Audio Production Essay for Unit 5

Audio is an important factor to consider when creating a video game experience, and in a video game, audio can be just as important as visuals for both emotional and practical impacts. Games that are heavily influenced by emotional effects caused by music and sounds are often found under the genres of either horror or action-packed games, while games that focus on a more competitive environment can make use of audio for aiding situational awareness. Some games make use of the audio for both emotional and practical impacts, for instance, games whose central focus is around music.

Sound has been a core element of games since the earliest classics. A prime example is the iconic music and sound effects from games such as Super Mario Bros. which make exceptional use of different techniques; one that sticks out is the short sequence when the player completes a level, which uses a quick string of notes used to create a triumphant feeling. Such a sequence is known as a pentatonic sequence, which can arguably blur the line between music and sound effects, as they often resemble a short fanfare.

Games for consoles as early as the Atari right to the Nintendo DS make use of an older, yet versatile sound format called Midi files, which instead of storing music and sound effects as singular audio files, store the sound data as individual notes and “sound fonts”. This is because storing sound files normally in traditional modern formats (such as .mp3 or .wav) would often take up too much space on a game cartridge or disk. Thus, many game developers would use .midi formats instead of using compressed audio files, allowing for sound quality comparable to uncompressed sound files while using as little data as possible. Because the cost of digital storage is much lower compared to when older games were conceived, and because disks and cartridges have a much higher capacity, Midi files are used less often in recent titles. Here is an example of emotional impact using audio: Darkest Dungeon is a turn-based dungeon crawler game with a focus on balancing the protagonists’ physical and mental states. Alongside the traditional health bars, characters also have stress bars which affect them in different ways. One of the factors that affects this is the light meter; when the party’s torchlight dims, enemies become stronger and the party becomes more easily affected by stress. The game’s music is reminiscent of the horror genre, and although this subverts the game’s actual genre of turn-based combat, it fits the game’s dark fantasy aesthetic appreciably. Examples of how music is used to great effect in the game:

• Adaptive music is used in Darkest Dungeon. Each area of the game has its own music tracks and ambient noise that gets more intense as the light dims.

• When the light dims out of combat, ambient noise gets more intense, including monsters growling and bushes rustling in the background. This is an example of non-linear sound and Foley sound.

• Once the player finishes a quest and returns home, the music that plays opens with a pentatonic sequence.

• One prominent example of adaptive music is during the boss fight versus the Siren, who actually sings along with the music until killed.

• Each area of the game has its own unique track that has a slightly different theme:

• The Ruins music track has a surplus of chanting and heavy percussion which fits the theme of the undead enemies.

• The music heard in the Warrens fits the theme of pestilence and disease in abundance in the area due to its slow tempo.

• In the Cove, the music reflects the soothing yet dangerous aquatic environment.

• In the final area of the game, the Darkest Dungeon, the music heard outside of combat makes effective use of Shepard tones, which are auditory illusions that sound as if they are constantly ascending or descending in pitch, but are monotone in reality. This creates a constant feeling of rising tension.

A more competitive use for audio in games can be found in the first-person shooter, Overwatch. The game’s HUD has many subtle sound effects used to communicate with players when certain events happen, such as abilities becoming available, control point captures, and when the player scores kills or assists. Environmental sound is taken into account as well, to aid players in situational awareness; most of the characters have distinct footsteps which can be heard from a considerable distance, and enemy footsteps are much louder than allies’. This greatly enhances the game’s potential on the competitive scene. As such, the game’s audio is very comprehensive, which makes the game much more accessible.

In addition, Overwatch makes great use of character voice lines to convey events. The most prominent example is when characters use their ultimate abilities, which when used can potentially turn the tide of battle. Each character has a unique voice line when using these abilities, most of which are significantly louder than any other sound in the game, often allowing players to hear them even when they are on opposite ends of a map. In addition, these voice lines differ depending on whether an ultimate ability is used by an ally or enemy: voice lines are often in the character’s native language instead of English when said character is an enemy. Combine this with the fact that these voice lines are very memorable and this makes for a competent method of communicating the flow of battle, even when a player is out of combat.