Glitchspace
Dev Blog 8 - The Music of Glitchspace
So what does this mean for the music? Well it's been a pretty challenging and interesting process to figure out how it should sound: do we go with something "normal," or try something abstract? What instruments do we use? How does the musical contour change over the course of the game?
When I started this process, the team knew one thing: we weren't interested in making a score that was "epic," or just about dumping electronica Glitch beats everywhere: that's just way too obvious and derivative. We wanted something different and more restrained; where every instrument and nuance counted for something and mattered. After mulling around with a few ideas I think we're at a stage now where the music is in the right place and lives up to this ideal. Whilst I don't want to give too much away at this stage (for us the music and art is a very intrinsic part of the game's narrative experience) I'm here to report some of the many creative processes (and keyboard bashing) that I went through to get to this stage. These examples are unmixed "demos," at present but the final release of the game will see everything fully polished to super shiny detail.
So let's start at the beginning. Of the game that is. With version 2.0 that will be dropping soon, you'll be starting your musical journey with a soundtrack that is super simple: literally one layer. This was a creative decision on our part as we wanted the music of Glitchspace to be something that almost mimicked the actions of the player as they program: hearing simple ideas first, before proceeding into more complex ones:
https://soundcloud.com/ronanquigley/simple-layer
If you're interested, I designed that drone out of a Music Box I sampled to death for a library I worked on. I actually only needed one note though from the recorded set to make it. Here's what that sounded like before: from sample, to being processed in a multitude of ways to make the drone:
https://soundcloud.com/ronanquigley/simple-layer-design
From there, the soundtrack will of course evolve, adding more layers and becoming more complex as a result. Let's fast forward into the game to give you an example of what that's like:
https://soundcloud.com/ronanquigley/astral-projection-demo
What I particularly like about going down more of an abstract route is it allows for much more creative freedom in the styles you explore. Therefore we also wanted to try and bring in organic elements into not only the environmental geometry, but also the music as well. Check it out:
https://soundcloud.com/ronanquigley/void-demo
Interestingly I actually didn't write any of the music tracks I've done so far concurrently to how the game has been developed. It's in fact been quite the opposite for me: I found myself initially getting too hung up in figuring out how the start should sound. The problem with this that I discovered quite quickly was that with the art in a state of flux, each time I thought I had nailed down the starting music, it would become redundant with the art changes brought in. By doing a reverse engineering approach from complex to simple, I found that I was able to get that one layer sounding like it should be.
Overall, if you wanted to sum up what sort of feel we're going for I've found I've taken most inspiration so far from Brian Eno, particulary Music For Airports (such a good record and is one of my personal favourites):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KGMo9yOaSU
Even though I've been involved with Glitchspace for two years now, I've never really felt like I've had the opportunity to properly get into the gritty stuff with Glitchspace's soundtrack. However the past few months of the project have changed that and I think players are going to not only like what they see for 2.0 onwards, but hear too!
Ronan
Dev Blog 7 - Unforseen Consequences
This week’s blog is a sequel to Mus’s one last week. His blog set up dreams and ideals, and this one exists to show you everything that’s wrong with dreams and ideals, but also why that’s not a bad thing.
First off, an introduction: My name is Gaz and I’m the programmer here at Space Budgie, so all the mechanics of Glitchspace are analogous to what I do day-to-day, only way more exciting and aesthetically pleasing. This means it’s my job to provide the tools for the rest of the team to take their ideas and creations and put them in the game so that they one day might reach the eyes of the players!
So I thought it might be exciting if I talked about how that process can happen, and the sort of issues you can face when taking something from the idea and design stage into the implementation and eventually testing stages. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading at least the previous post so that you’re up to speed with the snazzy new designs.
The new expanding Tool menu, as described in Mus’s blog, worked great once I got it implemented in game. It was snappy to open, quick to navigate and really helped to keep the programming interface focussed. The only trouble was that if you opened the menu near the edges of the window, many of the buttons would appear off screen!
So, what to do? Mus and I (and eventually Ronan) sat down together (I mean, we were already sitting) and tried to work out a solution to this problem.
Solution 1:
If the player opens the menu near the edge of the window, and some of the buttons would be put off screen, then move the entire menu to fit correctly.
The trouble with this is that it means that the location of the buttons is never consistent, and it’s much harder to teach a player if you keep moving about the tools under seemingly arbitrary conditions. Also, when you expand a category does it move again? Does it move back when you close it? Confusing.
