Ripple by Dandala88

[raw]

made by Dandala88 for Ludum Dare 50 (COMPO)

Ripple

A procedural musical composition art game.

The goal is to be creative and continually come up with new sounds with delay and feedback.

These sounds are to prevent the inevitability of silence.

Trailer

https://youtu.be/foXJkty-Mj8

Screens

Controls

To start, click the mysterious object in the center of the screen. This will become your cursor.

Click Left Mouse Button and release to create a sound or ripple.

Holding Left Mouse Button and moving around will also release sounds.

The faster you move the mouse the more complex the sounds will be.

You have a limited number of ripples you can create at one time. Some symbols can increase this max number.

Use the scroll wheel to change the shape.

Different shapes produces different sounds.

Pressing space will also cycle through the different shapes.

Press escape to quit to desktop.

Symbols

There are many symbols in this world that will periodically fly into your space. When a ripple hits one of these objects each one will react in their own way. You are encouraged to discover these behaviors on your own.

For those who do not wish to discover on their own...

☿ - Replicates the sound as lower and slower.
🜔 - Destroys sound.
🜍 - Replicates the sound as noise.
♄ - Replicates sound behind with short life span and destroys existing sounds.
♃ - Replicates multiple short lived with intermittent noise and destroys existing sounds.
🜜 - Destroys 25% of existing sounds. Self destructs with noise.
⊙ - Replicates all shapes. Adds 5 to max shapes.
☽ - Replicates as 3 different shapes. Adds 3 to max shapes.
🜠 - Replicates sound as new shape. Adds 1 to max shapes.

When silence comes a bright light will fade into view. Too much silence will end the game.

Notes and Recommendations:

I have uploaded the WebGL version for those who just want to get a taste of the experience. However, due to limitations with Unity's audio and what is currently supported in browser, it is HIGHLY recommended that you download the Windows version.

I also highly recommend playing this in a full screen window with a good pair of headphones.

So recommendations: - Windows version - Full screen - Good pair of headphones

Highly Recommended	https://github.com/Dandala88/LD50-2/releases/download/1.0.1/RippleFullBuild.zip
Recommended	https://github.com/Dandala88/LD50-2/releases/download/1.0.1/RippleFullBuild.zip
Not Recommended	https://dandala.itch.io/ripple
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/ripple

Ratings

Overall	369^th	3.333⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Fun	467^th	2.952⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	169^th	3.636⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Theme	578^th	2.659⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	237^th	3.614⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Audio	26^th	4.068⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Mood	144^th	3.614⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Given		27🗳️	24🗨️

Feedback

maxr00

04. Apr 2022 · 06:06 UTC

This is a really neat sound toy! I am a big fan of procedural music stuff so this was cool to see. I would have liked to see a way to cause more of the symbols to show up, sometimes it would end up a little lonely without anything new showing up. Great job

Billnotic

04. Apr 2022 · 06:20 UTC

It's visually pleasing and a fun little audio project. Not quite a game, not sure how it fits the theme, but it kept my monkey brain entertained so there's that.

🎤 Dandala88

04. Apr 2022 · 06:50 UTC

@maxr00 Totally get what you mean. It probably needs some tweaking but I wanted to create some lulls in the waves of symbols so that the player could experiment without the different augmentations.

@billnotic I tried to land somewhere between interactive art and a game here. It's a tough balancing act. As far as theme goes, the inevitable is silence. The delay is not only you producing sound but also the fact that all of the sounds come with a "delay effect".

So...delay(effect) the inevitable(silence). I thought it was clever :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Thanks for the feedback y'all

Billnotic

04. Apr 2022 · 06:59 UTC

@dandala88 Oh, interesting! I didn't think of it that way.

aeveis

06. Apr 2022 · 05:52 UTC

Very cool!
Fun to play with, though it's a bit unclear how the sound changes and when it does change with where it touches the shapes. I was thinking if I could avoid some symbols and see if I could stack some to see where I could go with an effect, but since I have to constantly make sound that is kind of hard to do.

I also didn't realize I could just hold mouse down instead of just clicking a lot at first.

Since silence is always inevitable, there isn't as much agency on the player's end, the player will always eventually stop playing. If it was preventing something in a game from being silent though (as an example), that would require more action and choice on the player's end, and that might make it more of a mechanic versus a sound toy. Overall I like it though!

