Puzzling Places
Released 2nd of September 2021
Audio Design, Field Recording, Musical Textures
since November 2020
Developer : Realities.io
Made with Unreal
Producer & Developer: Daniel Sproll
Lead Developer & Audio Code: Marcel Poppe
Graphics Programmer & Art Director: Shahriar Shahrabi
Photogrametry & Puzzlemaker: Azad Balabanian
3D Modelling & Design: Daniel Kraft
Photogrammetry & Machine Learning R&D: David Finsterwalder:
3D Modeling: Eleni Kofekidou
Play it on :
A beautiful project on flow state, the sensation of presence, and the essence of places.
More on the audio of Puzzling Places
from the Oculus Dev Blog
Can you tell us a bit more about the audio of Puzzling Places?
Each puzzle comes with a unique handcrafted soundscape. While they have required a slightly different approach every time, they all follow the same design pillar: as the scene comes together, the player slowly witnesses the making of a soundscape from an initial bed of pure wind to a fully fledged ambiance. The idea was then to encapsulate the sonic essence of each puzzle with evocative sources: the joyful shouts of kids playing together in a street, the echoing bells of a flock of sheep in the mountains, the whistling of ropes and masts in a harbor on a windy day... These field recordings hopefully send back players to their own sonic memories. And akin to the visual environment of Puzzling Places, the sound ambience supports the soft and foggy feel of the experience to let the player's imagination own the scene completely.
Regarding music, a lot of puzzles feature musical textures. As the pacing of the game is so slow, it was important to create something that wasn't too repetitive or tiring, yet creating a unique atmosphere. Sometimes the music is linked to a particular achievement, like finishing the inside of a puzzle, other times it is linked to the global progression of the puzzle, sometimes it is a mix of both. The music in Puzzling Places takes many forms from long aeolian drones to light piano touches, or the chiming of a bell tower. The Armenia Pack also features beautiful interpretations from the Little Armenian Singers choir whose performance has given these puzzles a wondrous depth.