Solution 2:
If the player opens the menu near the edge of the window, move any buttons that would be off screen back onto the screen and arrange them neatly.
Again, the trouble here is that the button placement is inconsistent, possibly even more so than Solution 1. Not good.
Solution 3:
Only let the player open the menu near the center of the screen.
One of the difficult things about designing systems for a game is striking a balance between providing the freedom for players to explore the systems in their own way, but also restricting it just enough so that they doesn’t feel lost and confused. This solution really goes against player freedom and it can be confusing when the menu doesn't open where you expect it to.
This solution came from us trying to account for the worst case scenario of fitting every tool on screen neatly. Really though, most of the time the Tool Menu will contain only the tools needed to solve the puzzle at hand (along with a few red herrings and a couple of bits for experimentation). So this solution would create a very sparse programming interface with very limited player control.
Solution 4:
Let the player do what they want.
It’s not the Wild West, but if you give the player consistent rules, make everything clearly signposted and ensure that the interactions are quick and responsive, then you can trust that the player is able to learn for themselves.
The Tool Menu is quick to open and close, and it’s this strength that we’re building on. If the player opens the menu in a place that doesn’t work for them, they can easily open it in a better place without being punished for it (Did you play the PS port of Final Fantasy 6? 4 seconds to open a menu adds up when you’re constantly doing it).
So, in summary, design can be hard. Designing for every possible scenario is time consuming and you’ll probably end up missing something anyway, so get something that feels right in your gut and build on that. The most important thing is to get something tangible that you can play with, because all those little flaws bubble to the surface much faster when you actually get it out of your head and into your hands! Tiny flaws are a good thing though, they're how you learn and improve!
Right, I’ve inspired myself.
I'm out,
Gaz
Dev Blog 6 - Judgement Day UI/UX
It’s me Mus, we've all been busy on the project and for the last few weeks, I’ve had my Game Design and a loose fitting User Interface (UI)/ User Experience (UX) Hat on and worked away on UI/UX Design and the Games Tutorial, The Games Tutorial, I will post up another time.
So here we are at the moment, this is the current (UI/UX)
For the last few months while we worked on the project, we work on the UI/ Design, some visual improvements were made, but we created problems, that we could not figure how to fix them. Ultimately, we were never happy, three artists tried and never worked as it was just re-skin of the old UI.
Some early attempts we tried:
Another Attempt and they never really worked:
February 12, 4pm Greenwich Meantime, - it was UI/UX Judgment day.
I remember it well, my colleague turned around to me and yelled, shouted, no, no growled…. Tell a lie, they were frustrated about the UI not working and they were right, it has not worked no matter how many times we re-skinned it. Honestly, at that time I did not take the this info dump at 4pm, as I was exhausted and grumpy from working on a level…. Which took forever. However, I could not stop thinking about, as I knew they were right and it had to be fixed and so started to research and looked at minimal UI/UX designs in Web Design, Interface designs for tablets and smart phones, etc. One objective I had on the back of my mind, I wanted to get rid of clutter and wasted Dead Space which frustrated me and Marked three areas that bothered me.
Yes, I made a reference to Dead Space games, yes, I like the games and I spelt awkward wrong in the image, let's move on. :)
In my mind's eye, the entire UI was the Canvas, instead of the square canvas. One website really did make me go 'OOOooooh' And that it clicked with me instantly was a great work of web design, and I've added a link below.
http://www.thibaud.be/#WORKS%203D%20&%20Motion/5/
February 12, 5pm, Greenwich Mean time Post Judgment Day
An hour later, I proposed the new solution to the team and they liked it. I brushed off my Game Design Hat and bought a UI/UX Design Hat, which was two sizes too big and I need to grow into and for the next two weeks, I worked on UI/UX Design Document……. It’s one thing having an idea, it’s another when you have to document the idea.
We wanted to have the functions grouped into categories, as a wall of functions is overwhelming and daunting. A two tiered system was created with Tool Menu, and Sub Tool Menu containing the grouped functions, it's a happy medium and any more layers made it complicated.
So eventually I came up with this.... Tada! Yep, I know, it does not look exciting. Currently it's the sketching/wireframing bit, so art stuff not yet.
So the Current layout, the whole UI is the Canvas
Layering the UI,
I had to break the UI down into layer order and make sure what would be at the base and what would be at the top. A simple thing really, but again, it had to be written down, these things have to be written down... Remember, written down, with diagrams.
