Orfeo: a Game in Music

Video walkthrough for my short form and experimental game "Orfeo: a Game in Music".

Inspired by Monteverdi's early Opera masterpiece "L'Orfeo: Favola in Musica" ("Orfeo: a Fable in Music", 1607), this experimental game allows players to take the role of the mythological semigod and use his lyre to first conquer Eurydice's heart and then rescue her from the Underworld.

The game is structured into four different levels, or Acts, each based on a specific emotion Orfeo has to express to proceed further into his quest for eternal love.

The first Act is based on "Happiness". Here Orfeo has to attract Eurydice by playing a happy tune. This is followed by "Sadness" in Act Two: as Eurydice dies, Orfeo embarks into a unique quest by descending into the underworld to bring his beloved back to life. There, he first meets Charon, who needs to be put to sleep so as to cross the Acheron river in his boat and enter the land of the dead.
In Act three, "Anger", Orfeo needs to defeat the Three Headed Cerberus to prove his prowess to Hades and, lastly, in Act Four, "Fear", he finally has to lead Eurydice back to the living world but without turning back to check whether she is actually following him or not.

"Orfeo: a Game in Music" is based on a new playing interface and innovative game mechanics, based on years of academic research on the study and analysis of emotions. The original analysis component implemented here takes into account music dynamics, tempo and articulation to determine the basic emotional qualities (kansei) of the music being played in real time.

The game is entirely played by plucking and stopping strings on Orfeo's lyre to improvise simple melodies and express the required emotions. A tutorial is also implemented in the game to explain the very basic characteristics of different musical expressive intentions and make players accustomed with the unique lyre playing based control system.
The game (and this video) can be freely downloaded from www.ProgramAndPlay.com

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Orfeo
• Experimental Game