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At a Glance: Robin Arnott & SoundSelf

Robin Arnott is an audio designer and interactive artist best know for "that creepy gas mask game", Deep Sea and "that chanting game," SoundSelf. He loves play. He loves learning. He loves the future, and how you and he will help create it. He wants you to prove that everything he thinks is wrong. He thinks that the way it's always been done is stupid. He thinks the way it's always been done is beautiful.

http://www.wraughk.com/inde...

SoundSelf is the collision of centuries old meditation technology with the videogame trance. Inspired by a group-ohm on LSD and the ambitious follow-up to Robin Arnott's horror-experience "Deep Sea" it expands on many of the innovative techniques that were initially developed to scare the shit out of players, with the revised goal of inducing a blissful meditation-state instead of a suffocating terror-state.

http://soundselfgame.com/

Play on: Windows & Mac OS X (10.6+), coming to Linux

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Mini Q&A

Why do you make games?
From a lifestyle perspective, I definitely prefer playing a support role in the creative process. Sound design is fun to me - I love the creative challenge of understanding someone else's vision and helping them use the magical and subversive world of sound to make it more of whatever makes that vision special. So stepping away from that for two years is a sacrifice. Every month or so I hear of a cool indie project that I would be thrilled to do the sound design for, but I know that I can't divert any creative attention away from SoundSelf until it's finished. I love making SoundSelf. I love programming, and designing, but being the project lead on a multi-year endeavor is a lot of stress and a lot of ego pressure. I don't like that part. So I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that SoundSelf is beautiful and elegant and utterly unique, and if I didn't know that it won't exist unless I make it.

Why should people play SoundSelf?
What epileptics and prophets share is exposure to a magnificent human experience: my favorite word for it is the "religious experience." Stripping that experience of all the storytelling and explaining around it, what you're left with is a sensation of self that is infinitely expansive and inclusive. It's not a thought or a belief, it's a sensation like pain or orgasm are sensations. You can prompt a religious experience by means of, for example, a sustained meditation practice over years, or measured use of psychedelics. SoundSelf is a software mechanism for prompting such religious experiences. If that's interesting to people, I think it's worth a try.

What element of game design do you hold above all others?
I think most game designers are focused on what happens to the player consciously: what they're thinking, the decisions they make based on the data that's available. It's a language based in symbols - encoding an idea to be decoded by the player. I'm interested in the non-symbolic: if you can bypass the player's interpretation process, even their thinking process altogether, you can play their brain like a piano. That's what I'm interested in! That's what people are talking about when they say "immersion," but I've come to prefer the word "hypnosis" because I think it's more true both to the power of the medium, and to the ethical responsibility we have to the player.

Today’s Stories:
At a Glance: Robin Arnott & SoundSelf (YOU ARE HERE): http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Interview with Robin Arnott, Part One: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Interview with Robin Arnott, Part Two: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Words for SoundSelf: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Win a Copy of SoundSelf - and Enter to Win a PS4!: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

Day 28 | Robin Arnott

haskell4204333d ago

AWESOME! Gotta love it. SCARE THE S#IT out of us? IM IN!!! Creating a "peaceful and serene game! IM IN! Many years ago I tried LSD, and it fk'd me up good lol...now if I can get that similar effext, w/o the drugs in my system? Oh s#it! DEEP SEA was mind blowing.
A friend of mine had it and would gush about it all the time. When i tried it, I was "blah", but after 4-5 hrs, we swapped the controller back n forth every 15 mins. But his game here, being 100% honest, i have no clue, but ive been reading up on it, and i gotta say, it's intriguing. Since u only have 9 copies, and the PS4 is scorching hot...Now I know my odds are very slim, but hey, gotta have faith and hope!!
Keep up the excellent work everyone! I "look forward" too seeing my Inbox w/ some great news!! lol

Haskell420

Disagree4332d ago

"Many years ago I tried LSD..."

I think you mean yesterday.

Derekvinyard134333d ago

This game is probably a trip on oculus

MrxDeath4333d ago

freaking great !!
loving the idea :3
this is great

LukeFair4333d ago

I love experience like this. Now I'm playing Papa Sangre 2, an audio only horror game, and is amazing! Like an audio only VR

oasdada4333d ago

Sounds interesting.. hvnt experianced something like this i guess.. wud love to give it a try

Show all comments (37)
70°

Microsoft Gaming Revenue Drops 7% Year-on-Year, Content and Services Down 5%, Xbox Hardware Down 33%

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.

Read Full Story >>
simulationdaily.com
Jin_Sakai39d ago (Edited 39d ago )

Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.

dveio39d ago

To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

Jingsing38d ago

The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.

Tanktopmaster9238d ago

Once they re-evaluate exclusive all will be fine….

S2Killinit38d ago

Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.

Jingsing38d ago

15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.

Tanktopmaster9238d ago

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Show all comments (13)
40°

Games Done Quick is coming to Europe for the first time with 3 days of Gamescom speedruns

The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.

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50°

Report: Injustice 3 in Development at NetherRealm Studios

Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.