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Game Plot and setting
sympathy. When he has succeeded, the parent
volunteers to accompany the castaway to the
beach and to help him to yell for the attention of
the ships passing by. While they yell, someone, in
one of the ships, appears to have noticed something
but assumes it was an illusion because the stimuli
coming from the beach were too weak. In each
of the other zones in the island the plot repeats:
each time a parent becomes a friend, the entire
group gathers at the beach for another attempt
to catch the attention of the passing ships. With
each attempt, the perception grows that the aim
is about to be achieved until, after enlisting the
aid of a certain number of creatures, the goal is
finally reached and the castaway rescued.
Non-interactive (cinematographic) scenes
include the arrival at the island and lonely call for
passing ships, moving onto the beach accompanied
by friendly creatures and yelling to the passing
ships, and a ship's crew member wondering about
the yelling sounds (this is a distinct scene each
time a new creature joins the group).
The game is a single-player adventure, suitable
for audiences over the age of 6. It is about a cast-
away and his rescuing from an island inhabited
by fictitious creatures. The plot comprises gain-
ing the sympathy of the native creatures in order
to get their help in calling the attention of some
passing ships. Two input methods were designed:
vocalized sound input through a microphone and,
alternatively, the use of keystrokes to model the
corresponding programmed sounds.
The game takes place in an island scenario
where the playing character interacts with a set of
creatures, one at a time, by interpreting their sound
manifestations in the context of the game diegesis.
As an example, the player has to “gain trust” of a
creature by imitating its pitch, its rhythm and so
on with two end results: unlocking some progress
in the game and training the ability to recognize
and reproduce specific sound characteristics, in
the context of other sound sources, in order to
achieve a specific composition. The coordination
abilities thus gained by the player will then be put
to a final test in a final setting.
Gameplay
The castaway moves through the island's zones
(there being no predefined sequence) and in each
zone there are two types of interaction: with cub
creatures and with their parent. All interactions
happen between the castaway and only one crea-
ture at a time with each interaction comprising
an iterative process of alternate interventions in
a dialog. The interaction can be aborted before
success is achieved by the player's decision or
because a certain number of iterations has been
reached. There is no enforced order to the interac-
tions but it is mandatory to successfully interact
with several cubs before being able to complete
with success the interaction with the parent. The
dialog with a cub is initiated and conducted by it
while the dialog with the parent is initiated and
conducted by the castaway. The success condition
in the relationship with a cub depends on suf-
ficiently matching its utterances and the success
story
A castaway gets into an island inhabited by strange
creatures. He notices that ships pass at a distance
and that they might rescue him, but, when he tries
to signal his presence by yelling to them, he fails
to get noticed. On the island, there are several
accessible zones and each zone is inhabited by
one species. A species population consists of a
bunch of cubs and a parent: The cubs are curi-
ous, the parent is neutral though vigilant. The
cubs' behavior triggers communication-learning
episodes where the castaway iteratively tries to
replicate their utterances. After a certain number
of successful such episodes, the parent becomes
receptive to communication and the castaway,
combining expressions learned from the cubs,
starts a communication process to conquer its
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