Think of the last video game you played? Be that a war-set shooter or fast-paced driving game – whilst the revs of a mechanic engine or the gunshots of a machine gun help immerse your playing experience, it would seem visuals are the most important and essential element of a gaming experience.
Well, Pitch Black is now challenging this preconceived notion of a videogame. A narrative driven, 3D binaural audio game (entirely accessible to the blind and VI community), featuring explorable, immersive sound worlds, a complex dramatic story and multiple innovative audio mechanics, based on psycho-acoustic principles. It’s an incredibly ambitious project, that has a scope larger than anything of its kind. It’s set to release in October 2020, for PC/MacOS/Linux, and for iOS/Android.
For those wondering what binaural audio is, binaural audio is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the purpose of creating a 3-D stereo sound environment for the listener. Simplified, think of it as ‘surround sound’ but for your headphones, making you feel even more immersed in the environment you’re listening to.
We had the chance to talk to Harry Cooper, the Development Director of Pitch Black who took time out from his busy schedule to discuss the game with Berkshire Vision. He talked about the origin of the game, how he hopes it will be received, and the challenges of making a video game entirely dependent on audio and how this will affect the gaming experience.
“The idea originated around this time last year” Harry reveals. “I got into special music and the idea of how you might explore a song, which would differ to just listening to a song. So, then I wondered how you might move through a series of sounds in a 3D virtual space. And then I began to wonder: using audio, how you could use that to psychologically direct a player to a certain location? So, I started coming up with these audio puzzles and I spoke to Colin and Jordan (the two other developers of the game) and they both got on board and we began developing the environment where this puzzle game could be created and then it sort of snowballed really. We kept having meetings at our local Weatherspoon’s where we would talk loads and develop the narrative and look at the other audio games. So, it all began with just an interest in spatial audio and then it gathered steam and well, here we are”.
I asked more about how this game would impact the blind and partially sighted communities and Harry was eager to discuss how much work they’ve been doing with these groups, contacting various communities to get them to play this game. “We’ve had people from the community play test the very early builds and give their feedback. For example, lots of people use a mouse when they’re playing computer games, but we wanted to incorporate control schemes that those with visual impairments are used to and familiar with, this being the arrow keys, space key and making the gameplay quite intuitive for them to play”.
As for the story of the game, this is set to be a truly exciting adventure. “In one of the last remaining cities, you take the role of an infiltrator and uncover the truth of a dark and eccentric world ruled by a tyrannical light-worshipping cult” we are told. The player will traverse their way through haunting cities, murky sewers and desolated deserts as they attempt to discover this ominous truth.
Harry discussed more about the making of the game and how removing the visual element both challenged and inspired his team to create something new and exciting. “The three of us are from a musical background and if you take it from an artsy approach, you can say a song is kind of a story – though I wouldn’t put it quite like that! You can develop a certain emotional landscape through audio alone and we’re very familiar with that idea as a group. So, conveying tone through the choice of sounds was important to us. While visual cues such as flashing red may mean your character is hurt in a standard video-game, we don’t have that. So, in our game, if you wanted an oppressive sound for instance, you would need this hammering type of sound, that’s inherently aggressive and it conjures up all these images of industrialization and that sort of thing. And if you have a jet stream floating by with birds singing, that creates the emergence of peace, so its how you can set a tone using a broad spectrum of noises and tell a story”.
Harry also stresses the importance of voice acting on the project and the lengths they have gone to for immersion, stating “if you’re trying to convey character and all you have is audio, then all you have is voice. There are a few other things like how heavy the characters shoes are and what sort of clothes they’re wearing and what kind of sounds they would make that we’ve factored in to the gameplay too, but also making sure we have really talented voice actors”.
But whilst this video game is certainly open for anyone to play, Harry reveals that his team aren’t stopping here. “So, it’s been revealed by lots and lots of different studies and audio games, that these virtual environments can help VI individuals, particularly children, navigate a real-life environment. It gives them the chance to practice their sort of cognitive mapping skills. It can help people in real world situations become more independent in their navigation. So, one of the things, a little bit further down the line, we would like to do when the game’s finished, is give away free copies to blind and visual impaired students in schools.
So, if a school has blind students, they can have a free copy of the game. And further along the line again, if the game is successful, we’d like to move into more educational types of games to help VI individuals. So if there are schools available who want to get in touch with us about potentially developing virtual environments to aid real world navigation, we have the technology to do that and we want to do that for free to support the community” .
Thank you to Harry Cooper for speaking with us. Pitch Black is due for release in October 2020.
