Found this little gem - Devil's Tuning Fork - a game exploring sound wave

Just found this little gem by pure luck. I am not sure if it was made in Unity, but I am guessing it was - its got that Unity look.

Devil's Tuning Fork

Download : http://www.devilstuningfork.com


I thought visually, the game looks amazing, and conceptually brilliant - although I think implementation of the idea is a bit bland and lacking. Also does anyone have any idea how they do that marvelous animated "scanning/reveal"shader effect?

 

visually, conceptually, and technically! I think they're playing with some weird uv mapping based on camera position to get those doppler effect working.

 

Hey, I was the one who wrote the shaders (found this thread through Google Alerts...).

It wasn't made in Unity, since Unity wasn't as viable when we made it as it is now. The shader effect is essentially a list of ping positions, current radius size, and ping type (to determine color/shading, whether it was the x-ray looking one or solid). The UVs are just constantly panning on textured objects, so the direction of those were designed by the artists.

A recent game in development, "Pulse", is also doing something similar with this mechanic if you want to check them out. I agree that Devil's Tuning Fork did not take the mechanic very far...we had a lot of problems with development because we didn't have something as easy to work with as Unity is.

 

So glad to hear the answer back straight from the developer!
Thanks for explaining it. So what engine was this game made in? Was it a custom engine?

BTW, what's Google Alerts ?!! (I didn't even know about this service! Great find!)

 

It was a student project, but the engine used was made by a professor, which was essentially a thin layer over OpenGL.

Google Alerts just sends an email every time a new search hit containing keywords is found (in this case, Devil's Tuning Fork.)

 

epic thread. Never realized google alerts was so useful....

 

Thanks for posting this and nice to see one of the developers stepping in and answering some questions.

I have to agree aesthetically its beautiful from watching the video, actually prefer it to Pulse. Downloaded the game will give it a try later.


My only criticism of these style of games is that the environment always fades out to blackness when there is no sound. Whilst this makes logical sense I often find it spoils the gameplay as you are constantly having to stop or losing your bearing. Again I understand this might be partly the purpose of the game, but to make it just makes it feel too much like stop/start gameplay the spoils any rhythm or pacing the game is meant to have.

Obviously there are various ways to address this, from having a low sound so the environment is constantly lit slightly, almost like an ambient factor or build in oscillating emitters into the scene to achieve a similar effect but more localised to various areas.

Its really tempting to have a go and making a game like this myself, especially as I think the core mechanics are ripe for further exploration and innovation. Though I have to admit I think it will be hard to top the aesthetic beauty and finesse of Devil's Tuning fork.