Realignment
This game is from ldjam.com, which is currently unavailable.
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You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive (may not load correctly).
A narrative game about an "unstable" AI and the repair drone sent to fix it. Use your ears to solve tasks by listening to dissonant chordal hums, which resolve harmoniously as you approach the correct alignment. Determine the fate of your discordant patient.
Available for browser play here: https://mediflect.itch.io/realignment
- Tasks: Mouse
1. Dissonant chord resolution. AKA the first idea I had when I saw the prompt. Here comes a little music theory.
Dissonant chords are inherently unstable, and want to resolve to consonant chords. In the task minigames, the chord hum starts off dissonant, but fades into a resolved tonic chord as the player approaches the solution.
All the sounds in the game are based on the key of A major. When the chord hums in the minigames resolve, they always go to a root-position A major chord, which harmonizes with the background music. That's because the music is also heavily based on A major chord tones. It all just sorta resonates together.
In a smaller way, the character voice tones are also related to the key. The Curator's speaks in the note E, the fifth scale degree in A major, which tends to sound cold and distant. The AI on the other hand speaks in the note Bb, the flat second of A major, which clashes with the other sounds for a more dissonant feel.
2. Narrative themes. AKA the story is literally about a character who is deemed unstable.
The game features dialog between two characters. The first is the "unstable" AI that the player is trying to fix, and the second is the monitoring system the directs the player on their task. Not much more to say about this; just play the game and see for yourself.
~~Also shoutout to Intellisense in VSCode; I swear to god it can't resolve over half of the package namespaces I need to use and it makes coding such a giant pain and AAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~
Engineering, design, and writing were all done by me (Mediflect).
Nicholas Black contributed the music for the interactive portion of the game. All other sound design was done by me.
All textures used were open-licensed or public domain. The font is Share Tech Mono, which is licensed under the Open Font License. All other sprites and graphics were created by me or used with permission.
Special thanks to Michael Savage-Benoist for Unity consulting and playtesting!
Tools used: Unity 2021, Photoshop CC 2019, Cubase Elements 10 (sound design), Logic Pro (music), Audacity, Visual Studio Code
Available for browser play here: https://mediflect.itch.io/realignment
Controls
- Movement: WASD- Tasks: Mouse
Theme
The game tackles the theme of instability in two ways:1. Dissonant chord resolution. AKA the first idea I had when I saw the prompt. Here comes a little music theory.
Dissonant chords are inherently unstable, and want to resolve to consonant chords. In the task minigames, the chord hum starts off dissonant, but fades into a resolved tonic chord as the player approaches the solution.
All the sounds in the game are based on the key of A major. When the chord hums in the minigames resolve, they always go to a root-position A major chord, which harmonizes with the background music. That's because the music is also heavily based on A major chord tones. It all just sorta resonates together.
In a smaller way, the character voice tones are also related to the key. The Curator's speaks in the note E, the fifth scale degree in A major, which tends to sound cold and distant. The AI on the other hand speaks in the note Bb, the flat second of A major, which clashes with the other sounds for a more dissonant feel.
2. Narrative themes. AKA the story is literally about a character who is deemed unstable.
The game features dialog between two characters. The first is the "unstable" AI that the player is trying to fix, and the second is the monitoring system the directs the player on their task. Not much more to say about this; just play the game and see for yourself.
~~Also shoutout to Intellisense in VSCode; I swear to god it can't resolve over half of the package namespaces I need to use and it makes coding such a giant pain and AAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~
Screenshots
Credits
Engineering, design, and writing were all done by me (Mediflect).
Nicholas Black contributed the music for the interactive portion of the game. All other sound design was done by me.
All textures used were open-licensed or public domain. The font is Share Tech Mono, which is licensed under the Open Font License. All other sprites and graphics were created by me or used with permission.
Special thanks to Michael Savage-Benoist for Unity consulting and playtesting!
Tools used: Unity 2021, Photoshop CC 2019, Cubase Elements 10 (sound design), Logic Pro (music), Audacity, Visual Studio Code