Serenity Stones
Serenity Stones
Welcome to Serenity Stones, a relaxing yet thought-provoking experience that blends creativity with introspection. In this game, you’re not just building a tower—you’re reflecting on personal priorities through immersive, beautifully crafted environments.
This project was created by Moodforest interns in collaboration with SkillsCafe.
Game Themes:
- Nighttime by the River: A moonlit, reflective atmosphere.
- Lava River: A fiery, challenging landscape.
- Day by the Beach: Relax with sunlit, peaceful visuals.
- Daytime by the River: A vibrant, energizing environment.
Game Scenarios:
- Balanced Diet: Build a tower symbolizing a healthy diet.
- Work-Life Balance: Reflect on the equilibrium between work and personal life.
Unique Features:
- Play on WebGL: Experience the game directly in your browser.
- Screenshot & Reflection Tool: Document and share your tower-building journey.
How to Play Serenity Stones
Objective: Build a stable tower of 5 stones that reflects one of the two scenarios: Balanced Diet or Work-Life Balance. Your tower must stand for 5 seconds without collapsing to succeed.
Selecting Your Theme:
From the main menu, choose one of four themes...
- Nighttime by the River
- Lava River
- Day by the Beach
- Daytime by the River
Gameplay Instructions:
- Choosing Your Scenario: At the start screen, select either Balanced Diet or Work-Life Balance. This scenario will guide how you structure your tower.
- Guidance from the Character: The character in the top-right corner provides hints and questions to help you reflect on your priorities.
- Viewing Scenario Details:
Hover over the dropdown arrows below the character:
- Left Arrow: Shows suggested words for the scenario.
- Right Arrow: Displays a bullet-point description of the scenario.
- Building Your Tower:
- Carry a Stone: Click the left mouse button to pick up a stone.
- Rotate Stones: Use the WASD keys while holding a stone.
- Place Stones: Click the left mouse button again to drop the stone. If it falls off, it will reset.
- Customizing Stones:
- Edit Text: While holding a stone, press the right mouse button to type text that represents your priorities. Press the right mouse button again to return to moving the stone.
- Manual Reset: Press the R key to reset all stones if needed (only works when not editing text).
- Winning the Game: Build a stable tower of 5 stones. If it stands for 5 seconds, a screenshot will be taken.
- Reflection & Sharing: Write a reflection on how your tower represents the scenario. Share your screenshot and reflection on social media using #SerenityStones.
Serenity Stones is more than just a game—it’s an interactive experience designed to help you explore and visualize your priorities.
Comments
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I think this game has a really interesting concept and the soundtrack matches well. However, the longer I played it, the more I was getting stressed as the soundtrack looped.
In terms of gameplay, I felt the the sensitivity of the rocks colliding with one another was a little too high. My base block felt like it was constantly glitching whenever I try to stack my second one. This made it really frustrating.
I feel like the game would benefit more with some hints/suggestions to what pieces may fit well together. Perhaps something like illuminating sides that fit together. This would definitely help the longevity of players continuing and repeat plays as there would be give a gratifying satisfaction.
Hi!
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide such thoughtful feedback! I really appreciate your insights and suggestions.
Regarding the collision issues, you’re absolutely right that the web-based nature of the game can lead to some glitches, especially with physics interactions like stacking. If we move forward with a downloadable version of the game, we should be able to address those issues more effectively, as the limitations of browser performance won’t be a factor. My team and I are considering this as a potential next step to improve the experience.
As for the audio, we sourced the soundtrack and sound effects, and due to time constraints, we weren’t able to fine-tune the transitions or vary the tracks as much as we would have liked. Moving forward, we plan to incorporate smoother transitions and explore having multiple soundtracks to match the different themes within the game, which should enhance the overall atmosphere.
I also love your suggestion about hints or illuminated sections to help guide the player in stacking the stones. When we first prototyped the game, we experimented with more complex models but eventually simplified them during playtesting to improve usability. Highlighting flatter areas that would stack better sounds like a great way to keep the gameplay engaging while offering players a bit more guidance. We’ll definitely consider this for future updates!
What was your experience of the story/ different scenarios the game provided, ie, the balanced diet scenario and the work life balance scenario did the objective make sense and were the controls simple to understand? What other improvements would you suggest…