Category: Process

Creating Binaural Ambiences for Alula

Posted on | by Enrico Ercole

Creating Binaural Ambiences for Alula

Without a binaural microphone and for free!

Here at Miracle Tea we pride ourselves of a high level of dedication to creating meaningful experiences for our players and one of the elements that helps us convey this to them is immersion.

When I started working on Alula I was looking for ways to push the level of immersion we achieved in Ruya to a new level. I knew about binaural audio but only came across it in a VR context until I remembered this video I watched a few years ago.

This was most likely recorded with a binaural microphone, with the actors moving around it in real time and using the scissors and hair clipper close to the microphones. I remember I was mesmerised about how “real” it sounded so that’s when my quest to replicate that level of immersion started.

I looked at ambisonic microphones first of all but I had to change my plans when I found out how pricey they can get and on a second thought getting one wouldn’t have necessarily be all that useful as I would have been limited to recording real ambiences and sounds which wouldn’t have always matched the ethereal soundscapes I had in mind for Alula.

It’s when a friend introduced me to the SoudField plugin by Rode. I realised how a binaural recording could be easily decoded into stereo and keep it’s 360° feel intact.

With further research I came across the IEM plug-in suite which allowed me to actually simulate a binaural recording combining an indefinite amount of mono and stereo files of my choice and place them into the 360° space.

That was it! Exactly what I needed and for free!

Binaural and Ambisonic audio in a nutshell

Before diving into how I created my first binaural ambience for Alula let’s briefly define binaural audio and how it differs from ambisonic audio.

Ambisonic is a recording in playback format that presents itself as a full 360 degrees sound source, but while ambisonic audio has the capability to track the head movement of the listener (as when you’re playing a game on a VR headset) binaural audio is “head-locked”, therefore a sound coming from your left, for example, will keep coming from your left even if you turn your body 180°.

Ambisonics is the combination of binaural audio with the real-time decoding of your head rotation.

Step-by-step Process

To create my very own binaural ambience I used my DAW of choice Reaper and the IEM plug-in suite or binaural audio.

  • Add the Stereo Encoder plugin to a track.
  • Change the track channels input number to 36 for 5th order ambisonic.
  • Add a mono or stereo audio file to the track.
  • Create a parent track (36 channels) and add the FDNReverb and Energy Visualiser plugins.
  • Keep the reverb deactivated for now.
  • Add the Binaural Decoder plugin to the master track (36 channels).
  • Adjust the width, azimuth and elevation on the stereo encoder plugin of the child track
  • Repeat for as many child tracks you want to add 
  • Render the master mix as a stereo track keeping the binaural decoder active on the master track.

If you rather follow a video tutorial on how to use the IEM plugins check it out below…

And there you have it!

My first go at binaural audio resulted in this kind of creepy recording of my voice and footsteps walking around you and going on a ladder to speak above your head.

I then tried this on an ambience for the intro cinematic of Alula.

I’m looking forward to implement this technique on more elements of the game’s soundscape so if you have any suggestions for sounds you’d like to hear or you know of some ways to improve the 360° effect please hit me up on Twitter. or follow me on Soundcloud to keep updated on my work. I’ll be more than happy to take on your suggestions or criticism 🙂

Much Love,

Enrico

Our Tranzfuser Experience

Posted on | by Brad Smith

Our Tranzfuser Experience

What is Tranzfuser?

Tranzfuser is a graduate game pitching competition for a grant of £25k supported by the UK government. You pitch a prototype and teams that get selected will be awarded £5k to develop and work up their prototypes over the summer period. At the end of the summer, Tranzfuser hook you up with a free both space at the biggest trade show here in the UK called EGX. Teams demo their prototypes and go on to pitch their games for an additional 20k.

If you’re thinking of entering, you can read lots of wisdom from our friend Caoimhe here.

We competed in Tranzfuser in 2016. Back then we were younger and fresh faced. We can say with certainty that competing in the Tranzfuser programme has been the best thing for our careers to date. It not only raised the profile of our company it has made us very employable as individuals. The programme has changed a lot over the years since we competed but in the best possible way!

What was our project?

We made a game called Ruya for Tranzfuser. Ruya is a meditative puzzle game about dreams and motherhood. You can pick it up on Steam if you’re curious. Ruya launched in 2017, about a year and a half later to when we were competing in Tranzfuser.

Where did it come from and how has it evolved over the past number of years?

Tom built the core mechanics as a university project. I later got involved and started helping him with the design and the visual style. The art that I brought in come from another game I made for a game jam called Indie Speed Run. We kind of merged that art style and Toms mechanics and then it grew from there. We set out to re-imagine match style games, to try and make them ‘cool’ I guess, they get a bad rap from a lot of people in the indie scene I find. Our thinking with Ruya was to marry the mechanics of a game like Bejewelled with the emotional depth of a game like Monument Valley.

