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:

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:

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’

I believe it is important to make focused testing on audio design and audio implementation. Games testers with a keen interest and ‘ear’ for audio and music should focus on how well the musical context and sound design work in game.

There are many questions to consider when testing audio design. Apart from testing on many different hardwares and systems – it is important to prepare a thorough testprocedure for the actual in-game audio.

In my experience the testprocedure can roughly be divided into 5 categories for each scene and level:

1. Music
2. Sound Design
   
3. Ambience
   
4. Dialogue
   
5. System performance

The above categories 1-4 are then extended with subcategories – examples of subcategories are:

• Characters
• Enemies
• UI sounds
• Feedback sounds
  
• HUD sounds
  
• Collision sounds for each character, enemy and etc
• Interactive objects
• Idle sounds for each character, enemy and etc
• Gadgets
• Weapons
  

For each sound effect, music theme, ambience and dialogue – the following parameters need to be tested:

• Volume
• Execution
• Position
• Timing
• Variations

As a games tester it is important to listen for problems like: delay, distortion, noise, phase, compression problems, clipping, echo, missing sounds, dynamics and latency.

System performance, which is mentioned above as category 5, requires a different setup of testprocedures, which will need a seperate discussion. BUT some of the questions that are important having in mind, in general regarding audio testing of hardware, are according to Alexander Brandon*:

• CPU performance:
  • Too many audio files playing simultaneously?
    
  • Sluggish performance?
    
  • Need to find a more reliable audio file format?
    
  • Optimisation of code?

• Limits testing – finding the limits of audio design and system:
  • How many audio files can be played at the same time?
  • What if the same audio file is played by multiple sources simultaneously?
  • What if audio is turned off and on again?

• Relevancy:
  • Which areas are important to focus on from a programming point of view?
  • Will the coding make an aesthetic difference for game play?
    
  • Will the coding make a qualitative difference for game play?

The above categories and subcategories can be extended, depending on the project and technology used in development.

The testprocedures above cover most areas of audio design, but they are tested with visuals. A different approach will be needed to test the actual music design – meaning the relationship between music, sound design and dialogue. A solution to testing the music design is the blindfold testing, which will be covered in my next post.

Audio testing is an area that definitely needs to be taken seriously when improving interactive audio design and audio quality in games. The development team should hear to the ‘noise’ in the QA Department!

My next post will be on the blindfold test – a procedure to test the relationship between music, sound design and dialogue.

*See posts ‘Game Audio: Interactive Audio Design’ & ‘Game Audio: Improving Interactive Audio In Games’

As Alexander Brandon points out in the article series ‘Aural Fixation’, published on previous issues of Game Developers Magazine – some of the methods to overcome the challenges in interactive audio design are to use minimal themes and ambient tracks as a part of the music design.

Here is a summary on some of the methods:

• Minimal themes: Minor musical themes that indicate that the player is closer to a ‘treasure’ or an ‘enemy’. For instance if the game player meets a peaceful character – the music can indicate a ‘neutral’ emotional feeling. If the player then meets an enemy, who is slightly dangerous, but not lethal – then the music could indicate a ’small tension’. The music score can then be developed into different types of situations like: neutral, low tension, small tension and high tension.
• Ambient tracks: A room can have a ‘feeling’. When listening to ambient music tracks you can choose whether you want to listen ‘actively’ or ‘passively’. It can give a virtual environment character and thereby add a feeling to the visual gaming experience. An ambient soundtrack can also blend with the environmental sound design.
• More than one soundtrack: A solution to avoid repetitiveness could be the use of more than one soundtrack. This could be done by composing variations to each music or ambience piece that could change over time. Meaning that, if the player has been on the same sequence more than 10 minutes the music could slowly transform into a new piece. But this issue can be discussed much further – In my own experience the music should evolve into a different piece after only 5 minutes.
• Interactive music scoring: Difficult part in interactive music is to enhance the perceived drama of game player. A solution to this could be to trigger new themes, instruments and scales every time the player interacts with an asset that is going to have an importance for the players mission.
• Silence: Not being afraid of using ’silence’ – Silence meaning the use of pure sound effects during game play. This can be a very powerful technique.
• Close acoustic link: Create a close link between the graphics and the perceived acoustics of audio.
• Audio testing: Focused game testing on interactive audio design and audio implementation. Games testers with a keen interest and ‘ear’ for audio and music should focus on how well the musical context and sound effects work in game.

The above methods require a close collaboration with audio programmers and more innovative ways of audio integration. It is especially important to consider the newest audio technologies in the fields of:

• 3D audio positioning
• DSP
• Filtering
• Propagation simulation
• Reverberation simulation

To improve interactive audio design in games it is also crucial to exceed the existing implementation options by integrating other game engines such as:

• Physics
• Geometry
• AI

Interactive music scoring and integrating the methods mentioned are some of the solutions to improve game players audio experience. BUT it is also of great importance to implement the newest audio technology and thereby create an exceptional gaming experience for player.

My next post will be on audio testing and test procedures.

Audio – whether it be music, sound effects or dialogue – adds the extra dimension to the visual user interface. In fact when audio in a game is bad – we notice it. When audio during gameplay is exceptionally good – we also notice it!

I would like to refer to Alexander Brandon’s article series in ‘Aural Fixation’, published on previous issues of Game Developers Magazine.

One of the things that Alexander Brandon points out is that music should not always be a prerequisite in games. He writes that some game environments would infact benefit from the use of only sound effects depending on the game play and story.

Large budget games that give the player an artistic experience beyond reality, should include soundtracks, that deliver sonically interesting music that corresponds to the drama enhanced by player.

BUT the greatest challenge of audio design in games is that most game players switch of the music during game play. Regarding this issue – two questions can be asked

• Is the player ‘bored’ with the soundtrack after a while?
• Is the music not corresponding accordingly to game play and story line?
• Is the soundtrack too repetitive?

In most cases: yes. Reptition is one of the greatest challenges in games. Brandon points out some of the ways to overcome the problems of repetition in music design:

• Composition of variations to each music or ambience piece that could change over time. Meaning that, if the player has been on the same sequence more than 10 minutes the music could slowly transform into a new piece.
• Implement a more interactive music design – for instance by triggering new themes, instruments and scales every time the player interacts with an asset that is going to have an importance for players mission.
• Compose minimal themes that indicate that the player is closer to a ‘treasure’ or an ‘enemy’ – just like in movies, where the characters have themes that indicate their personality – a very famous one: Darth Vader!

To be able to implement the above – several factors have to be considered:

1. The audio design team should be involved at an early stage of game development
2. Close collaboration with audio programmers to implement the newest audio technologies and thereby developing the audio engine much further

My next post is a summary on methods to improve interactive audio design.