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A jam submission

KaleidophoneView game page

Relaxing generative audio toy
Submitted by shiftBacktick — 12 days, 23 hours before the deadline
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Kaleidophone's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#204.0054.200
Overall#1893.2893.450
Authenticity (Use of resolution restriction)#2094.0054.200
Graphics#2113.0513.200
Gameplay#3042.0982.200

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you work in a team?
Creating this solo was a blast! To complement the low resolution theme, all of its sounds are built additively from sine wave components. This was also an entry for Brackeys Jam 2020.2, whose "rewind" theme inspired its time manipulation controls. Enjoy!

Was the resolution a challenge?
When I entered LOWREZJAM I had absolutely no idea how to go about the resolution requirement. For the text I made my own pixel font and exported the splash screen as two sprites. Initially I wanted the radial symmetry to be achieved with equilateral triangles (with the 64x64 viewport inscribed within a larger hexagon) but found that a 2x2 grid of 32px squares had less aliasing and was easier to work with.

What did you learn?
My engine is built for 2D audio spatialization. To achieve the z-index (i.e. time traversal) I made separate ceiling and floor layers and interpolated between them based on the z-value. For performance only two floors are audible at once. So effectively the observer is moving up and down through an infinite stack of 2D procedural sound stages that get instantiated and destroyed when needed. It's like riding an elevator.

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Comments

Submitted

I liked this, the visuals were interesting and the audio was deep

Submitted

Very nice; I have this one saved in a tab so I can keep playing with it in between other games!

Submitted

A very elegant mix between a kaleidoscope and sound, all in this resolution, I tried this game before the ratings and it left me glued to the screen for a good handful of minutes, obviously, this is top audio

Submitted

It is something strange, but a very good experience, it seems galactic and at the same time abstract, I liked that you can interact with the music.

There is a theory that we designers give, which is the Gestaltm theory and this is one of the principles that gives these effects.