MUSIC DESIGN

The in-game music score in BioShock is based on composition techniques inspired from the 20th Century Western classical music. The score is recorded using a live orchestra and according to composer Gary Schyman (from Audio Talk on GDC 2007), the musicians have partly been given the freedom to contribute with their own interpretations during the recording sessions. The music score is written by Gary Schyman, but it has also evolved through experimentation and collaboration with musicians during the recording sessions.

Uploading the game and entering the main menu – I am immediately set in the nostalgic mood of Rapture. The subtle piano sounds when navigating on the main menu create a small melodic piece. The combination of this melody and the mellow ambience sounds in the background enhance game player’s sense of being put in a kind of ‘dream world’.

The underlying music score is used very subtle during action sequences, where player has to battle enemies. Meaning that the action music score is low in volume and varied. The variations work well in the sense that you do not hear the score being repeated continuously when playing the same sequence over and over again.

The background and action music also blends well with the ambience sounds – meaning that there is a clear link between the character of ambience sounds and music score. This helps game player to sense subtle emotional tensions during the whole game play. So when player is confronted with new challenges – the action music is perceived less ‘in your face’.

As I said earlier the music score of Gary Schyman is inspired by composition techniques from 20th Century music composers such as Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Ligeti and Messiaen – just to mention a few. The intention of these composers was to work with atonality to create new music scales, tonal centres, timbres and spatiality in music perception and interpretation. And the reason why these composition techniques work so well in Schyman’s music score, during the in-game battle sequences, is because they help player to establish a perception of tension and ‘chaos’ during game play.

The combination of popular jazz music from the 20th Century combined with the use of a classical live orchestra establishes another dimension in the acoustic ecology of BioShock. The two distinct music genres create a contrast in game players perception – not only in instrumentation, tonality and medium (pure digital live recording vs an old analogue record player) – but also in the in-game narrative. Assuming that player knows or has heard the popular jazz songs from the 20th Century, then s/he might listen to the lyrics during game play. If we assume that s/he is listening to the lyrical content of the songs – then s/he may also be able to acknowledge the re-contextualisation of the lyrics in the in-game narrative that s/he is in, as an active player character. In other words – the popular jazz songs suddenly has a new meaning.

SOUND DESIGN & DIALOGUE

The sound design in BioShock is based on sounds related to real life, while others are interpretations of the  visual reality. One of the SFX that caught my attention as not being either was the SFX for the wooden doors with glass windows that slides up and closes appearing on the level ‘Medical Pavilion’. The audio sounds like a recording of a ‘metal archive drawer’ that slids open and closes. The sound does not correspond to the ‘wooden’ material that the doors seem to be made of – and therefore it caught my attention every time I passed the doors.

The high quality dialogue performance in BioShock has a considerable effect to the overall perception of game play. The use of audio diaries and the dialogues performed by the various Slicer characters make the game more ‘alive’, as they slowly reveal fragments of the story line during game play. This also makes the dialogue serve the purpose of ‘inviting’ the player deeper into the story line by adding a ‘past’ dimension to the narrative – and creating a link between past and present.

After a while – just before halfway through the game – I start noticing the repetitions of the dialogues from the Thuggish, Spider and Leadhead Slicers – and that annoyed me a bit. The first time I noticed the repetitious Slicer dialogues in the game, I thought it had a powerful effect to the narrative that was going to be revealed to me as a player. I thought of the Slicer dialogues as a mean to reveal the fragments of character stories in the game – the characters being ‘mentally disturbed’  and ‘unhappy’ people. But when the repetitions continued without adding more content to the story apart from giving me hint of an alarm cue to prepare myself to kill the Slicer – the repetition then had no further purpose for me. And as a player – repetitions without further purpose – creates a momentum of annoyance.

Another issue that I noticed, was the use of piano-roll jingle at the vending machines. The purpose is to lead players attention to the vending machine, where s/he can buy more bullets or health. It is a ‘happy tune’ and gives player associations to a merry-go-round. For every level the tune is the same and after a while I tried to ignore it. From an audio design perspective – it would have been very obvious to make – for instance – scale variations on this tune. Meaning that for every level player progress to – the tune is slightly varied.

CONCLUSION

The high quality audio design in BioShock is mainly reflected in the music design – the combination of a live orchestra and licensed music – and the way that it is used during game play. The use of audio diaries to reveal the story in fragments serves the purpose of ‘inviting’ the game player to be a part of an emotional story.

It is important to notice that the sound designer Emily Ridgway had an active role in the process of additional story writing. This also means that audio design – on this project – has been a high priority all the way in the development process from pre-production to production.

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.