Exp17

Dump of all cards' pages (version 2.0).

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This is mainly a (giant) page to ease deck-wide checks in maintenance time. It is a dump of all individual cards' pages.
If you got here not wittingly you will probably prefer to go to the Deck page, and then navigate through the individual card pages.

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Sound Design in Games

Sound Design in Games, x=23423423

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Achievement

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

Synopsis

Signalling something positive.

Relationships

Context:
Awareness , Emotional Script .
Contrasts with:
Failure .

Description

Achievement is arguably the most widely explored use of sound in video games, in all times. It is used to signal virtually all positive happenings during gameplay, such as elemental accomplishments (gathering collectibles, picking power-ups, defeating regular opponents, ...), intermediate success (reaching a checkpoint, unlocking some feature, defeating a boss, ...), collateral achievements (conquering a bonus, earning a trophy, ...), completing the game, etc.

Sounds of Achievement are, to start with, a matter of Awareness, in the sense that they signal a happening, clarifying its interest. Additionally, they have impact in the overall Emotional Script, in the sense that they reward and highlight the player's behaviour.

Considering the potential recurrence of some Achievements along the game experience, they ought to be carefully designed. They are usually short, though the duration may be adapted to the magnitude of the accomplishment.

Since the nature of the Achievement is often abstract, Sound Effects or Music snippets are a common option. In the case of events involving items whose manipulation has an audible Foley (e.g., picking a sack of coins), a sound derived from it may convey a more direct messaging. Other approaches, including diegetic and non-diegetic Dialogue, have been explored as well.

Perhaps the hardest challenge for a sound designer is to ensure (with a certain level of confidence) that a particular sound stimulus will indeed be perceived as "positive".

Sounds of Achievement contrast with those of Failure, which convey the opposite semantics.

Examples

Tomb Raider Underworld:

Tetris: In this implementation (iPhone) a vocal expression "single", "double", "triple", ... is also used.

Ice Age 3:

[show less examples...]

Angry Birds: A case of diegetic interpretation of the success (having the PC celebrating themselves), concluded with a rewarding Music snippet.

Papa Sangre:

Patapon:

LocoRoco:

Peggle:

Sonic the Hedgehog:

Aquaria:

The Path:

Spore Origins:

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Acoustic Ecology

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

Synopsis

Designing sound in a holistic way, as influenced by the discipline of Acoustic Ecology.

Relationships

Contexts:
Aesthetics , Ambiance , Foley , Sound Effects , Music , Dialogue , Foley Music , Diegetic Music , Chitchat , Character Soundprint , Identification .

Description

This card carries the most influential concept inherent to the conception of the whole set of cards in the deck. It may not be very specific in suggesting explorations during sound design but it states a crucial mindset that ought to be present when considering other cards. The Acoustic Ecology can be thought of as the whole set of sounds that are heard during the game. The reason why it is so important to design all sounds as an “ecology” is that sounds have relationships that need to be managed appropriately, in a holistic way. Simply superimposing the sounds from the several Sound Layers is not adequate. To start with, sounds related to entities and events that in turn are related among themselves. But not less importantly, the reverse also applies – the sources of those sounds should also shape their relations as a consequence of the characteristics of their own acoustic expressions, as it happens in a natural ecology [pending:[REF]]. More, in addition to timings, turns, tones and relative strengths, there is also the dimension of coherence. Some games extend the Acoustic Ecology to components other than the gameplay (and Cutscenes when they exist). Namely, Title Screens and Menus may be coherent and integrated – in acoustic terms – with the Acoustic Ecology experienced during gameplay.

Examples

Prototype

Half-Life 2:

InFamous:

Crysis:

[show less examples...]

Grand Theft Auto IV:

Red Dead Redemption:

Patapon:

Assassin's Creed:

Katamari Forever:

Papa Sangre:

Additional Comments

Coherence in the Acoustic Ecology in the subsequent phases of development

Coherence in the Acoustic Ecology is a concern that needs to be thoughtfully transmitted and carried to the implementation phases of sound in the game. We are not dealing with implementation aspects in the scope of these design patterns but we consider that, in this particular case, a remark is opportune. One bottleneck to the integration of sounds in games is the availability of sound files and the scarce ability to produce them from scratch. Off-the-shelf sound libraries are often too expensive or otherwise limited, considering the budget of small projects. Consequently developers are often challenged with the need to combine sounds from sparse origins that are highly incompatibly in aesthetics and acoustic terms (disparate levels of background noise, reverberation, etc.). In turn this may lead to a final result that fails in terms of overall coherency, regardless of the merit of the sound design that may have preceded this phase.

On the concept of Acoustic Ecology

[pending]

External Resources

• Book: "The Acoustic Ecology of the First-Person Shooter" by Mark Grimshaw
• About the Acoustic Ecology in Half-Life 2
• Wrightson, K. An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology. Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, I (I, Spring 2000). 10-13, (2000).
• Other relevant AE Bibliography [pending]

References

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