soundStrider v0.7.0
The latest version of soundStrider introduces its industrial and storm palettes which leverage a variety of game systems to create evolving musical textures. Demo players will also benefit from a new tutorial quest and enjoy enhancements to the visualizer as its core experience continues to improve.
Continue reading to hear excerpts of these newest palettes and learn more about the upcoming early access release.
Introducing the Industrial palette
No hardhat is required for this tour of a factory in the timelapse below:
With an underlying electric hum, the industrial palette’s machines leverage soundStrider’s pulse system to synchronize their polyrhythmic motors and pistons to an evolving beat. Here its transitions were sped up to illustrate how tempo fluctuates between night and day. To synthesize these sounds, waveshaping helped cheaply transform simple LFOs into the complex patterns they required.
Introducing the Storm palette
Exiting the cacophony of factory, we recognize a soothing and familiar texture in the excerpt below:
The storm palette leverages soundStrider’s dynamic wind system to create weather effects that evolve over time. Granular synthesis and plenty of delay produce its uncanny sounds of falling rain and cracking and rolling thunder. For those wanting a scavenger hunt, finding a storm near the beach may be the holy grail of white noise machines.
Demo changes
The soundStrider demo has also been updated to the latest version, which includes some improvements to the core experience:
- Added a tutorial quest to introduce players to the compass system
- Added breadcrumbs to completed expedition destinations
- Improved visualizer color selection
- Cycle visualizer colors based on in-game time
- Fixed the text input on the New Bookmark screen
- Added Liam and Roger to the Credits screen—thank you!
Early access incoming
The next milestone update—scheduled for the end of this month—will be soundStrider’s first alpha and early access release. For the first time, players will be able to explore all of the palettes introduced thus far: astral, beach, classic, desert, elemental, industrial, storm, and tundra
This update will also include two new palettes: forest and pulse. Deep within the forest, players will find a chorus of cicadas, predators and prey, and trees swaying in the wind. In an homage to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, the voices of the pulse palette will parrot a meditative series of melodies.
I look forward to sharing the imaginative world of soundStrider with you all soon. Please visit its itch.io page to download its demo and pre-order today:
Thanks for your support!