The game play is about leading the light rays through the coloured circles towards the square containers. When the light rays hit the square containers – a music loop is triggered. The volume of the music loop is then increasing or decreasing depending on how full the container is.

You can try it out at www.playauditorium.com or you can watch the demo video below:

As an audio designer my focus is players audio perception in interactive game environments. How a player is immersed into the game play and how sounds encourage the player to interact. I know that the topic of game audio is huge. There is not much research on the area and there are still many questions regarding subjects such as:

• Sound engines
• Adaptive music
• Dialogue
• How to avoid repetitions
• Player profiles

At Nordic Game Jam – we do not have the time to create a state-of-the-art First-Person Shooter – we have less than 48 hours. So that is the reason why I have chosen to focus on casual and edutainment games with examples from some of the projects that I have worked on.

This article is divided into 4 parts:

• Immersion & Interaction
• Casual games
• Edutainment
• Conclusion

My main objective is how you can tell a story with few and meaningful sound effects, jingles and music compositions, when you are working with game design and/or technical limitations. For instance if you are working on audio design for interactive TV applications – your technical limitation is the hardware. On the other hand – if you are working on audio design for a PC game for children – your limitation is the game design and the storage medium.

IMMERSION & INTERACTION
Why is game audio interesting? And how does player actually perceive audio?

Audio as a physical event
When we look at the graphic interface – it is a 2-dimensional representation or simulation of a 3D graphic environment, displayed on a flat TV or PC screen. But audio is not a simulation. Audio is in fact the only true 3-dimensional physical event that happens during game play. Audio has the properties of pressure and frequency, as it propagates through air and occupies an expanding volume. So the sound wave travels through air from the headphones or TV monitors to our ears. This physical event makes us react physically by making haptic spasmodic inputs on the controller.

Acoustic spaces
When we talk about audio as a physical event during game play – we also have to talk about acoustic spaces. There are 2 kinds of acoustic or resonating spaces that we perceive when we play games:

• The perception of a real resonating space – which is the physical space that player is placed in – listening to the output from TV or PC monitors.
• The perception of a virtual resonating space – which is the graphical space combined with the sound output from game engine.

It is the union of these two resonating spaces that makes player immerse physically into the virtual game. Meaning that the player is the centre of the gaming event as an immobile figure and s/he is in control of the acoustic space represented on screen.

Audio as a story through references
Audio is not only a physical event. It also gives us information based on our references. So it is audio as a physical event in combination with the referential elements of sound that makes us immerse into the game play.

In for instance First-Person shooters audio is very important because you have to use your audio perception skills to navigate to a certain place or to localise an enemy. As a game player we use audio as a cue to interact during the game play.

Some sounds have ‘alarm’ functions and some sounds have the function of putting us in a certain mood. So sound and music design can contain many elements of information that can be interpreted by the game player – either as something that player has to act upon or something that player has to feel or recognise.

There are many terminologies on the meaning of sound effects and music. But I will go through some of the different functions of sound and music supported by the screenshots and audio examples below.

CASUAL GAMES
Working on limited platforms such as the Set-Top-Box – audio is also important, because you have to tell a story with short and very precise sounds. As an audio designer you have to put a lot of information in a sound file that is less than 1 second in duration.

Another restriction is that the STB can only play one sound at a time. I will also in this article explain the implications of the absence of sound and what this means for players audio experience.

The controllers that players are using on this type of games is a TV remote, where they press arrow buttons and a ‘SELECT’ button to play.

Casual Games – Example 1
In the 1st example – the graphical setting gives us associations to the Wild West. The game play is like ‘Bejeweled’.

The player is “The Gambler” and has to play against different opponents. The intention is to make the opponent lose all his money – so when you make a match with gold bars or silver coins – the opponent loses money.

