"Pila is a beautiful, abstract puzzler that looks a bit like ancient iconography at first glance. Its circles and arcs float in a timeless black space brought into the future by crisscrossing wires and an electric blue and orange color scheme." - GamezeboPILA is a 2D puzzle game for mobile and tablet devices. It's minimalist art style and addictive levels make for game that is easy to pick up but difficult to put down.
I was asked by the developer of PILA to add some whirrs and squeaks to supplement the beautiful abstract visuals he had created. It is a puzzle game with lots of moving parts occasionally with elaborate solutions, meaning it was important to allow each sound to easily audibly represent what it was linked to, and stand out in their own right. Below is a short demo of some of the audio elements I created for this project.
It was important to keep with the minimalist sci-fi styling, but also work on audio that has a lot of room for experimentation and elaboration upon the visual identity. The various bleeps and buzzes were primarily synthesised, combined with real-world sounds where appropriate. Each puzzle element has its own unique flair which I wanted to embellish through sound, one of the simplest being the intractable buttons. When pressed, these create simple sine tones at a random selection of 4 pitches; creating a musical element that otherwise isn't present. Everything almost 'floats' above the backing drone, which provides consistent audio while the player attempts to plan their puzzle solution.
PILA is available for iOS devices and can be purchased on the iTunes App Store.
