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Ambient Track
The ambient tracks for the game would have one primary role which is to ensure that at all times a strong atmosphere and tone runs throughout the game. The purpose of this part of the sound design isn't go convey practical information to the player, but rather to enforce the mood and theme at all times, which in our case is dread, terror and anxiety.
Aspects to Convey and Place in the Soundtrack
The Thinking City is totally devoid of human life, but not devoid of movement, not devoid of "life". The city must feel as though it itself is alive, that the player is treading on ground that doesn't belong to them.
The city's walls are filled with ever turning, ever-shifting gears, a low rumble mixed with strange synthetic whirrings. One thing to keep in mind however, is that three aspects that are key from an immersive point of view in sound design when it comes to horror games are; timing, volume, and source. (Toprac et Al. 2010)
Volume is one of the key elements when you really want a sound to scare someone, but we can't simply turn up everything, that's not going to work, players will simply turn the game down. But instead by keeping the ambient track of the game to a lower volume, it allows some of the more prominent, more strikingly sinister sounds to shine (such as the voice lines).
Elements
The ambient track is comprised of a few main elements. They are;
- The gears (Initially a sample)
- The rumbling (Made from scratch using synthesis with Pure Data)
- The musical notes (Made using FL Studio)
- The electronic disturbances (Samples)
Pure Data Rumbling
The low rumbling sound was created through synthesis using Pure Data. The noise object was used to produce standard white noise and then that was manipulated by using band passes, allowing me to get specific frequencies from that white noise.
Rumble Patch in Pure Data
Ambient Track
Improvements?
One concept uncovered while researching sound in horror games and sound when it comes to immersion is that repetition is highly detrimental to immersion. (Huiberts, 2010). While the ambient track isn't the most high profile aspect of the sound design of the game, it is still worth bearing in mind that any sort of monotony in the soundtrack will begin to lure our players out of being immersed.
Possible solutions may involve revisiting the rumbling sound and adding random parameters based on a set range instead of just going through the single band pass. Previously there was an attempt to do this however the changing between parameters felt stilted and there were difficulties applying envelopes to white noise generated in Pure Data. Unfortunately, I had already ran way over my estimates during the Sprint by this stage so I had to settle for this as I had other responsibilities to attend to but I hope to revisit it soon.
References
Toprac, Paul & Abdel-Meguid, Ahmed. (2010). Causing Fear, Suspense, and Anxiety Using Sound Design in Computer Games.
Huibert, S. (2010). Captivating Sound: The Role of Audio in Immersion of Computer Games. Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth.