Description Video

Full Gameplay

Tech Process

Heart Beat Sound Network

To create the heart sounds in Touchdesigner, we first needed to understand the structure of heart sounds. Heart sounds are made up of S1, S2, S3, and S4. S1 and S2 form the main structure of a normal heartbeat. When there is a problem in the heart, a murmur appears between S1 and S2, or at points such as S3 and S4. We designed the system to send out a pulse in 8 beats and cross the assigned murmur sound according to the detected symptom. When the player object in Unity gets close to a symptom object, Unity sends the type of symptom and the distance to Touchdesigner through UDP, which determines which symptom sound should be played and how strong it should be.

Prototype & Playtest

1st Prototype & Playtest

Final Prototype

Component List

Final Playtest

Received Feedback

The most positive feedback we received was, “I want to play it one more time.” When we were preparing the project, we expected that it would only support one time play because the educational message was quite strong. However, most players felt that the game itself was fun to play.

At the same time, we also received feedback that the onboarding process definitely needs improvement. Too much information was given at once, and this became something that interrupted the player’s immersion. At the very beginning, the tutorial had 19 pages, and we reduced it to 6 pages by keeping only the core content. However, the amount of information on each page was still more than necessary.

We also received feedback that the converted sound was not intuitive enough. It was supposed to help players understand heart murmurs more easily, but we believe that the cause of each symptom and the sound were not connected clearly enough. In the first prototype, we provided four example sounds for each symptom so that players could choose by themselves. However, we decided to provide randomly selected converted sounds because we thought the tutorial stage became too long. Since the player’s understanding is the real standard for how intuitive the sound is, it seems necessary to add the example sound feature again.

Possible Improvements

1. Simplifying the technical setup
   The technical preparation required to start the game is too complex and takes long
   
   

2. Improving hand tracking
   Overload in Leapmotion 2, the hand tracking stops working after few rounds. This is critical problem for the experience.
   
   

3. Improving the converted sound design
   The current converted sound doesn’t immediately make the player think, ‘Oh, this must be this symptom.’ More refined sound design is needed
   
   

4. Refining the tutorial process
   Too much informaton is concentrated in the tutorial stage. The onboarding process would be smoother if the game used more separated levels or stages.

Role

Personal Contribution