Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a force of nature? "Mach" puts you in the shoes of a sound wave named Mach who needs to go places. The game is essentially a mission-based action-puzzler played in third-person view. Your job is to get Mach from one end of the environment to the other.

Easy, right? Not exactly, because these stages have all sorts of hazards for you. Let's say that Mach has to get from one street corner to the other in New York City. Your amplitude (life meter, basically) is steadily going down as you travel forward, and noise from all the people and cars threatens to drown you out before you reach your destination. Luckily, there are some tools at your disposal. You can enter into hotter pockets of air so that you travel faster, dodge some of the loud noises, etc. Stages will be designed so that flying straight at the goal just won't cut it. You'll have to be observant and creative to figure out the best path.

Basic Features:

- Ability to turn and pitch somewhat, although movement is always forward.

- Visible hot and cold air pockets, which affect your speed. (Hot air is more energetic and therefore faster, cold air is

more stable and therefore slower.)

- Visible noise that can drown you out (drain your amplitude). Noise is the "bad guy" that you have to avoid.

- Strategies depend on several factors. Hot air speeds you up, saving valuable amplitude (which is constantly decreasing over time). Cold air slows you down, but allows you to turn more easily. Noise is dangerous, but taking a path through it might save you a lot of time.

- Training mode takes you through some easy environments and teaches you the basics of the game.

Extra Goodies:

- Real-life objects in the environment can help or hinder you. Example: fly into a walkie talkie to be teleported across great

distances, but watch out for window curtains and other materials that absorb sound.

- When you successfully complete a stage, you (the player) get to hear what sound was being transported. These would tend to be very funny. ;-)

- There's a scoring system based on your amplitude when you finish the stage. Get higher scores by looking for creative strategies and finding objects to help you out!

- Open design of environments means there are always multiple ways to win, though some may be better than others.

- Level editor lets you select the size of your environment and then set up buildings, people, objects, hot/cold pockets, and noise wherever you like.

- Online capability allows for uploading high scores and downloading custom environments from other players and extra

stages from the developer.

Jonathan says: I've had this idea for a while now, and now it's finally fleshed out enough to be a Dream Game. It'd take a great developer to pull "Mach" off...there are some tough design issues to work out, and a solid framerate would be absolutely necessary to immerse the player. I wish I could incorporate some kind of multiplayer, but I don't think it would work very well with this type of game.

TYP says: I have another gameplay suggestion (you may have thought of it):

- Amplifiers: various forms. They will increase your amplitude, but will degrade the sound quality. Therefore, Amplifiers can only be used 2 times--a third time would make the sound "too hard to hear," and you would die.

Jonathan says: Great idea! I'd like to see some amplifying objects built into the environment in not-so-obvious ways...like going through a tunnel or dipping into a swimming pool. Also, thanks to Peter Cross for pointing out that, oddly enough, sound travels faster through hot air and slower through cold air. See kids, pay attention in Physics class and you can design better games. ;-)