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Synesthesia
Synesthesia (a.k.a. synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae) is a term that literally means the combining of one or more of the five human senses. Nominally, in from the standpoint of neurology, this is actually an unusual condition found in less than 4% of the human population, which causes people to make unusual associations between items of thought or memory. Examples would be somebody whom thinks of Thursdays as having the texture of concrete, or remembering the smell of the basement of your old house as being the sound of pigs grunting.
When I first found out about synesthesia I wasn't at all surprised, I had related smells to colours, tastes to shapes, the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years of my life to giant clockwork mechanisms, etc… for as long as I can remember. What I was surprised to learn is that it was such an uncommon occurrence, and that there was actually a technical name for it!
However, after initially discovering this concept, I sort of set it into the back of my head. Sort of the same reaction I had when somebody explained Asperger's Syndrome (a type of mild autism, which causes many kinds of environmental sensitivities, which seems to be a common thread among the world's geek popular), which was "cool, file in the cerebral databanks and move on".
Actually, thinking about Asperger's and Synesthesia just now has got me wondering if anybody has ever attempted to discover a cross-correlation between the two? Sounds like a research paper worthy of Kaitlen from Douglas Coupland's "JPod"
. (Which, incidentally is the funniest book I've read in ages!)
Anyhow, sorry for my digression, back to Synesthesia, which has actually become a bit of a buzzword in the gaming industry these days, which brings me to the subject of this post, a couple of really cool games I just came across.
The first is a literal attempt to create a Synesthesia based game. It's called "Synaesthete" and basically combines the mechanics of Robotron with the rhythm basics of a "PaRappa the Rapper" or "Dance Dance Revolution
" (which in turn spawned the epically famous Guitar Hero games) with a very Tron
(looks like we're going to get a Tron movie sequel in 3D for 2011, I wonder if it will be as good as the Tron 2.0 FPS
that came out a while back?), or Darwinia
-like (A fun little RTS set inside a computer) aesthetic.
Basically, you run around glowing mazes, defeating enemies by taping out various musical beats and receiving Marshall McLuhan-esque philosophy each time you defeat a group of enemies. The beats that you tap out add to the visual experience, so that the music and visuals become a Synesthesia. A very interesting concept indeed and after playing through the first 3 levels, I can say that it's pretty good fun. (I understand that the old PS2 game "Rez
", which has recently been re-released as a download on the X-Box 360 is a similar experience. Although, differing in being a "rail-shooter", as opposed to directly moving your character, the concept is the same, shoot things to make beautiful sound and light shows.)
I think it is cool to note that Synaesthete was created by students at Digipen, which is possibly one of the coolest schools on the plant and just won the 2008 student award at the IGF.
The second is actually one of the most inventive and entertaining games I've come across in ages. It's called "Audiosurf", and no, it's not about being some poor Rockstar slave to the RIAA (that would be an "AudioSerf"), it's a game which translates songs of your choosing (in several popular audio formats, including ubiquitous MP3s) into multi-lane digital highways that again follow a bright-glowing colour motif. The beat of the music determines the bumps and shape of the highway, which you must ride along in an attempt to score points by either hitting or avoiding (depending on the game mode) various coloured blocks. In effect, the game world combines with your choice of music to create a Synesthesia upon which you race through (sometimes at breakneck speed, depending on your chosen song).
At the end of each race, Audiosurf connects with a high score server to show you how well other players did with the same song. I can't stress enough how brilliant this design decision was. Let me attempt to explain: You see, the rest of the game is basically a combination of other concepts melded together in a highly creative manner. The blocks on the highway are very similar in concept to the notes you hit in Guitar Hero, although, you're not actually strumming, you just have to move from side to side to hit them. The matching of blocks can be linked back to puzzle game time immemorial, with classics such as Tetris or Bejewelled. Even the overall look of the environment basically breaks down to one of those cool musical visualizations that have been a common component of software for playing digital music files for ages.
So, while the concept is highly original take on old ideas, the "drive" or want to play only crystallizes after you've finished your first "race" and you see the tally board of other players. All of a sudden, we are not only driven to compete for higher or more complex scores, but we're also drawn into thinking "Oh, I wonder if anyone has ever set a high score for this song or that song". Our minds become overloaded, as we think of song after song to try, we want to know if it's popular, we want to know who else has the same taste in music as us.
In short, it is brilliant marketing. The designer has driven us to buy his product, not just because of how cool it is, but because it allows us to utilize a commodity (music files) that just about everybody possess. And admit it, how many of us don't believe that there's something interesting or unique or special about our own taste in music?
Audiosurf delves into a region of collective unconscious that groups (beyond regular game developers) like the RIAA really need to study. Music is not about "the old ways", such as radio and CDs anymore, it's about new ways of interactive with music as a graphic and visual whole. The success of games like this is proving that every single day, I personally believe that more and more developers are going to run with these concepts and produce some absolutely spectacular results!
In my book, Audiosurf is a 10 out 10! (and it's only $10 and can be downloaded straight away, you can't get any better than that!)
P.S. My personal favorite songs for Audiosurf so far have been "Sabotage" (Spike Jonze, you rock!) by The Beastie Boys, "Woke Up This Morning" (The Sopranos)
Theme) by Alabama 3, "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and "Revolution" by Aimee Allen.
Posted by Dylon on March 7, 2008 3:48 PM |
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Comments
Very cool post, D! I'm going to have to check out Audiosurf soon!
April 2008