THE BEACH GAME
SHORT INFO
The Beach Game is a short walking simulator showcasing some elementary adaptive composing techniques. Have fun playing!
MORE INFO
CREDITS
Idea: Stephan Goebel & Thomas Hoehl
Game designed & programmed by Stephan Goebel.
Music, Sound & Fmod Programming Thomas Hoehl.
Notes // Explanation:
The Beach Game is another small video game that is supposed to help adaptive music get more attention by showing its benefits.
Initially, the project was called „Musical Pieces to Walk Through“. But the first playable build that my friend and programmer Stephan Göbel showed to me made clear that not “walking through music” but “walking through images” would be a crucial game design element. In this open collaboration we ended up working on something which feels like a classical video game. A walking simulator with surreal moments with one clear aim: being as atmospheric as possible. Consequently, we had to concentrate on one main aspect: Creating a believable immersive video game world…
Until now, my work mainly focussed on the musical underscoring of video games. But with the help of this little video game project I had the chance to work on the sound effects side of video game production. This was a fantastic experience for me, because I love the „grey zones“ between music and SFX where you can’t really tell the difference between music and sound design. I created very musical atmos for the environments and surroundings underlining the surreal/dreamlike aspect of the game, for instance.
Stephan and I used the chance to try out things we hadn’t tried out before. I took the chance to improve my FMOD skills. (This is the powerful tool, that enables me to put my music und sounds into the game) and Stephan worked on his UNITY skills (the game engine).
Make sure to check out the three videos that are supposed to explain the simple but powerful adaptive music techniques I used for the game.
VIDEO 1 „Musical Atmos with Chance Elements“: In this video, I’ll explain how I created musical atmospheres that are interesting to listen to for a long time by having three loops of different lengths and musical elements that are picked by chance.
VIDEO 2: “Adaptive Horror Music” - In this video, I’ll show you how I managed to let the music transition fluently between three musical snippets that are written in different tempos.
VIDEO 3: „Distance Parameter“ - In this video, I’ll demonstrate how music is used to guide the players in the game. The player is supposed to find an object and I help him by making the music sound clearer the closer he gets to it.
FUNDING
This project was funded in 2021 by the Hessische Kulturstiftung. Thank you so much for supporting us artists (again!) in crazy times like these.