🎤 Dandala88

08. Apr 2022 · 02:11 UTC

@aeveis I did mention in the description holding the mouse down as well as descriptions of what each symbol does. As far as specifics for how sound changes, I couldn't really tell you since it is programmatically generated. Most of it deals with delay and pitch though :shrug: .

I absolutely agree with wanting to experiment more with the different symbols. It was something I had in back of mind if I finished early enough. If I continue, that is definitely one of the first things I'll explore. I think it'd be cool to have different levels that have different concentrations of different symbols.

And to your last point, I get what your saying. I'd be interested if you had any further thoughts on how I could accomplish that. I had started working on being able to export a .wav of the "song" at the end but it was causing some issues. I think that might have led me astray a bit and caused me to lose focus on gamifying.

Thank you for you input!

CrocodileTuesday

08. Apr 2022 · 04:04 UTC

This is a really cool toy, but I wish there was some kind of palette for placing the symbols so that I could experiment with them instead of just waiting for them to spawn in. I would love to place different symbol sequences for the ripples to hit and make chain reactions.

iDunnyX

08. Apr 2022 · 06:07 UTC

Really interesting take. Def, unique out of the games ive tried. great job

bucketh3ad

08. Apr 2022 · 22:45 UTC

Love that you successfully gamified a sound toy, and quite a fun one at that. I like the missile command style expanding area mechanic and the simple but clear visuals. It wasn't entirely intuitive from the start, but I've seen other audio/visual synthesis experiences that have less clarity and discoverability and were presumably made with none of the constraints. I also enjoy the multiple meanings of the word "delay" in this context, and the way that ties back in with the theme and the game loop. Look forward to playing with this more.

vidarn

08. Apr 2022 · 23:11 UTC

An interesting and relaxing game. I did as you suggested, put on my headphones and played full screen. It was definitely a cool experience

epeachyband

09. Apr 2022 · 06:50 UTC

Very unique game. I liked it.

🎤 Dandala88

09. Apr 2022 · 18:05 UTC

@idunnyx @bucketh3ad @crocodiletuesday @vidarn @epeachyband Thank you all for taking the time to play my crazy game. I appreciate the kind words and that you took a chance on something a little non-traditional. @crocodiletuesday Your feedback seems to be a common one. If I continue development, that will definitely be included. Maybe like a training mode or something. @bucketh3ad I agree with you on the non-intuitive start. I would like to include a tutorial or instructional level or something. I'm glad you found the experience enjoyable enough to want to keep playing. I found that the longer I played the more interesting and complex it got. Lastly @vidarn, I'm really happy you took the time to get the full experience. I really think headphones makes it a completely different experience because you can hear some sounds you wouldn't otherwise. Thanks again!

Furtive Pygmy

10. Apr 2022 · 02:24 UTC

Awesome game/interaction tool, very unique take on the theme.
As others have mentioned, being able to place symbols would have been good.
Well done on thinking outside the box on the theme, it's good to play something very different than a traditional game.

Sodoj

10. Apr 2022 · 11:57 UTC

I'm not really sure what was going on, but it kept me entertained for whole 10 minutes. A wonderful surreal experiment. Well done!

LDJam user 280755

10. Apr 2022 · 15:06 UTC

Cool graphics and idea!

Mohammad Aldehayat

14. Apr 2022 · 12:10 UTC

This is such a nice game. I am so happy I played it. I have no idea what I was doing but enjoyed every second of it XD. Great Job!!

aeveis

17. Apr 2022 · 05:22 UTC

@dandala88 further thoughts: For example, let's say there are some things generating music. like birds. and you can let some things hit them to change their sound. Maybe each bird has a goal it wants to meet with how it wants to sound. Then you could make some levels where you are trying to match more and more complicated modifications with the bird's requests. That's just an idea to make it more interactable though, then players can see the look for specific symbols and see how they modify something through more directed(?) experimentation.

matthewrobo

21. Apr 2022 · 13:52 UTC

Fascinating.

For a while I was wondering where the inevitability would come in, until I realized it was something that was dependent on me.

Definitely out of the box, but a fun toy to play with.