Gamblers Quest – Audio extract from game play

Sound design on this game is realistic recorded sounds used in a different context:

• Card flop: Executed when navigating on menu, this sound supports players action on screen. It supports the players control of the game
• Bottle toast: Executed when player gets a match
• Cash register – Executed when there is a match with gold bars and the opponent loses money

The jingle is composed imitating piano roll music and gives us instantly references to Western movies and/or silent movies. So the intention of the audio design is to give player a perception of being in a ‘saloon’ in a historical setting from the beginning of the 20th century.

This also means that sounds can give us information on where we on:

• A historical time line: It can give us a clue on whether we are in the past or present
• Location: Based on our references, we know that we are in the USA and not in China

But sound and music design also relies on player’s prior experience – if player has never seen a Western movie before or does not know where USA is, s/he would probably just interpret the sounds as being ‘realistic’ and will maybe not acknowledge the humour in them.

Casual Games – Example 2

Example 2 is from a puzzle game, where the visuals are a futuristic universe. As a player you have to turn some connectors to make the electric spark enter the receptor. When player enters the receptor – the level is complete.

Ben10 – Audio extract from game play

The audio design in this puzzle game is ‘imitated reality’ sounds. We do not know how the future sounds, so we imitate the reality. We make the sounds according to how we think it will sound like in the future.

There is a positive feedback sound, which is executed when the electric spark enters a receptor. The audio has an ascending pitch. The negative feedback sound, which is executed when the electric spark dies, imitates an electric circuit short-cut.

The most important sound is when player is rotating the connectors. The function of this sound is to give player instant feedback on the interaction that is performed on screen. The focus is to tell player that s/he is in control of the game.

This game can give player associations to other science fiction entertainment media, but if the player has seen the original cartoon episode – that this game is based on – then s/he will recognize the style of sound design and appreciate the similarity of the ‘mechanic’ and ‘electric’ sound universe.

Casual Games – Example 3

In this last casual game example the graphical setting is an open sea. The game is a puzzle and as a player you have to navigate to collect corks to get points. When you have collected the message bottle – you have completed the level. The challenge is to avoid dangers such as the pirate ships. This example is from the first level of the game, so I want you to focus on the absence of sound.

Flapjack – Audio extract from game play

All sounds are in cartoon style. The positive feedback sounds are:

• Musical bell: Executed when the adventure bar is full
• Cork: Executed when player picks up a cork. Sound character can be interpreted as realistic, but because it is used in a different context it goes into the group of ‘cartoon’ sounds

The negative feedback sounds are:

• Car horn: Executed when player attempts to go to a place outside the highlighted area. The sound has an alarm function.
• Canon shot: Executed by Pirate ship. The sound has an alarm function as it is the enemy that player has to be aware of and avoid

Jingle is composed using a single accordion instrument. It gives player references to the original cartoon episode or players prior experience from similar ‘sailor’ cartoons, movies or music, where the accordion instrument is used.

But the most interesting part in this audio extract is the long pause before the last sound execution. It is the absence of sound. Silence can sometimes be very effect full in games – like for instance in horror, but in this example it feels a bit tedious.

Basically my point is that it is important to think the sound into the game at a very early stage. Ask questions like:

• What impact is audio going to have on the game player?
• How can we integrate audio in the interaction in the best possible ways?

So it is important to think of audio as a merged part of game design and interaction – and not just an effect.

EDUTAINMENT GAMES
The next 3 examples are from an edutainment game from the Pixeline series developed by Krea Medie. In these examples I would like to explore how you can use music and ambience in 2D graphics and how you can create a spatial depth in the aural perception.

Edutainment – Example 1

The first example is a screenshot with an extract from the background ambience music. The story is about the girl Pixeline who is beamed up to an UFO. From the UFO she will help her friends to explore different parts of the human body – such as the blood veins, the ears, brain, heart and so fort. In this example I would like to focus on how the background music is adding a spatial depth to the 2D graphics.

