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How to make your own Deep Sea game
Robin Arnott's Deep Sea is a harrowing, totally unique game that, until now, could only be experienced at an event attended by Arnott, because the installation relies on a special customized gas mask, blacked out to prevent any light from getting in, and fitted with microphones to pick up your own breathing – making it so that if you breathe too loudly, you can't hear your orders, and can't find the enemies you're tracking by audio.Arnott has released the Deep Sea software, and provided Tech Hive with detailed, step-by-step instructions for how to make the installation. If you have access to a gas mask, a steady hand, and the ability to withstand extremely claustrophobia-inducing situations, you can try Deep Sea for yourself. (By the way, this is not an April Fools' Day joke.)Arnott is now working on SoundSelf, a meditative game that responds to vocal input with visuals and music. The Kickstarter drive for that has six days left.
Deep Sea's Arnott launches Kickstarter for chanting game SoundSelf
Sound designer Robin Arnott, who created the audio-only terror experience Deep Sea and the sound for Antichamber and Capsule, is collaborating with Evan Balster and Topher Sipes to create SoundSelf, a game with the same emphasis on sound as Deep Sea, but a totally different goal.SoundSelf is a "sensual exploration game about the intrinsic pleasure of playing instead of the rewards of winning." It responds to sound input – right now, chanting – that creates a feedback loop of abstract visuals and music. It's intended to "create an experience as powerfully positive as Deep Sea was powerfully negative."Arnott is seeking $29,060 for the project on Kickstarter, with any additional funds going toward " longer, more intricate experiences," and experimentation with "more intricate interactivity."
On The Fringe, Part Two: Robin Arnott's 'Deep Sea' and Anna Anthropy
On The Fringe is a two-part series from freelance contributor Danielle Riendeau that focuses on games designed to push beyond established boundaries in the video game industry. Read part one now! On top of being Antichamber's audio designer, Robin Arnott is the mad scientist behind Deep Sea, which is perhaps one of the furthest "fringe" experiences – and one of the most truly intense and successful experimental games ever produced. In playing it, players don a light-and-sound-blocking WW1-era gas mask, hold onto a joystick, and descend into a terrifying, sound-only world, where the enemies – a brand of sea monster you never want to meet – are attracted to the sound of your real-life breathing.It's sensory deprivation and physical punishment married to gameplay, and Arnott has called it a "series of uncomfortable choices." It scared the bejesus out of everyone who played it at last year's E3, so much so that Arnott was invited to speak at the prestigious (and never boring) Experimental Gameplay Workshop at this year's GDC."Working on Deep Sea has gotten me into a state of mind where I as an artist, am trying to interface directly with the player's body," he says. It's a direct result of his taking the project to it's full potential, and it has impacted the way he sees everything else in the world."Whatever you devote your mind to over an extended period of time, it's bound to influence the way you think. Deep Sea has taken me towards radical, holistic experiential design ... that thinking has worked its way into my blood, into every project I work on."
Vlambeer and Adam Atomic's Venus Patrol-exclusive games revealed
If you contributed to the Kickstarter campaign for Brandon Boyer's upcoming indie game website, Venus Patrol, you gained the promise of access to exclusive new games from superstar developers Vlambeer (Super Crate Box), Adam Atomic (Canabalt), Superbrothers (Sword & Sworcery), and Die Gute Fabrik (Where Is My Heart?) Die Gute Fabrik's screenless Move party game, Johann Sebastian Joust, went out to contributors on November 17. Last weekend, at a party for the website, I got the opportunity to play the new games by Adam Atomic and Vlambeer, and to see work-in-progress footage of the one from Superbrothers.%Gallery-141928%
