#1551: Breaking Down the Game Design of New Conducting-Inspired, Hand-Tracked, Rhythm Game “Symphoni”
Mar 29, 2025
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Ingram Mao, the game director for Symphoni and co-founder of Tech Toys Studio, brings a unique perspective from his background in interior design and architecture to the world of VR gaming. He shares insights about the innovative mechanics that blend conducting a symphony with hand-tracked rhythm gaming. The discussion highlights the challenges and creative processes involved in developing immersive gameplay, the inspiration drawn from orchestral music, and the evolution of the game from mixed reality to fully immersive VR, promising an engaging player experience.
Symphoni innovatively combines hand-tracking mechanics and rhythm gameplay to create a unique experience of conducting an orchestra.
The iterative design process involved extensive playtesting, ensuring player feedback shaped gameplay mechanics and enhanced user engagement.
Aesthetically, Symphoni integrates visual and audio elements to amplify emotional themes, offering players a synesthetic experience through classical music.
Deep dives
The Concept of Symphony: Immersive Gameplay Inspired by Conducting
Symphony is an innovative rhythm game designed to immerse players in the experience of conducting an orchestra while engaging in hand-tracking mechanics. The game seamlessly blends mixed and virtual reality, allowing players to begin their journey in a mixed reality space and transition into immersive VR as they perform well. This layered approach not only enhances player engagement but also serves as a reward mechanism, providing a sense of achievement as they master the game's rhythm-based interactions. The design emphasizes the importance of player movement and interaction within a spherical space, where gestures and hand positions play a vital role in creating a unique and interactive gameplay experience.
Iterative Design Process: Learning from Prototyping
The development of Symphony involved an extensive iterative design process where numerous prototypes were tested to refine gameplay mechanics. The team experimented with various hand-tracking techniques and interaction models, ultimately focusing on what felt most engaging for players. A key aspect of this process was integrating feedback from playtests, which revealed how players interacted with rhythm and spatial cues. This frequent testing and adjustment enabled the team to create a more intuitive interface while overcoming challenges related to depth perception and player agency.
Achieving Balance: Difficulty Levels and Progression
Symphony features three distinct difficulty levels, catering to a wide range of players from casual gamers to experienced rhythm game enthusiasts. The progression system encourages players to gradually advance, unlocking new songs and experiences by demonstrating their skills. Each difficulty tier is thoughtfully designed to provide unique challenges, ensuring that players are continually engaged and motivated to improve their performance. Incorporating a scoring system adds an additional layer of competition, allowing players to track their progress and compare scores, thereby deepening their investment in the game.
Visual and Audio Integration: Enhancing Player Immersion
The aesthetic design of Symphony plays a pivotal role in the overall player experience, as it integrates visual and audio elements to enhance immersion. Each musical piece is paired with a curated set of visual themes that amplify the emotional undercurrents of the music, creating a truly synesthetic experience. This thoughtful selection extends to the game's soundtrack, focusing predominantly on classical music that resonates with a broader audience while also providing gameplay variety. The careful combination of visuals and sound not only captivates players but also reinforces the thematic narrative behind each level.
Future of Spatial Computing: Exploring New Realities in Gaming
The potential of spatial computing and immersive experiences is vast, with Symphony serving as a testament to the evolving landscape of interactive storytelling. As technology advances, developers are increasingly able to craft experiences that blend the boundaries of reality and virtual environments, allowing for new expressions of creativity. The hope is that as more people adopt these technologies, the ways we experience music, games, and storytelling will transform, offering unprecedented forms of interaction. The dedication to refining these gaming experiences exemplifies a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in game design, paving the way for future innovations.
SYMPHONI is a brand new hand-tracked rhythm game that was inspired by the mechanics of conducting a symphony. It was directed by Ingram Mao and developed by a number of undergrads and graduates of the USC Games program. This game also goes from mixed reality into fully immersive VR as you progress through each of the stages, but it's a really fresh take within the rhythm game genre as I found myself playing for over an hour on my first playthroughs. Mao comes from an interior design and architecture background, but also thinks very deeply about the game mechanics and innumerable tradeoffs to be navigated through the game design process, and so it was a real pleasure to have a chance to dig into the weeds of the process of developing this experience.
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Music: Fatality
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