Keep your fear stifled in the virtual world of Gattai Games powered by Unity

It’s pitch-black, and you’re blind,
until you make a sound.

In
Stifled, a sound-based survival
horror game by Singaporean indie game studio Gattai Games, players are equipped
with bat-like sonar abilities, and are required to make sounds through their
microphones and/or via in-game actions to “see”. Sounds made by the player illuminate
the game’s dark environment, revealing the world around them. Silence is
somewhat of a paradox – staying silent leaves players in complete darkness
though too much noise will attract the attention of unsavory creatures lurking
in the darkness. It’s a deadly game of cat and mouse, and to survive, it’s
necessary (yet dangerous) to use the power of sound to uncover the world.

Built
entirely on Unity, Stifled is based
on a creative student project, Lurking,
which part of the team developed while they were studying at DigiPen Institute
of Technology Singapore. Founded upon graduation in June 2014 by three close
friends which eventually grew to five, Gattai Games is Singapore bred and born,
a studio which brings developers together to create novel and quality
interactive experiences. “In Japanese, Gattai means to combine, which ties in
well with our vision of bringing people together through our games,” explained
Justin Ng, co-founder of Gattai Games. Autonomy was important to the founders
of Gattai Games. “Early on, we decided that we wanted to build the games we
loved without having someone constantly looking over us, which was a key factor
in us setting up this venture.”

When
asked about how Lurking and Stifled came to be, Ng said: “We worked
on other prototypes that used pitch and volume as a core mechanic, but found
that to be too complicated. We decided to pursue Lurking when we found the simplistic art style that worked well for
horror, and followed up by simplifying the sound mechanic to just take in
volume.” Even as a student project, Lurking
held tremendous promise. It won multiple awards, including the Best Student
Game and Excellence in Technology awards at IGF China in 2014. Encouraged by
this success, Justin and his team looked to create a spiritual successor to the
immersive, sound-based thriller video game with Unity.

Gattai Games
spent the next three years turning this idea into a reality. Having previously
experienced other game development platforms, Justin and his team decided on
Unity based on several factors: lower cost and ease of use. “As a young and
independent start-up, one of our key criteria was cost effectiveness of the
development platform. We found Unity’s business model the most suited to our
needs, given that we could pay once and use that version for ‘perpetuity’, or
at least until the next version came out,” Ng reflected. “We had also tested
out a couple of other game engines, but found that they weren’t the best fit
for our needs.” However, Unity recently shifted to a subscription model to
provide a more robust, comprehensive solution with more timely updates.

The
team at Gattai games also looked for a platform and engine which was simple and
user-friendly. “We were excited to get the Stifled
project up and running, after having had the idea postponed due to previous
constraints,” Ng recalled. Unity provided the versatility, accessibility and
ease of use, given the familiarity of code used within the engine. Unity’s training
and support to help developers code in various common languages came in useful for
Gattai Games. Even without prior experience, developers can simply hop on and
tune in to Unity’s introductory courses for beginners, and learn how to apply
the most common built in functions in Unity, including when to use code and
when writing their own is required.

The
VR experience is all about immersion and presence with regards to comfort,
movement and control. “Unity’s versatile user interface platform enabled us to
rapidly prototype, and manage massive amounts of content to overcome physical
constraints,” Ng commented. It’s a process that requires meticulous detailing,
iteration, and testing of UI to ensure physical representation matches visual,
e.g. that the objects you touch in the virtual realm match ones in the
environment.

Unity’s large, active community also provided valuable support and
advice as the Gattai Games team continued to develop and refine their game. “Having
such a big, helpful developer community was definitely an unexpected advantage.
With Unity’s support and the community’s help, over 80 percent of issues we
faced were easily resolved. We were, therefore, able to quickly and efficiently
fix many of the initial bugs, speeding up our time to market, as well as having
more time and energy to spend on solving the more unique problems,” Ng said.

Unity’s asset store also helped Gattai Games to
accelerate development and time to market a game. With a wide variety of tools,
from editor extensions, to scripts and 3-D models to choose from, Justin and
his team were able to seamlessly download and import from the store, straight
into the editor, which saved the team valuable time and effort. “The Unity
Asset Store contained so many elements from environmental resources, to 3-D
models and audio effects. Being able to tap on the Asset Store for prototypes
and other items throughout our entire development journey was valuable in
enabling faster iterations.”

With Stifled
set to hit the market sometime later this year complete with a VR mode customized
for the PlayStation® VR (the first game company in Singapore to do so), Justin
is extremely excited to put Singapore on the gaming map. “With Stifled, we hope to show that game
development is more than a viable passion and can be made into a career. We
will continue to follow our passion and continue to create new and interesting
experiences for today’s consumers.”

Fresh off winning two Indie Prizes – Most Innovative Game and Best Game Design
at the recently held Casual Connect Asia, Justin advises aspiring developers to
not be afraid to follow their dreams. “Try something new, but be prepared for
challenges. VR is a huge opportunity now, given the changes to the industry in
the past five years. Also, don’t lock yourself in a bubble – learn a little bit
of everything to help you in your journey ahead.

Gattai Games is a Singapore-based game studio
where developers come together to create Novel and Quality interactive
experiences. Founded in June 2014 by a group of DigiPen Institute of Technology
Singapore graduates, the company is developed and is set to release Stifled, a multi-award winning, VR and
mic-enabled sound-based stealth thriller based on their student project,
Lurking later this year. For more information, follow Gattai Games on Facebook and
Twitter.

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