Fun With The Lights Off: Interactivity Without Graphics

The pictures are better on radio, they say, and the same is also true in interactive experiences: games, for example, are possible using sound that are more realistic and immersive than the most complex 3D polygon-fests. But we're not talking soundtrack: we're talking fundamental questions of user interface, augmented reality and game design in audio. We're focusing on the development of Papa Sangre, a game in sound without graphics, and the world's first real-time generative audio-only virtual world. On an iPhone.

Papa Sangre was commissioned by 4IP as a game in which blind people might be able to kick the ass of sighted people. Its development has been an adventure, pushing the capacity of the iPhone to the limit. It’s been an extraordinary challenge to imagine the design of a game and world where your existence is entirely through sound and where technological constraints become a mother of invention. You walk with your thumbs through a binaural sound environment, where you hear both the monster snoring to your left and the crunch of chicken bones and squeaky toys underfoot that may wake it up and bring death upon you. It’s a fundamentally different experience of gameplay, continually present-tense, totally immersive and therefore visceral – it feels like it’s you out there. The panel will discuss the process, the constraints, the vision and the philosophy behind a radical new genre of game and what this generally reveals for good game and experience design.

LEVEL: Advanced