Blowing the Audience Away!

By Yarron Katz

Many a time in the industry, a game will be nearing completion, and as an afterthought, the studio will realize that audio is needed. So the question arises, “What is the importance of music and sound in a game? And how much of an impact does it really make?”

Let’s try to understand this with an everyday life example.

When you speak to someone, there are 3 aspects that convey the meaning to them.

The first aspect is the words. What you say essentially.

Then there is the tone. How you choose to say it.

Finally you have body language. The actions you use when saying it.

Now from those 3 aspects, what would you say makes the biggest impression?

Almost everyone agrees that it’s definitely not the words and they would be right. The argument is between tone and body language. The fact is that the biggest impact is from body language. This may not be a surprise, but what may astound you is the percent that is attributed to it. Body language counts for 55% of the meaning. 38% is the tone. And that leaves us with a 7% importance to the actual words.

Only 7% for words? That may be hard to believe. So think of it like this: In a court room, a lawyer asks an expert witness if it’s actually possible that the victim was drinking and robbed himself, but just doesn’t remember it?

Whilst this may be a possibility, it’s extremely unlikely. But if the expert puts his finger to his chin, nods thoughtfully and says, “It’s possible,” it will have a completely different effect to the jury than if he were to roll his eyes, shrug and say: “It’s possible.” The words are exactly the same, yet the meanings or quite opposite.

Even simpler, next time someone asks you a question, say “Yes” but shake your head.

And in the same way that body language has the greatest impact on us, music and sound (without our conscious recognition) is the body language of our games and the life and soul of our productions. It is this aspect that unfortunately receives very little credit.

So let’s jump in to this world most of us take for granted by looking at Sound Effects.

Take one of the best selling games of all time “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

It sold over 20 million copies. Have a look at the teaser for it.
You’ll notice that there are barely any visuals to it and it shows absolutely no gameplay. The only real substance it has is the sound, yet the day the game was released it sold over 7 million copies.

That’s because the raw energy of the game was impressed onto the audience. The players didn’t see what the game was like, but felt what it was like. The sounds gave it a pulse that is palpable.

Since sound effects instill the life into the game, what should a game studio be looking out for?

One of the most important aspects with sound effects is that they actually sound realistic. With visuals people are willing to forgive graphics that look less than real. In fact they may even praise it. Absolutely not the case with sound effects. Heaven forbid the voice doesn’t synchronize to the lips. It becomes laughable. If your BFG sounds like staple gun, no one is going to take that weapon seriously no matter how good it looks.

Since sound is mostly subconscious, if something doesn’t sound right, it takes you right out of the game and back into the real world. Exactly what you are trying not to do.

Yet the interesting angle to this fact is that almost everything you hear is not actually a recording of the real thing.
Bones breaking are peanuts or celery being crushed, the Enterprise doors in Star-Trek was a piece of paper being pulled out of an envelope, Thunder is a metal sheet, the list goes on.

Additionally many ‘poetic liberties’ are taken with sound.

When was the last time you heard a ‘ding’ noise when the elevator arrived? I’ve never heard that noise in my life from an elevator. Because very old elevators used to make that noise, it’s become a standard in Hollywood movies. So people automatically recognize it as an elevator, not because we’ve heard elevators do it, but because we’ve heard it in movies.

What about those fight scenes? Have you ever in your life heard that ‘whoosh’ sound that always precedes a kick or a punch?

Explosion sounds in space!?

So while sound demands accuracy, it is clearly both an artistic as well as a scientific accuracy.

Now let’s look at the different types of sound effects you have in games. I break these down into 3 categories. Real Effects, Design Effects and Musical Effects.

Real effects are normal sounds that you hear in life. A car, gunfire, a vacuum cleaner, a sneeze, or whatever. As I said earlier, one of the most important aspects is realism. However even more important for games in particular is ‘feedback’. A classic example in movies is that gun click sound. You always hear it when the actor picks up a gun or points it at someone. Yet picking up and pointing guns does not actually make a noise. But the audience needs this feedback to indicate the presence of a weapon.