The Tool Menu
The tool menu is menu you can open up anywhere on the canvas and hide, I wanted to have the Tool Menu to fold out like paper and open up like a flower. However, while working on the Tool Menu, what had become apparent, was that the text on the Tool Menu was boring.
I couldn't help it, I had to do something about it, so I created the icon designs. The justification for this was to make it easier for the player and just looked dull. I had to do a little research what would the icons be, some were easy, some were challenging, for me, as when I hear Vectors, I think of illustrator and Vector, not Programming or Math related definitions, so I had to ask a fellow programming friend to try and get it right.
Once the Icons were created, I replaced the text in square boxes and it made a marked improvement.
Sub Tool Menu
Sub Tool Menu is where the categories of functions are contained and opens up over the Tool Menu....I think I said that right.
I did think about doing an icon for each of the functions, however, it occurred to me, that there are way too many functions to do, so I kept it simple and kept it the same as how they would look like on the canvas.
Folding
This part was figuring out how the Menu's would open as I have mentioned before, I wanted the Tool Menu to open up like paper folding out, or a flower opening. ....... Are you still with me? I hope you are, as sometimes I ramble on and well might lose the point.
The last couple of weeks has been tough with so much writing, creating wireframes and thinking, But I am glad we had our Judgment day (Meltdown) with the UI, as we would have never come up with this, ..... And I know that I missed something, someone is going to tell me, I know. Over the next couple of weeks the new UI/UX gets implemented and we'll have some working screen shots and gameplay videos to show..... I hope. :)
I really need to go, my team needs me.
Mus
Dev Blog 5 - Art Rules
Hi again! Robin here, This weeks (slightly late but jam packed with content to make up for that) blogpost I thought would be a nice opportunity to introduce you to the major influences the art team are using for the upcoming updated visuals for Glitchspace.
Keeping consistency on any project is going to be a tough job, possibly even more so when the environments you're creating are quite abstract as there are so many little visual rules that need to be put in place so that each of us artists can keep in sync with the others.
So without further ado, may I present to you the Glitchspace Art Rules!
When starting to develop the updated aesthetic we very much wanted to keep to the bold abstract shapes that exist in it's alpha form but add a bit more of a twist to it. We started looking to artists who have already worked with geometry in interesting ways. Here are just a couple of examples of work we fell for and how we plan to incorporate them into our world.
Piet Mondrian
One of the main things we needed to do in Glitchspace was break up the geometry to help add variety and give a better sense of depth to players especially those using the rift. Mondrian, A Dutch painter from the early 1900's has been a huge influence for us when it came to achieving this. His works such as the one pictured below, have given us a set of guidelines we can all easily follow for our basic set of geometry. His mix of composition that is fractured but still maintains order has really spoken to us.
Piet Mondrian - "Tableu I" (1921)
James Turrell
Another major influence for us has been James Turrell, An american based artist who primarily explores the use of light within spaces to stunning results. Just take a look at the examples below and imagine wandering around in them! I especially love how soft he manages to make the harsh geometry feel, hopefully we'll be able to channel a bit of his talent into our own environments.
We are very much a collection of people who like to draw influence from the world around us so when it came to figuring out our overall composition of shape and form it seemed obvious to look at things that currently exist in real space so that we could filter them through our other influences to produce their Glitchspace equivalent
Skyscrapers and Icebergs!
The big key players! Our environments are split into three levels of detail each of which we've visualised using slightly difference sources
The primary and biggest objects for us are defined by Skyscrapers.
Skyscrapers have a lot of qualities that in Glitchspace we can really make use of. They can give the player a sense of scale, draw the eye vertically to help with areas we'd like to give more of a sense of vertigo and have strong silhouettes which can dominate landscapes and lend themselves well to our abstract aesthetic.
Our secondary shapes come from a slightly more organic place, icebergs!
While still able to dominate the scene, we chose icebergs as our go to source for our secondary shapes because of their fractured quality. The idea that in a world with massive objects that can move freely amongst themselves some collisions wouldn't occur just seemed silly. We've also taken inspiration from the shapes that can occur under the water out of view.
The smallest level of detail is also drawing influence from icy waters, and the ice flows that occur when the icebergs collapse and collide.
We like to imagine that these could be a nice way to visualise the smaller bits of data that occur in Glitchspace, assorted bits of discarded data clustering together to become collectively it's own entity.
