SARAH KEIRLE-DOS SANTOS

Habitone is a sonic-driven educational game that explores the concept of the environment as an instrument, made using Unreal Engine 4.21 and FMOD audio middleware. It has three aims: to teach the player about the environment and human impact; to let the player create virtual and sonic environments that exist, and could not exist, in the real world; and to accustom the player to listening attentively. This game is aimed towards school-age children, but it can be explored and enjoyed by a player of any age. 
 
The game has six customisable areas on the map. The player chooses a terrain out of the following six biomes – woodland, rainforest, grassland, swamp, desert, and tundra – and this 
starts a drone. Each new adaptation to the environment creates an adaptation to the music. Spawning flora and fauna adds melody and drum layers, and choosing the temperature 
changes the filters applied. These choices are made purely sonically. The menus have no visual clue as to what will spawn when a choice is made, so the player can only listen to decide which layer they would like to add. 

Through this process, the player could create bizarre new ecosystems – for example, a desert full of huge rainforest trees populated by arctic wolves – which would never work in the real world. This sort of play is encouraged, as it lets children explore beyond the bounds of nature, and also requires focused listening skills. Sandbox play like this can be fun for a while but games progress by giving the player rewards for certain actions. So, if the layer of music spawns a plant or animal that matches the original terrain, the player is rewarded with information about that environment.