I’ve been secretly working on a game concept for nearly 3 years. It’s called Aurisona and I’m truly excited to announce that I’ve officially begun development.

What is Aurisona?

A Meditative Journey Through Sound and Nature

Aurisona is a peaceful, immersive exploration game where players walk a serene hiking path through beautifully rendered natural environments. From tranquil forests at dusk to babbling brooks, crackling campfires, and hidden clearings, every step is alive with the subtle, realistic sounds of nature—presented in high-fidelity, binaural spatial audio.

Whether experienced in VR, on a mobile device with headphones, or on PC, Aurisona is designed as an ambient experience you can truly feel. There’s no combat, and no objectives… just the freedom to wander, listen, breathe, and be present in the moment.

Aurisona is uniquely positioned to serve:

• Players with anxiety, sensory needs, or burnout,
• Users with limited mobility or chronic illness,
• Residents in care facilities, hospitals, or assisted living,
• Mindfulness practitioners and their patients,
• Listeners who simply enjoy the peaceful sounds of nature while working, sleeping, or going about their daily tasks.

Aurisona’s Visual Experience

Aurisona is stunning. I’m working hard to make it as photorealistic as possible. Even the gameplay mechanics are designed from the ground up to be entirely organic. Having never played Aurisona before, any player with any technical skill level (or none at all) will be able to navigate with ease.

Aurisona’s Auditory Experience

When you go for a nature walk in the real world, you hear birds all around you, crickets, a gentle breeze in the leaves of tall trees. You don’t hear it the same as a traditional stereo audio recording: The sounds are all around you. That’s what truly sets Aurisona apart: Using fully-immersive binaural audio technology, the sounds of nature while you navigate Aurisona are everywhere, surrounding you. Close your eyes and you feel as if you’re there.

Bask in Nature

Hike the trail in Aurisona and find a spot along the path that offers the soundscape you are looking for. Rest there and enjoy the sounds of nature presented in fully-immersive 3D sound. Blank your device screen and listen as long as you like.

The Early Days

While sitting on my deck one gorgeous summer day in 2022, overlooking our forest, I began to contemplate how I wished I could enjoy that moment all year round. How I wished I could eliminate the sound of the speeding cars on the nearby thruway, and how I wanted to just live in that point in time for as long as possible, with the sounds of songbirds, cicadas and playful squirrels calming my stressed mind.

It was there and then that I began to consider how I might combine what I’ve learned about photorealistic game development while producing VR-based episodes of Category5 Technology TV, with my passion for recording binaural nature sounds.

I almost immediately started recording soundbites. The very first was a lone cricket who was making a lot of noise outside my front window, seemingly performing for me. He was sitting still on the stone patio at my front door, calling out all on his own. So I setup my recording rig (an H4N at that time) and recorded him for about 30 minutes.

That recording sat on my SD card for a year.

I planned the game mechanics, sketched out some ideas, and studied binaural audio techniques, Unreal Engine Blueprints related to spatial audio, and ultimately created the Category5 Matrix spoof as a testing ground, where, in the fly over that occurs after the camera transitions into the vintage TV set, you can hear my first-ever in-engine binaural soundscape. If you listen to that clip with headphones, you’ll notice a lot of elements surrounding you. That was an early test of the techniques I had been learning, to prepare me for the inevitable development of Aurisona.

On August 23, 2023, I imported the cricket audio file, sliced up the recording into dozens of individual chirps, and built the first test environment for Aurisona: A chair in virtual space, surrounded by crickets. The experience was incredible.

Nearly two more years of planning, designing the game mechanics, layout and backend on paper, and here we are: June 11, 2025.

What’s in a Name

Aurisona is a constructed word derived from the Latin auris (meaning “ear”) and sonare (“to sound” or “resound”), suggesting a resonant, auditory experience intended for listening and immersion. Aurisona is a game by Robbie Ferguson (proprietor, Category5 TV Network), designed to transport players into richly detailed natural environments through the power of spatial audio. The game invites users to explore peaceful biomes, discover ambient soundscapes, and connect with others through shared moments of virtual nature.

Aurisona game development has begun!