Ruya - Tranzfuser Booth, EGX 2016

How did we find out about Tranzfuser? 

Tom heard out about Tranzfuser through the news and mentioned that we should apply. We were trying to pursue our own thing and make own video games full time for a living, but didn’t necessarily know the whole logistics of doing that. I think we were both good at making games but had little to no idea about setting up a business, so it seemed like a no brainer. We applied, got through and started working out of the Eastern Enterprise hub – a lot of the work for Ruya was done there, especially working out our pitch and deconstructing its design. Back then it felt like doing a fourth year of University and getting paid for it which was really cool!

Why Tranzfuser?

As a team we simply wanted to form a game company to create the kind of games we think have value. There was also an element of wanted to compete in a more serious and professional capacity. To see what we could do and where we sit relative to the rest of the industry. We had entered a lot of game jams in the past but Tranzfuser was a big step up with tangible rewards and greater stakes at play.

How did you apply your university learning to Tranzfuser and beyond?

My dissertation was in game jams which taught me to work quick and iterate and fail a lot. We were taught at university that are first 10 games would like suck and that you should just get them out of the way. Most of how Miracle Tea approach making games specifically the emotional and mechanical side comes from our teachings from University. Our lecturers really encouraged that. There was also a part of me that wanted to prove to lecturers that what they taught us at University had value and that we really listened to them and that their teachings had a real impact on their students. I think Tom really learnt how to get good at coding and craft mechanics. And I got really into the more emotional side of game design. And I think when we come together it makes for an interesting team dynamic. There’s a kind of push and pull that happens when me and Tom work. We pitched a lot of games at University. Every couple of weeks we would have to pitch our game to a panel of lecturers – so when it come to Tranzfuser it felt very familiar.

What did Tranzfuser do for you?

Tranzfuser opened a handful of opportunities in the industry that otherwise would have taken us years to understand and achieve. How Miracle Tea pitch our games today is built upon how we pitched to Tranzfuser back in 2016. Only with more confidence! Tranzfuser gave me personally a shortcut to a certain level of confidence and growth that I never knew I had. As a result of that growth, we’ve been asked to mentor students at our local university, be a judge for game jams in our community and asked to speak at conferences overseas.

High Points?

The psychological impact of getting into Tranzfuser was a big deal for us. We saw a lot of our peers getting big studio jobs or succeed in various game jams and competitions. It gave us a certain level of confidence and esteem that I think we all needed. Observing people play. People taking photos with plushie. We knew that even if we didn’t get the funding for Tranzfuser that we’d be able to get work in the industry, people were coming up to us saying if this doesn’t work out email us and we’ll hook you up with a job. All of that was really re-assuring and motivating.

Low Points

Watching people being confused by your game is always difficult, it still happens too. We were bug fixing stuff throughout the EGX competition, Tom would setup his laptop around the corner from the booth and would be iterating big usability issues on the fly. A lot of sleepless nights and anxious days! Game development is really hard, such long hours and staring at a computer can sometimes be really soul draining. I think back then the way we worked wasn’t necessarily the healthiest. We’re a lot more balanced these days.

If you could turn the clock back, would you do anything differently?

Pre-EGX I would’ve spent less time crafting the later stages of the game and more time focused on refining the first 10 minutes of gameplay. Because that would’ve resulted in a stronger slice for the EGX demo, and allowed us more time for testing to iron out usability and readability issues beforehand. With the pitch, I would’ve worked on projecting more to the entire room to assert a level of confidence. Also, avoiding apologetic language when discussing the game or ourselves might have been useful. With networking to be more assertive when seeking out the people that could help us achieve some of the things we needed at the time. I think when your starting out that is normal though and it gets easier with time.

What were the challenges of team working?

Sometimes the worry can be paralysing but at the same time the amount we worried probably sometimes helped because we’d be over prepared as a result. We all got really close after Tranzfuser, our team getting funding kind of built more mutual respect and re-assured everyone that we’re on the right path. When we started out communication was difficult, we’ve slowly figured out how to articulate things with more clarity. Talking about finances was something we shyed from in the early days but we quickly got over that once things started getting more serious with the business. A lot of that also seems to come from just slowly becoming comfortable with another person and being real and honest and clear about what your goals are.

What Motivated Us?

The idea that we had people aware of what we were doing and had eyeballs on us is a real motivator. You know, being awarded funding and having people say congratulations is a motivator, there’s a moral responsibility associated to that to set out what you indented to do.

Being in sticky financial situations can give you a certain amount of drive to get something done and I think when we were starting out that was true for all of us at a point in time. I think we’ve all realised what we have going in our team is quite rare. Just the idea that we still get on post-release of game is apparently not always the case within the industry – people often end up hating each other from what I’ve observed.

