It's a level

I created a track this past week that actually is now in a completed level. It always feels very good to finally see your audio in  the final version of a level. especially when the level comes together exactly as you had it. There is a very nice feeling you get to see a piece of finally finished work actually come together with the design, programming and art all together.

The next track I will be making will be for minigames. Being that there is a deadline coming up I am probably going to need to do two tracks in one sitting for this next week. The next two tracks will be for the soccer game and also for the elusive four square game. Of course I need to see the way both of these work to really make the track fit the level. especially when it comes to minigames and they need to be something that is made specifically forhe tempo of the game. I have no idea how fast the game is going play so I need to make sure the music can keep up with the gameplay, and visa versa.

There is a very tight connection between gameplay and proper audio. If the gameplay doesn't fit the audio or the other way around it is very easy to tell. Just like noticing something is off-beat or off tempo within an audio track.

Just doesn't pass

I created the heavy metal track and it really didn't work well. It just doesn't fit the audio we already and we cant afford to remake every track. The track worked really well for the intended theme but it just couldn't be implemented into the game. My director took the hit for that and acknowledges that it was his suggestion so that is nice to hear. Also it is always good to prove that you can create audio when it is directed towards the designer. Basically you don't have full creative control. This is something you will find much more often in the studio then in a group independent project.

I am going to have to create another track for the game because of this but as I said before I have enough time to do it. This is going to just take up more time but it at least gives me something to do during the week. I need some more work to do. I say this because the next level isn't ready yet, I need to see the level before making the audio for it.

For the next eek I will be spending my time creating another track, most likely for the four square game but potentially for a new level.

Taking some direction

I continued and continued to work on the track I had created. It was for the four square game we created. Turned out that the track I made wasn't well received for four square and so we are just going to hang onto it for another level. This is all okay because it can be reused but otherwise I would have to double down on my work since it was my fault. This can definitely happen with sound when my group members aren't checking out my track during the process of creation. Everybody has different tastes and I am not the lead of this project so it isn't my choice.

My director told me that for this coming week he wants me to focus on dark and grungy style music. I felt that it was too late to switch our audio style but having a free week I decided to go for it because that is what the lead asked me to do. I began to work on this audio by finding samples for metal and industrial noises. I then started the process of listening to other soundtracks that fit this new genre.

Essentially these past two weeks and this next week will be purely experimental. this isn't an issue assuming you have been doing all your work on a timely schedule, making sure everything gets done when it needs to be. Always, always, always leave yourself extra time.

Another working week

Of course when I finally get on a roll I get pummeled with work from other classes. Part of being a designer, someone who is working a million hours at all times, is balancing your workload. There is always a ton to do and you can only do so much of it each week with all the other stuff you have to do. Keeping your life in order is definitely something that you have to work on as a designer. I have a girlfriend and not living together can sometimes make it a struggle to see each other which is never good. Sometimes work needs to be put off for other affairs and visa versa. You just need to know the difference.

The reason I am telling you this is because I have been so constrained for time that I really only worked the minimum time on this track and so it wasn't finished. I like to try a few different ways to do something before committing so a track that  have creative freedom on may take a little bit longer to do. With a deadline I can always get it done on time but if I can take some time I will do it. Anyways I began a very different approach to the audio in our game due to a suggestion by our sound director. I have no idea if anybody will like it but my hopes are that the change will be a good change.

It is always worth taking the extra time to do something different and new then just pushing along in the normal rut of things. Design needs innovation so it is always worth trying.

Time to Shine

Well over the past two weeks, being that I had spring break to do some extra work; I spent a lot of time post producing the audio I made for the newest game level, along with creating and formulating ideas for the four square game. I spent a lot of time making sure the previous track was edited correctly because when I pull all the tracks together I am going to level all the audio together so I need to make sure all the song specific work is done.

When it comes to post production, the major work is in balancing the dynamics. Parts that need to be loud and intense have to have the dynamics pulled up while the other parts need to be quieter to make these dynamics more intense. These dramatic changes can really affect the gameplay and really change the way the player sees and feels the game in front of them.

For the next few weeks I will be finishing up my new and experimental four square track. The idea right now is that I have plenty of time to make a new track for the game should it be necessary to replace. Right now I have a lot of creative freedoms but we shall see where that goes with this track.

