Platform: Windows PC
Release Date: to be announced
Maturity: for all ages
Development Status: Prototype/Stable
Price: to be announced
Development
Peter Olthof
Design
Peter Olthof
Art
Peter Olthof
Music & Sound Effects
Mike Borst – www.mikeborstsound.com
Jelle Hasselman
“An interactive audio visual experience, based on fractals & mathematical algorithms in life”
Have you ever walked the streets, with your earplugs in, listening to music? Have you ever felt like everything around you synchronized with the rhythm, and feeling of the song you listen to? Music has an enormous impact on how we perceive our surroundings. Now imagine, that your surroundings react to the song you listen. Your hearing senses would be in synchronization with your visual senses. Now imagine that you could feel the vibrations of music in your hands, touch your surroundings, and influence the visuals around you. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Visualife is an interactive audio visualization experience, based on algorithms in life. The project started as my graduation project for ‘University of Arts Utrecht’.
Inspired by the ‘demoscene’, audio visualization, sacred geometry, and mathematics, I had this dream to create something that would bring people into a ‘flow’, due to a perfect synthesis between, audio, visuals, and interaction. I believe there is still a lot to do, but the project was received well, leading to several award nominations.
Visualife contains two different modes: Game Mode & Story Mode.
Game Mode
Game Mode contains 3 different games, that are based on a specific mathematical algorithm. Gameplay, and visuals, and composition are consistent with this algorithm. The player listens to a music track, created by two talented musicians Mike Borst & Jelle Hasselman, with sound effects on top during the games. There is no game over, or any way to lose the game. At least, you won’t notice it. If the player does win the game, the next time you arrive in your game, the difficulty will increase. The player will be in a constant flow between different interactive audio visualizations, while the music continues to play.
The three games are called Atmosphere, Sponge, and Apollo, lending their name from their specific algorithm.
Story Mode
In story mode, I wanted to create a meditative adventure, in which I could tell a story in an abstract implicit way. The game starts with being a sphere, floating around in a cave, attracting icosahedrons towards itself, with an atomic attraction system. Everything in life consists out of atoms, that have attraction, and force, and frequency. The idea of this is amazing to me! As you collect these atoms in the cave, you will pass by different wall art, that reacts to music. These artifacts are based on ‘phyllotaxis’ algorithm, using the fibonacci sequence. Finally your collected atoms will grow a tree, and you become the tree. Floating in the air, you can dance with the branches of tree to music. Players from all ages, and players with no background in playing games, appear to be enjoying this mode very much. The player’s experiences varies between a feeling of zen, joy, psychedelia, and some shed even a tear.