Game Development, Uncategorized

Sound Design

Jotun

How does the audio aesthetic support the visual aesthetic?

My favourite audio aesthetic in Jotun is the icelandic voice-overs. The words immerse you into a norse-fantasy world and surrounds you with magic and drama.

Pixel Audio discuss in detail how originally they were inspired by norse mythology but then found the game suited a more epic story-telling musical composition insired by classical disney adventures and animations.

Are there any particular sound effects that stand out?

Again, the icelandic voice-overs stand out but also the way the music syncs with game play.

How is audio used to communicate gameplay and give the player feedback?

Music and sound effects form part of the level design, you can use music as well as visual cue’s to predict the movement of a boss or the turn in an environmental puzzle. In one of the first levels you hide behind a rock to shelter from periodic blizzrads. The music warns you of the next blizzard and sub-coinciously the way you play becomes one with the music.

How often is music played – all the time, or only at key moments?

All the time, at key moments the music is louder.

Sound Design in Phorkys

To start, identify all the events and actions within your game, which you feel should have an associated sound. It may be best to make a note of the required sound effects in a spreadsheet. For each sound, define what triggers it to play, how you think it should sound, and how many variations of the sound you need. Source or record the sounds you need. You can use the mic on your smartphone, free sources such as https://freesound.org/ (Links to an external site.) or paid libraries (Falmouth University 2020)

I found Desohll’s – Bleak Emptiness Revealed (2008) music in Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. The musical piece is just under an hour long and creates a lonely but beautiful atmosphere.

Stretch goals for Sound Design

Harmonic xylophone (or maybe the triangle) sounds to play as you swim through safe environment features like kelp, seaweed and sea anemone and so on.

Clashing harsh xylophone (or triangle) sounds if you accidentally swim into harmful environement features like pollution, chemical spills, silt and so on.

Other Sounds that may be useful

Edit your sounds to create the desired final result – this could mean trimming the starts and ends from each sound, speeding sounds up, slowing them down, filtering them and combining them.

Triangle sound

Finally, implement the sounds within your game engine. This requires you to import them, configure them within the engine, and setup scripts to trigger them at the appropriate time.

Please ignore Phorkys/Pen’s avatars (they look terrible), they are there as an example and will change.

Reflection

Discussion of your understanding of the theories and concepts, based on the materials, activities and readings, with appropriate references.

What you learned in the challenge activities and from your peers, and if your thoughts have changed since.

Any obstacles you encountered and how you overcame or are overcoming them.

References

DESOHLL. 2008. Desohll- Bleak Emptiness Revealed [Treetrunk070]. Available at: http://archive.org/details/Bleak_Emptiness_Revealed [accessed 29 Mar 2021].

‘Freesound – Freesound’. 2021. [online]. Available at: https://freesound.org/ [accessed 29 Mar 2021].

‘Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine’. 2021. [online]. Available at: https://archive.org/ [accessed 29 Mar 2021].

MARCHANT, Sarah and Sarah MARCHANT. 2015. ‘Impressing the Gods Is as Challenging as It Sounds — Jotun Review’. GAMING TREND [online]. Available at: https://gamingtrend.com/feature/reviews/jotun-review/ [accessed 24 Mar 2021].

Published by Sarah