't have to be so (but then I would have had to allow for vertical scrolling).
Ghostik
Ghostik26 Aug 2013, 16:12
Really cool idea!
fdevant27 Aug 2013, 00:02
Here testing on OSX... It works :)
takes a while to start getting bumps on the level but its nice :)
Sometimes it gets stuck on the first wall and nothing moves until it gets some speed and Booom! ship explodes.
TeamQuadratic27 Aug 2013, 00:02
Really cool! Difficult, but enjoyable.
olafurw
olafurw27 Aug 2013, 00:04
Cool idea for the mic capturing to generate levels.
BloodJohn
BloodJohn27 Aug 2013, 00:04
Interesting style.
lulzfish_427 Aug 2013, 00:06
The music is really cool.

I got bored, so I let my ship drift in the center of the screen. I got to maximum velocity and cruised for several seconds before crashing into something.

I never did beat the first level. (That I'm aware of) The levels are just way too long.
blopit
blopit27 Aug 2013, 00:07
Very cool concept
doctorscientist27 Aug 2013, 00:22
I didn't know unity could take microphone input. I'm definitely going to play around with it now that I know.
SkyTheCoder
SkyTheCoder27 Aug 2013, 00:28
Really cool game. Works fine on a Mac. Amazing sound, too.
borden
borden27 Aug 2013, 00:28
Stylish graphics and audio. Impressive tech. Nailed the theme.
themushroomsound
themushroomsoundauthor27 Aug 2013, 01:30
@fdevant: yes, the 'crash at the start' issue happens way too frequently, I'll have to fix that. In the meantime you have to make sure the recording is nice and quiet at the start (ah, the hazards of folding time and space).

@lulzfish_4: yes, the levels are too long. I'm actually thinking of changing the way you clear them: it'd be nice if the ship entered hyperspeed after 10s at max velocity, which would bring you straight to the next (more difficult) wormhole.

Good to know the game runs fine on a mac!
Yakka27 Aug 2013, 10:42
Clever idea! Unfortunately, I didn't generated great levels... Maybe my voice is too boring :(

Very good sound design, as usual ;)
themushroomsound
themushroomsoundauthor27 Aug 2013, 12:24
Ok, then the next version will have to show a preview of the waveform, so that you can choose to play or record a new one. :)
lordjosephdeburg
lordjosephdeburg27 Aug 2013, 16:56
I like how you create the random landscape mushroom. Hard game but cool
Emilien Gorisse27 Aug 2013, 18:34
Those brakes O_O
Very nice idea, I really enjoyed the game - very hard though.
kazukishida30 Aug 2013, 06:41
Now this is a very interesting take on 'randomness', giving the player some form of creative control over it. Nice! It was definitely challenging as well haha!

Maybe you could allow the player to restart the level with the same recording in future iterations of this game. :D Repeating the recording again and again seemed to break the pace of the otherwise intense and fast gameplay.

Great game man! :D
kristof31 Aug 2013, 21:37
Generating the levels from audio is a great idea. Pretty easy to cheat though :-P The controls were a bit too extreme in my opinion.
yagiz11 Sep 2013, 15:54
Great entry! Having less drag on the controller would make it more playable.

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