Hey, Steam!
Today we wanted to talk about the challenges the team faced when designing and developing Coloratura. Because usually, when game devs set out to create a new game, the conversation often begins with graphics: art styles, camera angles, visual user interfaces... the whole nine yards.
But when we started developing Coloratura, our main focus was very different; what happens when sound isn't just an addition to add depth to the ambience, but the core language of the gameplay itself?
Our goal was to create a fully fledged 3D videogame where listening replaces looking. Not an audio guide or audio game, not an audio novel; a whole game where you could explore 3D environments getting guided only by sound. And to achieve that, our biggest challenge wasn't learning new tools or technical restrictions, It was "unlearning" years of design standards that had sight as their primary focus.
Throwing Out Visual Safety Nets
In traditional game design, every mechanic relies on visual feedback to verify player actions. When developers attempt sightless gameplay, they often rely on "safety zones"; basically restricting movement and camera angles to keep players from getting disoriented.
We decided to throw out those safety nets. We wanted our players to be able to explore freely in a 3D environment. You can walk around, rotate your camera, explore different scenarios such as Alex's apartment, the neighborhood, parks and cafes.
How did we achieve that? Well, it took several things, actually.
Sound landscape (or soundscape, as we call it): Every room in Alex's apartment and every area you can explore in Coloratura has a distinct background sound to help you get orientated. Footsteps have different sounds, too - stepping on different surfaces such as carpet, wood, tile or grass will alter your footsteps sounds, making it easier to now where you are.
Low friction colliders: Instead of jagged walls that catch player models and cause disorientation, we designed smooth collision boundaries accompanied by subtle haptic vibrations and soft audio cues.
Specific game mechanics to help with sound orientation: We'll talk about those in our next Dev Diary, stay tuned!
The "Crab Walk" Incident
One of our most memorable breakthroughs came during early playtests. We noticed that playtesters frequently struggled to discern whether a positional sound source was directly in front of or behind them. Afraid of walking straight into walls, players would rotate their camera 90 degrees to lock the sound into their left or right ear and walk sideways toward their goal. Just like crabs walk, basically.
Instead of telling out playtesters they were playing the game wrong, what we did was redesign certain aspects of our audio. We won't get too technical here, but we basically managed to apply some filtering that would make the human ear recognize the sound as something that's behind us, making orientation much easier.
And that's all for today! We'll be back in a few days with more content, and probably the next Dev Diary will be published next week. Stay tuned!
If you're curious about Coloratura, there’s a demo available to try on our Steam page! You can also add Coloratura to your wishlist so you don't miss on our next articles, news, etc.
Want to chat directly with us? We'd be happy to! Join our Discord server, we're all there.
Have a great week!
The team at Nakama Game Studio.