SPARK & KLING

Spark & Kling is a stylized couch co-op puzzle platformer for all ages, you and your friend play as:

Spark, the electric bug, who can possess different electronics, she also carries baby sparklings to shoot at generators and magnets!
Kling, the metal gel blob, who shoots the metal gel to put weight on objects in order to make them heavy!

Cooperation is key, you will need to work together and use their abilities to progress through the level:

Kling can shoot metal gels in a line which Spark can jump into and travel through the level!
Spark can shoot sparklings at Kling for him to do his double jump!

Overcome obstacles and puzzles by working together to gain your freedom

First week of project:

On Spark & Kling I worked as Sound & UI Designer.

After the idea was set for the game, I started researching what kind off music would fit.

The first tracks that came to mind was Jean-Michel Jarre - Zoolook and Michael B Tretow - Den Makalösa Manicken. Why, You say? Because the feel of the game was gonna be goofy.

The intros to these tracks have a very unique style of how to make a beat. They progress into having a funky bass and melodies. So I started from this in my mind and began to create some first draft of music.

We decided to use FMOD on the project. So, I implemented it into the project and added files to p4ignore with some help from programmers.

I implemented all music and sounds into FMOD Studio, creating events, mixing it, creating VCAs for different sound categories. So, you can use them to adjust the volume in-game.

Implementing sounds into Unity on prefabs or writing in scripts with some guidance from Nestor and Anton.

Did several versions of in-game music, menu music and implemented it.

The soundtracks is used in different areas of the level. Like when you enter the vents, the music changes to a version which is a bit darker and also adds reverb to sound effects. This is controlled by a parameter in FMOD that goes from 0 - 1.

When creating sounds for Spark & Kling I always begin with looking at sounds I remember from other games. We needed a possession sound for when Spark possesses various objects.

My first thought of a similar thing was Mario´s cap from Super Mario Odyssey.

With that sound in mind I started to create my own in Ableton Live.

I wanted the "possession sound" to have a positive tone and "leave possession" a negative.

So when you possess, the notes goes upwards and when you leave the notes goes downwards. So its more clear to the player whats going on. I used the synth Surge XT to create the melodies.

I also added small electricity burst and whoosh sound to make it feel fast and fit into the theme of spark being electrified.

Possession sound

Possession leave sound

Gameplay with possession sounds

To create sound effects for Kling´s "ferrofluid" blobs. I started with recording when I poured my lunch soup. Then I cut out small sounds out of that recording. Added pitch/stretch, little distortion

and voila!

Kling shoot blobs and hit sound effects

UI Work:

Did UI mockups for tutorial buttons, post it´s and diegetic solutions for Kling ammunition.

Creating UI in unity for tutorial buttons and post it´s.

Did first draft on narrative on post its which have been adjusted several times.

First version of tutorial buttons & post it´s.

Final version of tutorial buttons & post it´s (which emma

I then continued working on a tutorial to explain "travel through metal gel". I wanted the UI to be in world for this. So it draws your attention to the right area.

I continue to use in world UI indicators for interactables. It works also to draw the player in the right direction.

Next up was to create the start menu. I wanted it to be in the level, so that the player right from start would get familuar with the games world. I started of with a basic menu.

Alpha version of start menu.

I wanted something more for the menu and with my camera background I thought of camera movement. I think I maybe got some inspiration from psychonauts 2.

I used cinemachine in unity to create the moving camera. Its a virutal camera at every stop in the level with a object as target. Then on every button click it switches prioritize between the cameras and travels between them.

Beta version of start menu.

Final build version of start menu.