Why should the up-and-coming game dev talent of tomorrow apply to Tranzfuser 2020?

We took part in Tranzfuser to make running a video game company a reality. It’s the best way to show the games industry that you’re serious about what you do. Tranzfuser was for sure the best thing we could have done for our careers coming out of education. If you don’t try it you’ll never know what you’re capable of.

Why is Tranzfuser important?

It allows the opportunity for great games to exist which is a really important thing, especially right now with what’s going on in the world. You know, games are a safe haven for a lot of people to escape or unwind from their life, and that’s important. Tranzfuser increases the chances of those games being put out into the world. I think we’re really lucky to have something like this in the UK. I’ve met developers from other parts of the world that don’t necessarily have that support and as a result the game scene is really sparse and it’s difficult to survive. It’s an initiative that works too. We’ve been able to stay in business and hire people for almost 4 years and Tranzfuser was the catalyst for all of that.

After Tranzfuser?

We got really motivated after Tranzfuser and then Ruya launched about a year and a half later. We pitched a hack and slash game called Oath to UK Games Fund shortly after Ruya released – that would’ve been in 2018, I think. Oath got rejected but we learnt a lot as a result. Then we started doing client work to sustain the company and working on prototypes on the side. We trickled out Ruya on other platforms slowly maintaining the game overtime and secured a licencing deal after shortly after Ruya launched on Armor Games. This was a big deal for us.

How have we sustained our business?

We’ve had good client work post-Tranzfuser. We worked with lady called Helen who we helped build a platform that teaches people about financial education. We made her a series of small games for her. The licencing deal was a real help. We have the mentality of playing the long game and trying to sustain ourselves over a long period of time. A lot of developers seem to bank on having a hit game and I think that’s kind of the wrong attitude to adopt. I think it’s better to plan worst case scenario which means expecting your game to make no money. If you always plan for that, you increase the chances of staying in business. I think it’s really important to live within your means too.

What are we doing now?

Miracle Tea have been running for over 3 years now since competing in Tranzfuser. We are a remote studio and our list of working contractors is growing. Ruya launched, it won a handful of awards that have given us studio recognition. We are now working on our new game Alula that was recently awarded the UK Games Fund round 5 grant. We aim to launch next year.

If you have any questions for our team about Tranzfuser, feel free to join our lovely Discord community, don’t be shy!

A Sketching Process

Posted on | by Brad Smith

A Sketching Process

When I sketch, I try to sketch a lot. I start with a line, a circle, something rude or whatever. I try not to think about it too much. I push away any doubt or care or worry or opinions. I don’t want my sketches to look good. I want my sketches to say something. To make someone see something they’ve never seen before. Above all else, I want to make someone feel a strong emotion. The emotional response is in the end all that matters.

When I sketch, I’m searching for something. It’s manic and desperate and immediate and ugly and raw. I strive for flow. Only in flow I’m likely to grasp the thing I’m looking for. The more I sketch, the more I throw away, the sooner I get rid of the white page, the more likely I am to find it. I don’t know what I’m looking for but I’ll know it when I see it.

I put an emphasis on turning up. To just sit down and do the work. Not to wait on anything or anyone or kid yourself with excuses or cop out with other duties. No matter how important they may seem. I let it spew out of me. I don’t let my emotions get in the way of turning up. I try to be honest with my emotions. My emotions are often my fuel.

My old man sketches. We bond over it. He sketches as a way to document his life and stories. We laugh and joke and be rude to one another and come up with juvenile ideas. There’s a kind of child like fun to juvenile art. People roll their eyes at it. I think there’s a lot of value in it. It adds balance and counteracts all the seriousness of life. Humour is a way into the subconscious and it feels healing.

When a child sketches, it’s done without ego or pretence or judgement. To be able to sketch like a child must be a wonderful thing. Care free and void of approval. I try to put myself in that state of mind. To see sketching as play rather than work. I’m learning to see everything as play. It takes time. Everything worth pursing takes time.

Miracle Tea’s Game Design Philosophy

Posted on | by Brad Smith

Miracle Tea’s Game Design Philosophy

I’m going to talk about some of the things that we consider important when developing games. If you want to know more about our process and what’s important to us, this is the place! Our design philosophy has matured a lot with time and no doubt will continue to. Often, learning something new forces the introduction or emphasis of a new idea. Hopefully this offers you some useful insight into the thinking behind a Miracle Tea game.

Pursue deep work

We want our games to say something. To mean something to someone and feel meaningful. To be real and honest and authentic and personal. To reflect the human experience. To question how someone thinks. To be memorable. Even if it’s just one person that takes any of this away from our games, that’s all that really matters us.

