Archive for the 'Audio Implementation' Category

Audio Design Project: Abronium Party – released for XBox Community Game

Published on Monday, May 18, 2009 in Audio Implementation, Game Audio, Games and SFX. 0 Comments

Abronium Party is developed for the XBox360 platform. I worked on the project as audio designer developing ambience, weapon sounds, feedback sounds and jingles.

About the game
Abronium is a party game with up to 16 players and you can play five different game modes such as soccer, race, fetch, capture the flag or chase. The graphical setting is a science fiction universe on the planet of Abronium.

Audio Design
The graphical environment of the planet Abronium gives player associations to a cartoon science fiction environment. I decided that the sound design had to be a mixture of synthesised, natural and analogue mechanical sounds. The whole audio design for the weapons, feedback and jingles are inspired from science fiction and action cartoons such as Ben10 and Secret Saturdays. The sounds were implemented using XACT.

One of the things that can be surprising during the work proces for interactive media is that you might have to cut out or simplify some sounds, so it does not create ‘annoyance’ during game play. When I – for instance – created the sound for the rope gun, I designed separate variations for when player did the following actions: release, pull out and pull back. But because it was someting that player was going to do continuously – I decided that there was only going to be one sound that was going to support players interaction with the ‘rope gun’. Below you can see some ingame trailers:

Abronium Party Ingame 1:

Abronium Party Ingame 2:

Abronium Party Ingame 3:

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Game Audio: Music & Game Play

Published on Monday, April 27, 2009 in Audio Implementation, Game Audio, Games, Inspirations, Music and SFX. 0 Comments

Check out this trailer! It is a new game developed for the iPhone with an interesting music and game play interaction:

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Audio Design Project: Project Horror

Published on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 in Audio Implementation, Game Audio, Games, Music, SFX and Theory. 0 Comments

Participated as audio designer for a team of postgraduate students at IT University, Copenhagen.

The postgraduate thesis was an examination of game players reaction on ‘horror’ effects used in computer games. First part of the project was to develop a level, where player navigates through empty school buildings and investigates the rooms. The player character is locked inside the school buildings and has to find a key to escape. Second part of the project was to test the level design on a group of experienced and inexperienced game players.

I was assigned to first part of the project being responsible for sound and ambience creation on the game project.

To see and hear the result – please click on the video below:

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Game Audio: Interviews with programmers, voice actor & audio director

Published on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 in Audio Implementation, Audio Software & Hardware, Game Audio, Games, Inspirations, Music and SFX. 0 Comments

This is an interesting broadcast on game audio and why it is so important in games. The broadcast contains interviews with programmers, a really good voice actor and audio director. The interesting stuff starts from around 02:46 – Enjoy!

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Game Audio: The Blindfold Test

Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 in Audio Implementation, Game Audio, Games, Inspirations, Music, SFX and Theory. 0 Comments

In my previous post I discussed the importance of setting up thorough test procedures for audio testing. BUT the challenge of interactive audio design is how well the music design enhances the drama perceived by game player.

Although computer games is a visual media – it might be necessary to perform an audio test without visuals when considering the actual music design. Some of the most important aspects of music design are:

  • How well the music themes enhance the drama perceived by player
  • Whether more variations – or even silence – would be needed
  • How the dynamic levels are compared to sound design and dialog

My idea for audio testing the relationship between music, sound design and dialogue is the blindfold test.

The blindfold test would require two games testers – QA1 and QA2:

Part 1:

  • QA1 is blindfolded and wearing headphones connected to the console, where game play is going to be performed
  • QA2 plays through a level – music and sound effects are turned on
  • QA1 listens to the game play QA2 is performing.

This procedure can be used to find out how well the musical context and sound effects correspond to the gaming experience – meaning the players experience of drama, emotion and ‘inner visual’ experience.

Part 2:

  • QA1 plays the same level without blindfold and headphones – music and sound effects are turned off
  • QA1 plays the same level without blindfold but with headphones – music and sound effects are turned on

Part 3:

  • QA1 makes a comparison of all 3 tests.

Comparing the 3 tests would be a way to find out how well the musical context and sound effects correspond to the graphic context.

The blindfold test can not stand alone as a method to test the music design, but can be used as a support to the audio testing procedures*. Developing and optimizing test procedures is one of the important steps towards better audio design in future game development.

*See post ‘Game Audio: Audio Testing’

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