Remembering is an abstract VR experience about being born.
Remembering tells a story through sound, music and shapes. It is a slow-paced, poetic journey about the beauty of conception and the trauma of being born. During this almost lucid dream-like experience, you have limited control, and your gaze controls what you hear.
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Most virtual reality is about looking. Remembering is about listening. By building a world based on sound instead of visuals, we have created a place that relies on association rather than observation.
Part experiment, part art project, with Remembering we are researching the physical connotations and impact of sound in VR, an area in games that hasn’t been much explored yet.
In an effort to bring people in a more open receptive physical state, the game can be played lying down. This open, more vulnerable body posture helps the experience become even more dreamlike. The connection between embodiment and sound in VR has been our main focus. Embodiment, or the sense of physically being somewhere, can be heavily influenced by sound. By connecting associative sounds to various forms of physical impact, we explore how sound can play a bigger role in the sense of being ‘here’.
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Remembering is a creation of Monobanda Play, SonicPicnic, Lizzywanders and Rik de Rooij.
It has received funding from Creative Industries Fund NL/ Game Fund for its development.
Motivatie
Best VR Game For us, Virtual Reality is a Full Body Medium. Its greatest strength, is not visual, but the very real illusion that your whole body is present in this world. VR is the first time in history the viewer is inside the visual medium. There are no more edges of the theatre stage, frame of the painting or 16:9 ratio edge of the plasma screen. No longer are we outsiders merely looking in. We now actually feel our whole body is in this world. This is a very important development. This powerful sense of physically being there is really important for us.
But most VR is still about looking. We try to avoid that. Remembering is about listening and feeling. Through abstraction of the visuals we place a greater emphasis on listening, and the physical placement of your body in this world. In an effort to bring people in a more open receptive physical state, the game is designed to be played lying down. This open, more vulnerable body posture helps the experience become even more dreamlike. The connection between embodiment and sound in VR has been our main focus. Embodiment, or the sense of physically being somewhere, can be heavily influenced by sound. By connecting associative sounds to various forms of physical impact, we explore how sound can play a bigger role in the sense of being ‘here’.Motivatie 2e categorie
Best Co-Production Remembering is a joint venture between Monobanda Play, Lizzywanders, Rik de Rooij and sound studio SonicPicnic. Urging to create an interactive experience in which sound takes center stage, we started out on an expedition where all parties involved set aside their traditional roles and way of working. Gradually, the roles of sound designer and game designer became less distinct. This unorthodox way of collaboration brought about many valuable insights and has played an important role in making Remembering so special.
Motivatie 3e categorie
Best Art Direction With Remembering we created an abstract environment that is open to interpretation and that relies on association rather than observation. This abstraction is not only a stylistic choice, but rather an important part of a bigger process where we shift the attention of the viewer away from looking and towards feeling. The level of abstraction in the visual design is a conscious balance. On the one hand the visuals have to be vaguely familiar and comforting. We designed a lot of soft and organic shapes, since abstract environments can be clinical and we wanted players to feel an emotional connection. On the other hand, the visuals need to be abstract enough to be open to interpretation. It is this poetic openness that triggers our fantasy to fill in the meaning and make it our own and make it personal. We were constantly balancing a thin line between showing too much and showing too little. Keeping that balance in mind while designing, we ensured that players are able to interpret the world in their own way, and that the visuals evoke imagination and curiosity. We wanted to invite the player in and keep them invested.
Motivatie 4e categorie
Best Music & Audio In Remembering, sound is one of the major aspects to convey the experience. We've tried to capture difficult concepts like consciousness and awareness in sound, building the shift of primordial senses towards more refined perception. We've combined different techniques to lure the player into the experience, like interplay between concrete and musical sounds and subtle shifts between causal and reduced listening.
Puzzlingly, not a lot of VR games/experiences explore the impact of sound yet. There is background music, there’s ambience, and there are location based sound effects. Business as usual for any game. What is different in Rememberings approach is that we remove most visuals. There is less to look at, and because of that sound takes center stage. By extension, the location of sound becomes more pronounced, which in turn, makes it a more powerful tool for designers to work with. For a detailed explanation, we would urge the jury to read our development blogs, where we describe what ideas and what research underlies the soundtrack, and where you can listen to and read about our approach concerning the audio. Research and techniques aside, our main focus in creating the sound was to create an emotional journey that would be fascinating and open to many interpretations, a soundtrack that could be both beautiful and harsh. Soundtrack URL: https://sonicpicnic.bandcamp.com/album/remembering