captiveX — EN

A new dimension of Mixed Reality FPS.
The player shoots and breaks open empty cages that appear right before them, unleashing mysterious entities known only as X.
However, once freed, these diverse and unpredictable X rush in and attack, forcing the player to fight back.
But at a certain turning point, the life gauge of X reverses.
The player must abandon violence and instead restore their life gauge through music, as the need to make them dance arises.
Shooting releases musical items, which the player selects and combines to create music.
An interactive audiovisual experience that shakes the boundary between reality and the virtual, questioning the very concept of FPS.

Game Controls

Start Game / Shoot: Trigger Button
Menu: Left Menu Button
Select: A Button
Sound Effect: Left Grip Button
Speed Change: Right Grip Button (Non-Game Mode Only)

Settings

Area Mode (Start Screen Only): Room / Cage
Game Mode: Game / Non-Game
Color Mode: Color / B&W 1 / B&W 2

Concept of the Work
Innovation and Redefinition of The Fusion of Game and Music Expression
– Fusion of Game Elements and Non-Game Elements
– Creativity Beyond Traditional Rhythm Games
– Nonlinear Structure Enabling Improvisational Game and Music Performance
Innovation and Redefinition of Audiovisual Expression
– Restoration of Physical Engagement Through VR Head-Mounted Display
– A New Audiovisual Experience Through Active Interaction and Musical Performance
Conclusion

1. Concept of the Work

In recent years, there has been a global surge in self-righteous and overzealous justice, blindly enforced by those who place absolute faith in the justice dictated by their respective social systems and communities. However, such unilateral pursuits of justice lead only to futile conflict.
In response, I created a Mixed Reality Audiovisual First-Person Shooter (FPS) to liberate players from perspectives confined by rules, customs, common sense, and justice—allowing them to adopt a more multifaceted viewpoint.
By incorporating a resettable game system with continue and restart functions, players experience an FPS game where life and death are repeatedly cycled. This, combined with an immersive experience that blurs the boundary between reality and virtuality through MR technology, deeply unsettles the player’s conventional perception of reality.
Furthermore, this work seeks to achieve its goal by seamlessly transforming the act of FPS violence into an audiovisual experience that incorporates bodily engagement through musical performance.

2. Innovation and Redefinition of The Fusion of Game and Music Expression

– Fusion of Game Elements and Non-Game Elements
This work integrates game mechanics involving risk, reward, and strategic decision-making with the non-game element of musical performance, which exists outside conventional game systems. Players must engage in tactical decision-making while simultaneously constructing and performing music, leading to an entirely new gaming experience.
The most noteworthy aspect of this game’s fusion of game and music expression lies in its improvisational music generation process in the final stage. In this stage, music is composed in real-time as the player interacts with a game system governed by probabilistic randomness. Rather than relying solely on chance, the player’s in-game decisions and their interactions with game mechanics directly influence the timing and structure of the music, creating an experience that extends beyond conventional improvisational performance. This enables players to generate music through gameplay, introducing a new form of real-time musical improvisation.

– Creativity Beyond Traditional Rhythm Games
Existing rhythm games typically require players to synchronize their actions with pre-arranged musical compositions, effectively making them subordinate to the given music. However, in this work, players themselves can construct, perform, and create music, breaking free from conventional constraints.

– Nonlinear Structure Enabling Improvisational Game and Music Performance
Traditional game design often enforces a fixed, linear progression, where players advance along predefined routes. In contrast, this work adopts a system that allows players to freely revisit previously cleared stages (enemies encountered) at any desired moment.
This nonlinear structure enables improvisational gameplay and musical composition, akin to how a DJ selects and manipulates tracks in real time. As a result, the gameplay itself evolves into a form of performance.

3. Innovation and Redefinition of Audiovisual Expression

Audiovisual expression has historically evolved with the goal of fusing sound and visuals. Among them, many audiovisual performances have been conducted in nightclub environments, integrating with dance music.
Music, particularly dance music, inherently involves a strong sense of physicality. However, conventional audiovisual performances rely heavily on flat screens and displays, which impose restrictions on the viewer’s gaze, ultimately diminishing their bodily engagement.
While live performances and dance performances have long existed as forms of visually integrated musical expression, audiovisual performances, in particular, fix the audience’s gaze on a flat screen or display rather than a three-dimensional space such as a stage, leading to a severe limitation of bodily engagement.
As a result, rather than achieving the intended fusion of music and visuals, the visual element paradoxically undermines the intrinsic power of music.

– Restoration of Physical Engagement Through VR Head-Mounted Display
One solution to this issue is the use of VR head-mounted displays. By eliminating restrictions on head movement, players’ bodies are freed from physical constraints, enabling a bodily immersive audiovisual expression.

– A New Audiovisual Experience Through Active Interaction and Musical Performance
Furthermore, through the active engagement of players (game participants) in actions and musical performance, players can reclaim their sense of bodily engagement within the audiovisual experience.

4. Conclusion

captiveX is a Mixed Reality First-Person Shooter that fuses gaming, music, and audiovisual expression.

This work transcends the boundaries of the FPS genre, blurring the lines between game and music, violence and creation, reality and virtuality, life and death, and creating a new experience where these elements intersect and merge. Designed to allow players to move fluidly between fighting, making choices, and performing music, this game challenges preconceived notions, prompting players to recognize the fluidity of their own perspectives and acquire a more multifaceted awareness.

The defining feature of this work lies in its seamless transformation of the FPS game experience as an act of violence into an act of musical performance. The gameplay process itself is elevated into a bodily interactive audiovisual performance.

With the advancement of digital technology, we are becoming increasingly dependent on visual information while simultaneously losing our sense of physical engagement. By utilizing the interactive nature of gaming and Mixed Reality technology, this work presents a new form of expression in which the player actively generates music. By going beyond the mere fusion of sight and sound, it aims to redefine audiovisual performance, making the player’s body itself an integral part of the expression and pioneering the future of audiovisual performance.