I have plenty more I could talk about but I really should be getting back to work! I'll leave you with a little taste of how we're doing.
Over and out, Robin
Dev Blog 4 - (Yes, we have a more consistent naming scheme now...)
http://www.spacebudgie.com/new-recruit-reporting-in/
Space Budgie
Audio Blog 1 - Menu Design
http://www.spacebudgie.com/audio-blog-1-the-menu/
And as an addendum, Mus also wrote up his first blog post last week. Check it out too!
http://www.spacebudgie.com/the-art-of-working/
Space Budgie
Glitchspace Alpha 1.82 Hotfix Patch
Pushing out a quick update to fix some issues that arose with 1.81
- Fixed crash on start-up for Linux 64 bit machines
- Fixed programming window closing instantly on Linux
- Fixed issue with puzzle two being solved on load (sorry about that!)
As always, just download and it will be automagically added to your account. Any issues or feedback just let us know: kakaw[at]spacebudgie[dot]com
Space Budgie
www.spacebudgie.com
www.glitchspace.com
www.twitter.com/spacebudgie
www.facebook.com/spacebudgiegames
Glitchspace Alpha 1.8.1 Mac Update
We've just pushed the 1.8.1 Oculus DK2 update out for our Mac OSX users. If there's any problems do let us know : kakaw[at]spacebudgie[dot]com
Thanks!
Glitchspace Alpha 1.8.1 is a go!
Thanks for everyone’s patience whilst we sorted development out internally since our last update. It really means a lot to us :).
To get updates moving quickly again, we focused on two areas with version 1.8.1: one of which has been a big request. Here is the change log:
- Oculus Rift DK2 support
- Fixed the broken “Submit Bug/Feedback,” form link (now with a shiny new one too). Let us know your thoughts on the game!
This is a Windows and Linux update: we had a last minute problem with the DK2 working on Mac OSX so we are going to put that one out tomorrow.
For all those interested in following development (please do!) and the future direction of Glitchspace, check out our new site which went live last week: www.spacebudgie.com . This will be used for posting weekly development updates, allowing you to get a behind the scenes look at what we do. We also have a newsletter which you can subscribe to listed there as well. You can find more “real-time,” updates on our social media links; so do get following and liking:
https://twitter.com/SpaceBudgie
www.facebook.com/spacebudgiegames
Overall we’re going to be much more vocal about what we do going forward so if you’ve got any questions for us, feel free to either reach out on the community hub, through the social links above or via email: kakaw[at]spacebudgie[dot]com
And in the spirit of Valentines day’s arrival, a big <3 from all of us!
Space Budgie
A Statement from Space Budgie and on the future of Glitchspace
There’s a number of internal changes that we, at Space Budgie, wish to bring you all up to speed on. Sadly, Karl and Albert are no longer working at Space Budgie or on the Glitchspace project. The reasons for their departure are personal and as such we kindly ask that people respect our privacy with this matter. This decision was completely amicable for all of us and we wish both Albert and Karl the best in their future work.
Of course this leaves a number of uncertainties that needs addressed, chief among them what happens to Space Budgie and Glitchspace? We all wholeheartedly believe in both the ethos of what Space Budgie stands for and the potential of Glitchspace to be a serious force of change in our industry and as such, Space Budgie and Glitchspace will continue, with Robin, Mus and Ronan at the helm of the project.
With these changes comes others: unfortunately this means that Glitchspace’s full release next March will have to be delayed. Whilst this will be disappointing to our fans, readers and even ourselves as well, we hope you’ll understand that for Glitchspace to reach its full potential, there’s a significant number of challenges that we need to solve for it to do so and these fixes are going to take time. To do otherwise would be a disservice to all of the people who have bought our game in alpha or to even those interested in picking up Glitchspace in the future.
From its inception, the past year and a half for Space Budgie has been an incredible experience for us. From having nothing to launching two titles on Steam, being invited to present at GDC and getting to meet and speak with our fans all over, we’ll always be hugely grateful for the support that the games industry and our fans have given us. And whilst this is a position that we would never have wanted to be in, Space Budgie will continue to grow and become better from it.
After doing some internal re-evaluation on where we are and what needs done, 2015 is going to be an even bigger year for us and Glitchspace, and we hope you can all continue to support us on this journey as we head into Space Budgie’s next chapter.
We’ll be back very soon,
Space Budgie
http://spacebudgie.com/statement.jpg