Mew-Genics teaser introduces game’s music creators, Ridiculon. Game Audio 101 - Learn about Music, Sound and Game Audio. In the last week I did some archive video capture for Ghost Recon Commander before it was taken offline by Ubisoft. In doing so I was reminded of some of the audio questions and answers I came up with during development of the game. I found it oddly meaningful that the day that Ghost Recon Commander was taken offline was almost exactly one year ago, to the day, that I began as Audio Director at Loot Drop. I'm taking that as a sign to reflect on the Ghost Recon Commander experience here. This was the marketing tagline that was given to GRC when it was announced, and for better or worse, it sums up the first audio conundrum I faced on the project. But first, a little background..
Loot Drop was started by John Romero, Brenda Romero and Tom Hall, and I had previously worked with John and Brenda on Ravenwood Fair at Lolapps. Rule # 1 of the Facebook game audience was "don't do anything to discourage the player from playing the game! " So we were making a game with guns and explosions. Video: The evolution of audio in social games. "There’s a lot of noise in the social space, you’ve got to do what you can to rise above. " -- Loot Drop's Dren McDonald, the audio developer of lolapps's hit Ravenwood Fair. In this session from GDC 2012, McDonald discusses the rapidly-changing landscape for sound in social games and urges audio and game designers to work together early in their projects for more impact. McDonald describes how social game audio has evolved from the music-less Mafia Wars, to Farmville's short and catchy loops and Castleville's live orchestra and vocalists.
He then presents what went right and wrong with his attempts to elevate the standard of audio in social games in the projects Ravenwood Fair and Ravenskye City. In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent GDC events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech. Video Gaming and the Sonic Feedback of Surveillance: Bastion and The Stanley Parable | Sounding Out! The world of Bastion is beautifully illustrated and affectively evocative.
Image borrowed from darkzabimaru @DeviantArt. As the practice of sound design becomes ever more refined as a key factor in the immersive aspects of gameplay, it is essential to develop a conceptual vocabulary of the ways that sound is implemented as a cultural facet. In particular, it is important to recognize the power relations at stake within the implementation of the human voice as an interactive narrative trope. And, while I’ve already discussed the ways in which the voice of GLaDOS in Portal invites players to reflect on how they internalize a set of mediated perspectives about how their body ought to be, it is equally important to consider the other ways that a narrator’s voice invites players to reconsider the intersection of agency and surveillance. Bastion, was developed by the small indie game company Supergiant Games, but was distributed and released by Warner Bros.
REWIND! Like this: Like Loading... How the magic sounds of Proteus are making their way into the real world. Ever since the Walkman, ordinary people have had the ability to soundtrack their lives. You can play familiar music to reinforce or change your mood, music that either fits the tone and speed of your situation or is purposefully set against it. Earbud listeners can seek solace in this private musical headspace, an environment of their own making. Now imagine this, what if your personal soundtrack could change dynamically? What if technology existed that took into account weather, time of day, and your exact location and activity? When you breach the threshold of your door, one song crossfades into another. With augmented reality, the potential for context-aware playlisting exists, and game developers and sound artists are already working on projects that push these ideas forward.
“The ideal is to have every object making music. " Proteus is a video game that simulates an AR audio world. Enter musician Halsey Burgund. Your iTunes Genius playlist should be rightly concerned. Behind the sounds: Hotline Miami and FTL. By David Valjalo on January 21st, 2013 at 9:00 pm. Music man David Valjalo follows-up his exploration of the big-budget orchestral soundtracks in the mainstream games industry with a look at the other end of the scale – the super-low-budget, ultra-catchy, sometimes kitschy scores of indie darlings. He rounds up the men behind Hotline Miami, Sweden-based Dennis Wedin and Jonatan Soderstrom, two of the soundtrack artists they hand-picked, US artists M.O.O.N. and Scattle, and FTL composer Ben Prunty, to get the scoop on making music for small games and, quite often, small change. Recently we learned all about the revolution in game music that had transformed soundtracks into orchestral epics. A newfound respect for and understanding of the importance of a score, in big budget games such as Black Ops 2 and the Assassin’s Creed series, had lead developers to embrace composers like Jack Wall and Jesper Kyd, giving them unprecedented creative freedom and powers.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? The Fez soundtrack’s hidden images and how they got there. Not all players are the same! Join GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi for a free webinar on April 29th that will explore why players leave Free to Play games and how you can change this. Sign up here. The soundtrack to developer Polytron’s Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive puzzle game Fez has only been out since Friday, but a group of industrious fans has already discovered a number of secret images hidden in individual music tracks and shared their findings in the game’s discussion board on GameFAQs.
The stealthy pictures can be found by importing the compositions into audio editing software and poring through their spectrograms, particularly in sections containing mysterious hisses or odd silence. Tumblr blog Black Coffee Spirit has posted several items from the soundtrack’s mysterious cargo. Some samples are below. The track entitled “Beacon” contains a picture of the first footprint Neil Armstrong left on the Moon in 1969.
Greta Kempton’s 1949 portrait of President Harry S. The Making of Sorcery: Sound & Music. The Sound and Music of Angry Birds. Finland based composer and sound designer Ari Pulkkinen seems to be one of the most listened to composers in the world right now with over 250 million people who have heard his original Angry Birds theme. Pulkkine's catchy theme was also recently performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra which was part of a music festival in the city. Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to versions of Angry Birds being created for personal computers and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters and even long-term plans for a feature film or television series.
With a combined 350 million downloads across all platforms and including both regular and special editions, the game has been called "one of the most mainstream games out right now", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010", and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far". Ari Pulkkinen www.aripulkkinen.com.