Happy Sounds Pinball

Made for Fuse Jam 4, Random access Memories. Everything created during the jam, including all visual and audio assets.

How to Play

In this pinball game, the aim is to keep everybody happy. Sounds good!

Space to begin, left control for the left flipper, right control for the right flipper.

Tools

Made with Unity and Wwise.

Music created in Reaper.

Credits

Game dev, sound, music and art by Samuel Hollywood-Summers

https://www.samuelhollywoodsummers.com/

Jam Reflections

What Went Well:

My aims for this jam revolved around two main learning opportunities: building comfort in the Unity game engine, and implementing adaptive audio with Wwise. I managed to achieve both of these goals.

I was able to construct a simple pinball game with flippers and bumpers that change state when hit. I prepared my own sprites (sad and happy faces) to represent these states visually. There is a simple score system, and I also set up game code to send event calls to Wwise.

In Wwise, I set up an adaptive music system that is influenced by the game state. Each pinball bumper has an instrument group associated with it (bass, acoustic instruments and synths) and the associated instrument group will only play when the bumper is in the 'happy' state.

Also in Wwise, I set up different music sections for four different score value ranges.

I was able to successfully create a game, integrate my Wwise events into the game, and to build the game. That's a hat-trick of success!

Even Better If

With all of the learning, problem solving and experimentation, I did not have enough time to implement the music transitions associated with the game score. Also, because of the focus being put on the adaptive music system, there were sfx that I did not have time to set up (starting the game, generic ball collision noises, a failure sting, and score milestone stings).

Again, due to where I chose to focus my efforts, the design of the pinball table leaves much to be desired in terms of maximising the fun to be had and tweaking the gameplay.

Summary

This jam was an awesome learning experience, and I have bettered my understanding of, and confidence in, using Wwise and Unity. This was my primary goal, and I am pleased to have achieved it. I may continue to work on the game after the jam deadline in order to add the remaining features I had planned. Either way, I will certainly take what I have learned and apply these lessons to future projects.