Robin Arnott is an audio designer and interactive artist best know for "that creepy gas mask game", Deep Sea and "that chanting game," SoundSelf. He loves play. He loves learning. He loves the future, and how you and he will help create it. He wants you to prove that everything he thinks is wrong. He thinks that the way it's always been done is stupid. He thinks the way it's always been done is beautiful.
http://www.wraughk.com/inde...
SoundSelf is the collision of centuries old meditation technology with the videogame trance. Inspired by a group-ohm on LSD and the ambitious follow-up to Robin Arnott's horror-experience "Deep Sea" it expands on many of the innovative techniques that were initially developed to scare the shit out of players, with the revised goal of inducing a blissful meditation-state instead of a suffocating terror-state.
http://soundselfgame.com/
Play on: Windows & Mac OS X (10.6+), coming to Linux
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Mini Q&A
Why do you make games?
From a lifestyle perspective, I definitely prefer playing a support role in the creative process. Sound design is fun to me - I love the creative challenge of understanding someone else's vision and helping them use the magical and subversive world of sound to make it more of whatever makes that vision special. So stepping away from that for two years is a sacrifice. Every month or so I hear of a cool indie project that I would be thrilled to do the sound design for, but I know that I can't divert any creative attention away from SoundSelf until it's finished. I love making SoundSelf. I love programming, and designing, but being the project lead on a multi-year endeavor is a lot of stress and a lot of ego pressure. I don't like that part. So I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that SoundSelf is beautiful and elegant and utterly unique, and if I didn't know that it won't exist unless I make it.
Why should people play SoundSelf?
What epileptics and prophets share is exposure to a magnificent human experience: my favorite word for it is the "religious experience." Stripping that experience of all the storytelling and explaining around it, what you're left with is a sensation of self that is infinitely expansive and inclusive. It's not a thought or a belief, it's a sensation like pain or orgasm are sensations. You can prompt a religious experience by means of, for example, a sustained meditation practice over years, or measured use of psychedelics. SoundSelf is a software mechanism for prompting such religious experiences. If that's interesting to people, I think it's worth a try.
What element of game design do you hold above all others?
I think most game designers are focused on what happens to the player consciously: what they're thinking, the decisions they make based on the data that's available. It's a language based in symbols - encoding an idea to be decoded by the player. I'm interested in the non-symbolic: if you can bypass the player's interpretation process, even their thinking process altogether, you can play their brain like a piano. That's what I'm interested in! That's what people are talking about when they say "immersion," but I've come to prefer the word "hypnosis" because I think it's more true both to the power of the medium, and to the ethical responsibility we have to the player.
Today’s Stories:
At a Glance: Robin Arnott & SoundSelf (YOU ARE HERE): http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Interview with Robin Arnott, Part One: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Interview with Robin Arnott, Part Two: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Words for SoundSelf: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Win a Copy of SoundSelf - and Enter to Win a PS4!: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Day 28 | Robin Arnott
Today Square Enix released an extensive documentary series in four parts celebrating the success of its new JRPG Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
One of the most famous painters of all, in The Master's Pupil on Xbox you'll get to journey through the masterpieces of Claude Monet.
It appears that Dragon's Dogma 2 has done very well for Capcom, with it being the biggest game launch in the UK this year so far.
Narrowly ahead of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? Well Rebirth is a PS5 exclusive. Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't and sells on multiple platforms. So well done to Rebirth for doing so well. That's what I get from this announcment.
AWESOME! Gotta love it. SCARE THE S#IT out of us? IM IN!!! Creating a "peaceful and serene game! IM IN! Many years ago I tried LSD, and it fk'd me up good lol...now if I can get that similar effext, w/o the drugs in my system? Oh s#it! DEEP SEA was mind blowing.
A friend of mine had it and would gush about it all the time. When i tried it, I was "blah", but after 4-5 hrs, we swapped the controller back n forth every 15 mins. But his game here, being 100% honest, i have no clue, but ive been reading up on it, and i gotta say, it's intriguing. Since u only have 9 copies, and the PS4 is scorching hot...Now I know my odds are very slim, but hey, gotta have faith and hope!!
Keep up the excellent work everyone! I "look forward" too seeing my Inbox w/ some great news!! lol
Haskell420
This game is probably a trip on oculus
freaking great !!
loving the idea :3
this is great
I love experience like this. Now I'm playing Papa Sangre 2, an audio only horror game, and is amazing! Like an audio only VR
Sounds interesting.. hvnt experianced something like this i guess.. wud love to give it a try