Difference between revisions of "Grunts"

Revision as of 23:04, 16 August 2011

	The card's front face	The card's back face

Synopsis

Relationships

Many contexts, including:
Character Soundprint , Awareness , Ouch! , Shout and Yell , Emotional Script , Narrative , Signature , ....
May Relate to:
Breath , Footsteps .
Compromises with:
Stealth .
Makes use of:
Foley , Dialogue .

Description

Grunts are the second most commonly used ingredient in of the Character Soundprint, following Footsteps.

Grunts effectively convey a wide range of messages, evidencing effort, attesting that a certain type of action is potentially damaging, notifying actual damage (see Ouch! for that particular exploration), conferring liveness to the character (that otherwise may be mute during all the game), conveying short messages (e.g. 'Uh? Hmm...'), accompanying the Engagement in a fighting (battle cry, kiai, as used in real martial arts), etc. Grunts also integrate some of the solutions to implement the Awareness for proximity and alert status of opponents.

In all cases, Grunts contribute to the Awareness for some aspect of the game, in a diegetic way that maps the into the event into the Emotional Script.

It may also be an effective surrogate for Dialogue, avoiding more complex Voice Acting and possibly Dubbing.

Examples

Lara Croft's Grunts in Tomb Raider, illustrating her efforts, are one of the Signatures of the game. That is also de case in Ace Age 3 where Grunts consistently reveal the variations in the emotional state of Scratch.

Tomb Raider Underworld: Lara's grunts are one of the game Signatures and they assert the difficulty to the movements performed

Mirror's Edge:

Ice Age 3: Scratch's grunts are a constant during all game. They map into the Emotional Script the nature of each particular circumstance.

Papa Sangre: A grunt (accompanied by a subtle Sound Effect of Failure) reveal that the PC tripped.

Ico:

Ocarina of Time:

Shadow of the Colossus: Despite the distance to the character and all the other sounds that, objectively, would conceal the character's Grunts, they are still heard, augmenting considerably the perception of the movements and explaining the difficulty in maneuvering.

External Resources

• The relation between grunting and physical performance has been discussed in other domains. One notorious case is professional tennis. [pending: ref].
• Kiay in martal arts.