Eargym, A Deep Dive
Overview of the Process
This page takes you through the full process of developing Eargym’s auditory training games, from research to post-launch refinement. Starting with a hypothesis based on scientific studies, we designed games around proven hearing tests, iterated through user feedback, and used data analysis post-launch to continuously improve the experience and effectiveness of the training.
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Research & Hypothesis: Reviewed scientific studies to hypothesize that hearing skills could be improved through game-based training.
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Game Design: Translated established hearing tests into interactive, engaging game mechanics focused on skills like speech-in-noise recognition and sound localization.
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Iteration with User Feedback: Continuously improved the games based on feedback from a user panel, refining difficulty and engagement.
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Data-Driven Refinement: After launch, analyzed user data to identify areas for improvement, ensuring ongoing effectiveness in training auditory skills.
Design of Eargym’s Training Games: Improving Auditory Cognition
The design of Eargym’s training games was centered around improving auditory cognition, helping users develop better hearing skills through targeted, interactive exercises. We took inspiration from established hearing tests and research to create game mechanics that translate scientific insights into engaging and effective training experiences. Each game was designed to focus on a specific auditory skill, with gradual challenges that help users build their abilities over time.
By incorporating the following key skills, the games aim to improve not only hearing but also the user’s cognitive ability to process sounds more efficiently in everyday environments.
Key Skills Trained in Eargym Games
Speech in Noise:
This skill focuses on recognizing speech and specific sounds in environments with background noise.
Sound Localisation:
Games that train sound localisation help users better understand what directions sounds are coming from
Pitch and Frequency Discrimination:
By training users to detect small changes in pitch and frequency
Adaptive Scaling for Optimal Hearing Training
Eargym’s games use an adaptive scaling system that adjusts to each user's hearing ability, ensuring they’re consistently challenged and pushed to their limits. This adaptive procedure dynamically modifies the difficulty based on the user’s performance, creating personalized training that keeps them at the edge of their capability.
Sound Seeker: A Localization Training Game
Sound Seeker is designed to enhance sound localization skills by challenging users to locate an animal in various natural environments using auditory cues. The game is adapted from a study where participants traced sounds in noisy settings, now transformed into a fun, engaging task of finding an animal based on sound.
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Players can use a lifeline, which provides a directional hint at the bottom of the screen to help them if they get stuck. The main task is to guess the animal's location within a circle, which shrinks as the game progresses to increase difficulty and emphasize accuracy. Players score points for correctly identifying the location, with bonus points for repeated accurate guesses. This focus on precision sharpens the user's ability to localize sounds in real-world, noisy environments.
The main appeal of Sound Seeker lies in its immersive audio design. We layer sounds to create a rich and engaging experience across three environments: forest, jungle, and ocean. The forest and jungle feature variations like dry, rain, and dusk settings. As the difficulty increases, we layer in environmental spatial audio to further challenge the player and enhance the immersion.
Immersive Audio
Busy Barista: A Speech-in-Noise Training Game
In Busy Barista, players serve customers who place orders in increasingly challenging auditory environments. As the difficulty ramps up, customers’ voices become quieter, making it harder to hear their orders correctly. This game is designed to improve speech-in-noise recognition, helping players distinguish speech in noisy settings like cafes or crowded events.
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Players can use lifelines, which enhance their ability to hear the customer more clearly, training their mind to recognize words in noisy environments. The game is set across diverse environments, such as a bonfire, city center, music festival, and nature reserve, each presenting unique auditory challenges. Additionally, the varied outfits of the customers create a visually dynamic crowd, adding to the immersion and challenge. The combination of increasing difficulty, lifeline support, and diverse settings ensures players continuously improve their ability to process speech amid background noise.
Similar to Sound Seeker, we layered in background noise and situational audio to make each environment more immersive. As players guess more correctly, the audio complexity increases, making the task more challenging while keeping the experience engaging and dynamic across various environments such as bonfires, city centers, and festivals.
Immersive Audio
Odd One Out: A Discrimination Training Game
Odd One Out is a fast-paced, arcade-style game designed to improve auditory discrimination. Players are presented with four circles, each playing an audio cue based on either volume, pitch, or gap detection. The challenge is to listen carefully and identify which circle contains the "odd one out."​
As players guess correctly, the differences between the sounds—such as loudness or pitch—become smaller, making the task progressively harder. This simple but engaging game focuses on quick decision-making and sharpens the player’s ability to detect subtle differences in sounds. The game’s faster pace offers a distinct, more arcade-like experience compared to the other training games, making it both fun and challenging.
Petal Picker: A Localisation Training Game
Petal Picker is a localization game designed to help players improve their ability to identify sound direction. Inspired by a study that placed speakers around participants at 15-degree intervals, the game places the player in a sunny, cheerful environment where they must guess the direction of an animal based on audio cues.
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At the start, there are only a few petals (directions) to choose from, making the task simpler. As players guess correctly, the number of petals increases, and the tolerance for a correct guess is about 15 degrees either way. Since this type of localization can be challenging, the animal’s location doesn’t change throughout the game. This game offers a gradual, focused approach to sharpening sound localization skills, while maintaining a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.
Tone Tap: A Discrimination and Connection Game
Tone Tap is an auditory discrimination game similar to Odd One Out, where players must identify and act on subtle differences in sound. In Tone Tap, players tap circles that emit different audio cues, such as variations in volume, pitch, or gap detection, and connect the correct ones with a line. As with Odd One Out, the game gets more difficult as players progress—the differences between sounds become smaller, making it increasingly challenging to discriminate between them.
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While both games train similar auditory discrimination skills, the core mechanic of tapping and connecting in Tone Tap is similar enough to Odd One Out that it doesn't offer enough variety. For this reason, I recommend replacing Tone Tap with a different auditory discrimination game that introduces a unique style or mechanic to better diversify the training experience.
To Conclude
We all know it takes a lot to make games, and what I've shared is just scratching the surface of the design work involved. From scientific research to adaptive scaling, every decision was made to balance innovation with player engagement. While I could dive into Miroboard, Figma layouts, and user feedback loops, I hope the projects themselves showcase the thought, care, and complexity behind Eargym’s auditory training games.