Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Symphony of the Machine’

Review Fix chats with Matthew Dyet, Producer and Vee Pendergrast, Managing Director of “Symphony of the Machine,” who give us an inside look at what makes the game a special one, detailing its origins, development process and goals.

About the Game:

Symphony of the Machine, is a VR puzzle game in which players restore life to a post-apocalyptic world by manipulating a mysterious tower that controls the weather, it is now available on PlayStation VR and HTC Vive in North America and across Europe and Oceania.

Review Fix: How was this game born?

Matthew Dyet: Symphony of the Machine came out of the 2016 Global Game Jam, where the theme was “Ritual.” The idea behind Symphony grew out of the idea of a ritual to summon weather. But back then, it was much less interactive than it is today!

Vee Pendergrast: The game was given over to our account managers at a major vendor to try out and has since been re-developed into the spatial puzzles that it now is. It is a real joy to see how different players tackle the positioning and puzzles in-game.

Review Fix: What was development like?

Dyet: It was chaotic at times, no doubt about it. For us as a studio, it’s the first time we’ve been working closely with Sony. And creating a game for VR is like entering into an era similar to what 3D platformers were like before Super Mario 64. There are no rules. Nobody knows what works yet. We were flying blind in a lot of ways! We had to do a lot of user testing to seek opinions and development was very much driven by what our testers needed and enjoyed the most.

Pendergrast: We developed the game very rapidly and did our best to incorporate as much player feedback as we could. The team has really stepped up and tackled what has been a startlingly difficult development cycle in as little time as humanly possible, while maintaining a game that is still highly polished and beautiful to play

Review Fix: What makes the story of this game special?

Dyet: One of the major things we wanted to do was to ensure the game didn’t have any written word, outside of game menus. The story gets conveyed through gameplay, interactions with the tower and robot, and cave paintings in the game world. It’s subtle and leaves a lot to player interpretation.

Pendergrast: Because I can play it! I have a lot of problems with motion sickness in VR and it was nice to be involved in the process with a VR game that I can actually enjoy and play. My other favorite part of Symphony of the Machine is the soundtrack. If it is going to be a “Symphony of the Machine”, the soundtrack had better be stunning and I think what our musicians have come back with is luscious, calming and perfectly suited to the meditative-style of the game.

Review Fix: Any fun stories or wild moments during development?

Dyet: Very early in development, we had gone to Japan to show the game at BitSummit. At that stage, we had only just implemented our weather system, and it was largely untested. We ended up in a Starbucks working off of a friend’s laptop to create weather effects the day before the expo.

Pendergrast: I think exhibiting a VR game at expos like PAX AUS is a massive challenge. Certainly, tracking issues and a wild setup for PAX AUS 2016 provided some high stress levels ahead of successfully exhibiting.

Review Fix: Who will enjoy this game the most?

Dyet: Hopefully everyone! But the game is definitely tailored towards those people that really like spatial puzzle games in the same vein as the Talos Principle or Portal.

Pendergrast: I think we have tried to make it as appealing as possible to a large base of our players. Symphony of the Machine is a great jumping-on point for VR, but the latter puzzles are very challenging and engaging, so many players will find something in there for themselves.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the game?

Dyet: Every Stirfire game is made to subvert the norms we see in game development at the time. We saw a trend with VR titles towards high intensity experiences, violence, and fun little physics sandboxes. Symphony of the Machine was made in response to that – and hopefully people see the intent. We want people to walk away feeling immersed in VR, like they could get lost and relax in our world. Like it’s a place they’d enjoy visiting.

Pendergrast: So many VR games still feel like tech demos and Symphony of the Machine is just not that thing. It is a deep, rich experience and it feels like a much larger world is going on around it.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Dyet: Work on any game never ends just because you’ve submitted a build to distributors! From here, we’re working on patch content to ensure the game is absolutely stable, and any areas where we can improve the teams vision get into the game.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Dyet: We’re excited about where the VR space is headed as a studio. There’s so much more to be explored and discovered about making truly world class VR titles, and we hope we can justify returning to the VR space again in the future. We have a lot of ideas, so hopefully it just keeps getting better.

Pendergrast: Producing Symphony of the Machine has been a wonderful, challenging experience. We aren’t finished in this world or in VR in general, so it would be great to see how the players like it.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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