Music Runner

Try it for yourself: https://marcaronicheez.itch.io/runner

The Goal

The goal with this project was to make a very satisfying procedural parkour game with procedural audio generation.

• Movement: fluid and responsive
• Audio: procedural
• Map: procedural
• Visuals: pastel, no textures, plain UI

Music Generation

I give the player the ability to trigger musical elements as they move, resulting in players generating their own custom theme music on the go. Players can also trigger transitions to new basslines, keys and genres, which last for set durations. These elements fading in a out make for infinite possibilities. When there are few musical elements active, sound is reverb-ed and slowed. This encourages players to move faster. Music is sped up depending on their score, providing players with a rush to keep the pace.

Movement Mechanics

Players can move in any direction which serves to provide players with a sense of open-world movement. The player can enter different “biomes” of procedural generation which force players to use the other movement mechanics such as jumping, swinging and climbing. Score is calculated as distance from the starting point. To break up repetitive movement, I added objectives where the player needs to traverse to a certain point in order to proceed.

The Visuals

Sticking to a basic visual design, I chose to create a text based UI. It clearly shows your biome, score and a compass pointing you towards higher scores or your objective. It was important not to distract the player from the scene. The scene also changes color depending on the music and the players’ score.