An example of how this can apply to a game happened to me recently. The games character could jump on a bridge, which would crumble and collapse if he stayed on for too long. Sound feedback was essential for the character to realize he needed to act quickly. The problem was that this bridge was not your standard rock or wooden bridge, but had a mossy texture. Yet I chose to apply a more conventional rock crumbling sound instead, since it is far more important to give the player feedback to present the danger. The realistic sound may be more accurate but such an unfamiliar sound could actually cause the player pause to consider it without realizing any danger, which is the exact opposite of the intention of the sound in that scene. In short, make sure your real effects impress the audience by sounding real but recognize that in the end, the point of the sound affects are for the game, not the other way around.

The next effects are design effects. These are sounds for things that don’t exist in the real world such as monsters, aliens, futuristic weapons and other products of our imagination.

How does one approach making a sound that one has no way of recording?

Well there are two ways. One could generate the sound from scratch using a synthesizer. R2D2 from star wars is a good example of this, and indeed for a cacophony of beeps and blips, he has tremendous character. The other way is to record a real sound, and destroy it with effects until it becomes what you want. It is not hard to make a make a dragon by recording a belch and then slowing it down, or speeding up a voice to have a chipmunk talk. Whilst these are simple examples it can become extremely complex, using different sounds mixed together with specific effects on each one.

Again, even though the sound does not really exist, it must still have a realistic semblance to the character for the audience to believe it. This is where it gets exceptionally difficult. In this area, sound designers need to have a strong imagination to be able to visualize audioize the end result. Yet they must also have a strong grounding in reality and logic so that it’s believable. Most people have one or the other. Not many have both. When it comes to design effects, tell your designer the impact the creature is supposed to have on the audience, and stand clear!

This brings us to musical effects. These are very short musical snippets used mostly to provide feedback.

In games, a player can sometimes choose to be a male or female character, or even another species entirely. This may mean having to recording the same lines twice for the man and woman, and then there is the additional issue of language. Most will opt for English being the international standard, but why not just use the universal language everyone knows? Music.

Instead of recording every character scream to indicate player death, a single church bell can convey it for all of them.

Since there is arguably nothing that music cannot describe, this makes musical sound effects a top contender to deliver feedback to the player. The glissando of a harp taking you into a dream. The pounding of a timpani drum to start the war. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the sad trombone button to symbolize failure. If you aren’t, then just Google it. I’m sure you will find it has a much greater impact than someone saying, “You lose.”

An interesting take on musical effects is Mario’s coin sound. They could have used a single tone to represent a coin sound that would make it a real effect, but instead it’s a two-tone sound, which turns it into a musical effect. Even such a subtle approach can actually have a dramatic impact on the player.

An example of this occurred with me on an iPhone game I did called “Monster Blaster”. When the player leveled up, I initially provided a boxing ring-bell sound effect. The developer, said he wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t feel right. So I watched him play the game for a bit and when he leveled up, I immediately realized what he was getting at. With the boxing ring sound, the feel that the player gets is one of starting a new level, presenting all the dangers of a newer and harder stage. I replaced it with a musical effect for the player to feel a sense of achievement having successfully completed the previous level, making the player enthusiastic for the upcoming stage and ultimately making a more enjoyable experience.

So yes, even the humble sound of a leveling up can drastically change the way the player feels. That’s how important sound effects are for games.

In a nutshell, sound effects provide our games with life. I hope I’ve provided you an insight as to ‘how’s and why’s.’ As for the soul of the game, that’s music… but I’ll leave that for another day.

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Yarron Katz is a game composer and sound designer as well as the owner of Sonic Brilliance Studios. He is also a lecturer on Music and Sound design for games at Shenkar College in Israel. His philosophy to creating beautiful sound is simple, “I see what your production wants to tell the audience. Then I give her a voice.”

He can be reached at his website: http://sonicbrilliance.com