Design around emotions

When designing, we prioritise the emotional response above all else. It’s arguably the most important thing. All the matters is how our players feel, once we know what emotions we want to create, we start studying and prototyping ways of achieving that. The very best game designers are those that know how to juggle all different types of emotional responses. Knowing which ones complement each other and which ones leave a bitter taste to send players on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Design by subtraction

We’re try to get to the essence of our idea throughout development. Often, that means adding components just to take them away. Anything that doesn’t compliment or support the core is usually not needed. Embracing the removal of content that doesn’t reflect the essence can sometimes be tough and discouraging. We’ve found though, that embracing this gets us closer to that thing we’re trying to communicate with much more elegance and grace. We’ll go into more detail about core pillars in design in a more fleshed out post in the future, so look out for that!

Treat players with respect

We imagine our players to be forward thinking open minded and intelligent individuals with their own thoughts. We try to not pander or come off condescending. We try not to hand hold and to let players discover things for themselves. We try to make them feel special and let them know that we made this game just for them.

Design for accessibility

We work to find creative ways to allow for our games to be played by as many different people and play styles as possible. If this means including dyslexic fonts, colour blind settings and controller remapping, we’ll strive to do it!

Embrace limitations

We’re a very small team, it’s important to remind ourselves of this fact. A part of that territory means we have to be wary of our capabilities in what it is we make. Embracing our limitations often results in creative solutions to solving problems. Though, we’re not shy about pushing something as far as we possibly can – especially in terms of design!

Be open to feedback

It’s useful to listen to people’s suggestions. Though, sometimes this can throw a curve ball of confusion into the vision of what you’re trying to say which can be paralysing. It’s most useful when it comes usability. We take on board feedback, digest, interpret and meditate on it before we ever act. Acting too quickly isn’t always productive for us. If you listened and acted on everyone’s feedback, you’d never get anything done and you’ll never have work that is interesting or that pushes evolves the video game medium forward.

Show don’t tell

We try to communicate ideas with visuals rather than overtly making things obvious or defining the gist to them. Meaning we don’t report on a character feeling shy or cute, we show this through their actions! This is the key to rousing players emotions allowing them to step into someone’s shoes and experience their feelings.

“If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.” -Alfred Hitchcock

Scaffold Teaching

In our games, we don’t like to bombard our players with many ideas or visual elements at once. Doing so can feel overwhelming and cause confusion. Confusion leads to frustration. Frustrations leads to immersion being broken. Immersion being broken leads to people walking away. We break our gameplay/visuals down into chunks and gradually introduce more components overtime. This is especially true when it comes to tutorialising.

Time is precious

Time is all we have. It’s a real treat to have people devoting their time into something you’ve made. When you consider the ethical ramifications of making games, you quickly realise how much of an impact you could potentially have. Your creation could be played by thousands if not millions of people in its lifetime. That time is precious. If the position of a button takes a fraction of a second longer to load or it’s hard to find, that will ultimately add up to hours of wasted time for humanity that could’ve been spent elsewhere.

Personal health over work

We want to make video games well into the later stages of our life. This means that we need to learn to sustain ourselves over a long period of time. We’re in this for the long haul. Whenever work is too much, we take the time we need to recover. This is very important. We’ve pushed ourselves to the point of knowing where our limits our and whenever we teeter on that, we reign it in. Our projects take as long as they need. As a result, we’re happier and healthier and still making games.

Stay grounded and let go of your ego

Having an inflated ego is a killer a deal breaker and often a real turn off. The moment I start thinking I know it all or have the answers I try to tap into the part of me that is observing myself to consider why I’m saying what I’m saying. Freud called it the superego. Usually it’s tied to wanting to one up someone in some hypothetical game or competition I’ve made up in my head. Ultimately, it’s seeking for approval or gratification. Acting on that makes me realise it’s just an extension of my insecurities and believing it stunts my growth. It feels redundant and unproductive and surface level. Being grounded through self-awareness is a trait I really admire in people.

Go outside, observe people and nature

Spending all day indoors hunched over a PC staring at a screen that’s spewing radiation into your face can sometimes feel very soul draining and inhuman. No matter how much we love making and playing video games, we try to stay balanced by hanging out in nature, touching soil and exploring the world. Having down time and switch off is an important part of the creative process as it tends to supplement deep work.

Having a design philosophy, especially if you’re pursuing creative work, is vital. It lays the foundations of intent in your work and opens the doors of potential in the pursuit of goals with greater purpose. It’s something that all game developers who are starting out should work to define. You’d be surprised at how many developers never seem to consider this kind of stuff or just shrug off its value. At first, it perhaps doesn’t really matter what your design philosophy is, so long as you have one. All that matters is that you’re thinking about why you’re doing what you’re doing and what’s important to you as a person.