UFO ambience – Audio extract from background music and sound

The background ambience is a mixture of ‘bleeping’ sounds and music. The intention of the ‘bleeping’ sounds is to create a ‘resonating room’ that supports the many buttons that are present graphically on screen – but also to support the flying mini UFO

My intention with the music was to add a spatial depth to the 2-dimensional graphics. To give listener a perception of an open space – a place with ‘no roof’. So I had to aurally stretch the 2D graphic representation into something that gives player the perception of a deep space. To create that feeling of open space – I used contrasting timbres such as ‘natural’ vs. ‘synthetic’ sounds in the music score.

Bright bell sounds and cymbals with long decay times where also used to create a sense of an ‘open space’. I wrote the composition in low and high frequency notes, and I also used quartal harmony to give the listener a perception of an open tonal direction.

Edutainment – Example 2

In this example Pixeline is going to explore the blood veins in the human body – and the game play is about navigating inside the blood veins and avoid things such as cholesterols.

Music supports the level design with fast and slow tempo:

• When blood veins are wide – music is in high tempo and player can move quickly
  Blood Veins 1
  

• When blood veins are narrow – music is slow and player has to be careful
  Blood Veins 2
  

The water stream sounds in the music score give player the perception of being ’under water’ and a perception of an ’enclosed’ space. There are also synthetic sounds in music score imitating ‘submarine’ and ‘whale’ sounds. This gives player references to action entertainment movies and cartoons. These musical effects also help player to establish a perception of being on an ‘underwater’ mission.

Edutainment – Example 3

This level is about the ear and how we perceive sounds. The game play takes place in a detective agency with 3 characters: the Brain, the Eye and the Ear. These 3 characters have to co-operate by guessing the sounds in the right order. My focus in this audio example is how musical instruments are used as sound effects in the music score.

Spy Game – Audio extract from background music

Music is composed using a harmonic progression that is very common for agent/action movies – such as James Bond or Bourne Identity. The intention is to give player references to these previous entertainment action and suspense movies with elements of a story line that has to be revealed or a puzzle that has to be solved. There is not much animation on the level – so to create a sense of being in an office – I added some percussion effects in music score. There is for instance the ‘brrrrrrr-ding’ sound that imitates an old type writer.

CONCLUSION
So what is the conlusion? We have established that audio is:

• A physical 3-dimensional event
• The physical gate through which player immerse into the virtual environment
• Telling stories through references

We should really think of audio as action. When we make inputs on the controller – we get an instant audio feedback from the game engine – that we again react and act upon through the controller.

Interactive audio design can add those extra details to the game play that can not always be said in words or in graphics. It helps us immerse to the virtual environment through the resonating acoustic spaces but also through the story telling elements that we interpret based on our references from real life or from other entertainment media.

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.

The theme of the computer game competition was ‘Ocean Odyssey’. The challenges for composers were to create different themes and functionalities taking place in an underwater gaming world environment.

The music scores below are composed using string section, orchestral percussion, synthesisers, horn and wood sections. Additional sounds have been mixed with the music score to create an underwater ambience.

Below are the themes – each with their own function during gameplay in an imaginary underwater gaming world environment:

• Ocean Odyssey – Main Theme is the attract music – a 3 minute loop that introduces the underwater world environment. In a computer game this would be the menu music.

• Ocean Odyssey – Ambience is a neutral theme. The function of this 1 minute loop is to create an ambience with no potential danger during game play.

• Ocean Odyssey – Tension + is a 1 minute loop that creates tension and enhances the drama of potential danger during game play.

• Ocean Odyssey – Tension ++ is also a 1 minute loop that enhances the drama of potential danger during gameplay. The idea with a 2nd ‘tension’ theme is that the danger/enemy/situation is different than the above.

Enjoy!

My aim is to develop audio design documents that communicate to the sound designer, composer and the audio programmer.

Audio design documents are usually only used on big budget game developments, but I find them quite important due to the fact that they can be used as ‘to-do’ – ‘to-add’ – ‘to-develop’ documents. Most importantly they be can used as a way to secure production quality and deadlines - while keeping company mile stones in mind.

• UFO_ambience

• Hørespil_spygame

• Kredsløb_1

• Kredsløb_2