7. Audio Design

Tasks

List and describe required audio assets

Audio elements are an essential component of your video game. There are generally three different kinds of audio assets: music/atmospheric sounds, sound effects, and voice recordings. Some considerations for each of these audio asset types are given below.

• Music and atmospheric sounds contribute to the overall feeling and mood of your game. These sounds generally play in the background. When choosing these sounds, consider what you want players to feel at various points in the game. If you have created a visual mood board (see Module 6), you should refer to it when considering music and atmospheric sounds.

• Sound effects are generally played in response to players’ actions, or to events that occur the game. Sound effects are particularly important because they help communicate to players what effect their actions have on gameplay. It can be useful to consider player actions in terms of the overall impact they have on the game, and to match sound effects accordingly. The impact value of a sound effect can vary depending on many factors, like how loudly it is played, its pitch (high or low), its duration, and whether it is made more complex or interesting through added audio effects. For example, digital reverberation (an audio effect which adds a layer of echoing to a sound) could be added to a sound effect for a special or important action, like using a powerup. But a sound effect for a simple and routine player action, like moving, shouldn’t have such a high impact value, and might benefit from being played more quietly.

• Voice recordings are similar to sound effects, but are used when the game story requires speech or narration. Voice recordings should match – and help build – the characters that they describe.

It can be helpful to describe what audio elements you think you will need before you attempt to record or create them. You can use the Audio asset list (senior) to do this.

Begin building a library of audio elements

Once you have some idea of what audio elements are required, you can begin to source or record some audio assets. You should keep all your audio elements in one place.

Remember that the STEM VGC rules state that ‘at a minimum, we expect that the main characters and sounds, important tools and obstacles, as well as primary backgrounds are the student’s original work.’

You can record your own audio elements with a device such as a smartphone or microphone – this is referred to as ‘Foley’. Foley elements can be very effective because you have complete control over the recorded sound, can take many different recordings, and can tweak what you are recording to achieve the effect you want. When recording Foley, try to think creatively. The best sounds don’t necessarily come from corresponding actions in real life. For example, many sounds used for rain in video games are actually recorded Foley samples of bacon frying!

For less important sound elements, or for placeholder sounds in your prototype that you intend to replace, consider using free assets.

There are many websites and tools that offer free music and sound effects, such as Zapsplat, Freesound and Pixabay.

You can also use free assets as the basis for creating your own sounds.

It can be helpful when building a library of audio elements to do the following:

• Find multiple different audio assets (e.g. several different options for a sound effect)

• Add any audio elements you locate which you think fit the tone or style of your game, but which you can’t see a use for yet (it can be helpful to refer back to these later in development).

Modify and edit audio assets

To achieve the right effect for your audio assets, you may need to adjust or combine audio elements. For example, you might want a sound effect to sound more impactful, which could be achieved by making it deeper or adding audio effects to it. Or, you may want to combine several sounds together to create a new sound effect.

You can use sound editing programs like Audacity or GarageBand to do this. Note that any uncopyrighted sounds which you modify sufficiently can be considered your own work.

As with creating visuals, you should avoid doing this step early in the game development process. Editing audio can be time consuming, and you should try to ensure that any time you spend perfecting audio assets is not wasted. Wait until your game is sufficiently developed before devoting time to editing and shaping sound effects.