Players organize music blocks using audio and visual cues to create a functional song. This song is predefined and broken into sections, and will play distorted versions if placed in the wrong place for each music block.

Imagine if you had the thrill of writing polished music like a real artist!

What if you could do it quickly and make something relatable too? Say no more!

Lofi Simulator is a rhythm crafting puzzle game with the goal of letting players be the authors behind crafted songs, using their ears to distinguish musical compositions and arrangements, just like a real musician.

Change the order of music blocks by moving them around on the order track. Hit play, and see your composition in action.

There are many ways to arrange music and craft melodies, but will you be able to find the perfect combination and create the ultimate lofi song? The possibilities are endless!

My Role in the Project

I was this project’s sound designer and composer. Our team produced this project in roughly a week timespan with a team of 5 members including myself. My goal was to first draft a song which could be sliced up and warped using filters and effects for use as modular audio files which could then be re-arranged.

To achieve this, I used “Song of Storms” from Legend of Zelda as my first piece of reference material. It uses a downbeat-sounding progression as its main motif:
(D minor => E minor => F minor => E minor)

I took this concept and moved it to a different root (C minor), and adjusted the other chords to match the root key signature (F major and G minor inversions respectively) to mirror this effect. From here, I used various electronic soundfonts to achieve the Lofi aesthetic present in many songs of the genre.

Our team wanted the music blocks in-game to possess a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ state for each block to indicate to players listening where blocks belonged based on their sounds, similar to musicians who play by ear. We used distortion and modified the amplitude of each soundfont wavelength to accomplish this.

Apart from this, I also worked on a number of other duties such as:

• Distorting the first track, and drafting a second track built around a harder difficulty (unfortunately this second track was unused).

• Implementing sounds into Unity’s audio manager.

• Fielding input on music in progress from team members and playtesters.

• Working with the dev team to design a player experience similar to the actual writing process behind the music.

The first track in its complete state. Built off of 100 BPM to set the bar for the game.

The wrong track is identical to the right track, but ramps up the distortion and ‘character’ settings to create entropy and signal to players this version of music is not the goal.