MUS 442 · Senior Project II — Sound Installation & Multimedia Project
Mind Palace
A sound-centered virtual reality narrative about maladaptive daydreaming, capitalist alienation — and what happens when escape becomes another closed loop.
What is Mind Palace?
A sound-centered Mixed Reality experience for Meta Quest 3S that explores maladaptive daydreaming, capitalist alienation, and creative agency through a circular journey across four interactive scenes.
It begins as a binary contrast — oppressive factory versus boundless playground — but the daydream does not stay innocent. Across a metro platform and a final concert, labor returns as chores, repetition returns as the train cycle, and creative freedom becomes a sequenced loop. In the finale, the musical loop the player builds reveals itself as the factory clock and returns them to the beginning. Sound is not a layer on top of the story; it carries the story.
Four Scenes, One Loop
The same simple gesture — handling a cube — is transformed across four spaces. Each scene reframes what that gesture means: labor, play, chores, and finally a loop that closes the circle.
Scene 1: Reality
The Shift
A dark, oppressive factory where you are reduced to a function.
- Sort red and blue cubes on a conveyor belt using hand tracking
- Rigid quotas and a relentless mechanical clock
- Error sounds punish, success sounds reward — monotony distilled
- After 30 cubes, green anomalies appear — your way out
The Colorful Playground
A surreal space of creative freedom and self-expression.
- 20 colorful cubes — throw them freely, no rules
- Walls react to impacts, painting themselves in vibrant colors
- Each cube emits unique synthesizer sounds on collision
- After enough hits the room collapses — opening onto the sound of the city
Scene 2: Escape
Scene 3: Labor Returns
The Platform
A metro station where the daydream quietly puts you back to work.
- A train arrives, exchanges commuters, departs, and returns — a visible loop
- NPCs wander on a NavMesh, then board and exit on authored paths
- You are cast as a cleaner: collect trash into a cart that follows you
- Benches, lights, rails, PA, and your cleanup all play one spatial score
The Concert / The Loop
You reach the spectacle — then your own composition becomes a clock.
- An outdoor concert with a live band, a crowd, and spatial stems
- Place sound orbs into a twelve-slot radial sequencer
- Each orb replaces the concert with your loop; the crowd turns to you
- The full loop slows, becomes a clock at 9:00, and returns you to the factory
Scene 4: Capture
The Shift
- Dark & oppressive
- Rules & quotas
- Sorting (conformity)
- Fixed environment
The Colorful Playground
- Bright & liberating
- Freedom & creativity
- Throwing (expression)
- Reactive & changeable
The Loop Was the Clock
Mind Palace is circular but not identical. The player escapes the clock, composes a loop — and discovers the loop was the clock all along. The second shift returns slightly faster and detuned, scarred by the journey.
Sound Design
Sound is the project's main narrative system, not a layer on top of it. In the playground each of the five cube colors carries its own synth voice; across the experience, machine recordings, station objects, commuters, and the player's own actions are woven into DSP-synchronized generative scores with pentatonic pitch constraints and Eno-style incommensurate tape loops.
Presentation Board
The full MUS 442 final presentation board — the entire project in a single frame: narrative arc, musical system, and technical detail across all four scenes.
Open full-resolution PDF
Play the Full Journey in Your Browser
No VR headset needed. A 2D adaptation walks you through all four scenes — sort cubes in the factory, paint the playground, clean the metro, then build the loop that becomes a clock.
Play Browser DemoDevelopment Journal
Follow the complete development process — from concept to completion, documented step by step.
Why This Project: Alienation, Daydreaming & VR
Capitalist alienation, maladaptive daydreaming, and surrealism — the concepts that shaped my graduation project and why I chose this path.
First Preparations: Learning Unity, C# & Getting the Quest 3S
After defining the concept, I focused on learning Unity, C#, OpenXR, and working with the Quest 3S.
The Shift Begins: First Prototype
Built the first prototype of the factory scene using conveyor belts and hand tracking on Quest 3S.
Building the Factory: Procedural Room & Atmosphere
Worked on procedural room generation, sorting bins, wall clock, and factory atmosphere.
The Anomaly Breaks Through: Breaking the Cycle
Added the anomaly cube, scoring system, and scene transition. The conceptual core of the project.
The Colorful Playground is Born: Scene 2
Built Scene 2 with 20 colored cubes, color-reactive walls, and a musical sound system.
Sound Design & Project Documentation
Completed the physics-based audio system, storyboard, and academic project reports.
Destructible Walls & True Freedom
Core mechanics complete with destructible walls, ceiling collapse, and scene transitions. Project continues.
Beyond the Playground: The Metro Station
Completed the project with metro station scene, procedural city environment, and elevator transition system.
The Platform: Labor Returns
The final metro scene: the player cleans twenty pieces of trash, the autonomous train and commuter loop turn, and the station itself composes the score.
The Concert and the Loop: The Final Scene
The final scene: hybrid spatial audio, a twelve-slot radial sequencer, and the player's loop turning into a clock at 9:00.
Finalizing Mind Palace: Submission & Deliverables
Mind Palace is complete: Quest polish, the four-scene APK, the 90-second teaser, the headset recording, the final report, and the presentation board.
Full Project Details
Read the complete project documentation — conceptual framework, narrative design, technical implementation.
Read Full DetailsSource Code
Explore the Unity project repository — scripts, prefabs, and the complete codebase.
GitHubBrowser Demo
Play a simplified 2D adaptation of the experience directly in your browser.
Play Browser Demo