Crunchy

Right before Spring Break you know things are going to be hectic. Not only do we have to wrap things up before the break, but we also have all our other classes. Between balancing the work in senior production and all our other classes, there is only so much time to get work done. While we had plans to create a sound toy, after doing all my work there wasn't enough time. This is the plan for the break, I am going to make this "toy" and it will serve as a prototype for the idea our professor insists we try.

Hopefully this new idea will push our games audio in a new direction and give it the notice we are hoping for. Along with just this new toy, I have also created a new track for our game that fits the levels extremely well. I am very proud of the work I did in this case and it is a big step forward in our games audio. Hopefully people testing will take notice and really appreciate the audio.

I look forward to seeing what my team has done this past week. When we pull everything together, I have a strong feeling it will all mesh really well with the new audio. I also look forward to getting some feedback on our game and making more and more adjustments to the game in order to improve the experience.

When things change

Due to the fact that our group is still in the first half of the semester it would make sense to believe changes are going to happen. work we have done will not be used. This is one of those weeks and it is something you need to prepare. My sound director told us that we are shifting directions to something more electronic which essentially means that I have to change everything I have done so far. Also my group doesn't want to merge the sound with the game design anymore; this all confuses me considering the fact that electronic is even easier to merge with game play.

This entire week I spent finishing up the track I had for our minigame but it ended up just becoming placeholder. I planned on remaking all the music for the minigames by the end of the semester anyways so now I just have to do it sooner.

The electronic music will have a focus on getting the players to notice it, dramatic tempo changes and large dynamic switches will definitely help make this happen. I had a feeling during the beginning of this semester that electronic music would fit our "robot-esk" themed game much better. I look forward to seeing what we can possibly create with this; there is much more creative liberties on electronic music than swing.

The merge

So as you know we planned on combining the Audio much more with the gameplay. We have finally made the push to put the two together and plan on testing it for the first time this week . I created two different audio tracks for my team to choose from that would be used in our "Dodgeball" mini game. This track works directly with the pillars we have the balls perched on in the game. When a certain part of the song comes up the pillars will bob up and down and disturb the flow fthe game. This will add in a fun surprise for players who haven't experienced it before and a much greater challenge for the players who have.

The players in the game will have to listen for the audio cue and prepare to alter their gameplay until the song and game goes back to normal. we plan on doing this for all the mini games and then our adventure mode. Considering the amount of work that has to go into this as of now my sound director and I have decided to split the work. I will be doing the mini games and he will be doing the adventure mode; we will of course be consulting with each other but we will mainly be focusing on our parts of the game. We also plan on changing the audio for all of the game multiple times before we are completely finished; as of now we are using the audio we are creating as a "permanent placeholder" for lack of a better phrase. We want to test the way the audio works and make variations of the placeholder should it be successful.  The idea is that by the end of the semester we will be much better at creating the audio for the game.

One the other fronts we are in the process of creating our Four Square like game and have art assets for the hub world and previous dodgeball game flying in. We are slowly coming up with ideas for the level design of the adventure levels and all the designers including myself are trying to give suggestions to make the levels better and fit the overall feel of our newly designed game properly. For this game all the departments really have to work closely. We look forward to seeing what we will be able to create and also what the actual world is going to be.

Sound Design, Literally!

This week is a great week in the Sound Design world. Our game has taken a very interesting turn when it comes to the sound. We had the suggestion made that we incorporate the sound into the visual aspect of out game. Give the sound reasoning behind it and not just have it be background music. This was a very cool suggestion because of the way we are making our video games.

We decided that instead of just adding a visual representation of the audio that we would actually have it effect the gameplay. We would have the minigames get more difficult depending on the part of the song that was playing. Certain things would temporarily change which the repeated melody would come up. This would add a lot of fun and variety to the mini games while also giving players something to look out for; kind of like a sign a boss gives in a game before they do their big final move.

As of right now we plan to do this for all of the mini games, finding multiple things we can vary during the gameplay that will add competition and enjoyment to or already exhilarating mini games. We believe that is will be one of the many things that set us apart from other games out there that include minigames.

The workload will definitely increase though; we need to make sure that myself and the Sound Director work very closely with the art and design to make sure everything fits properly together and that all the audio fits with the way the game is played. This isn't as easy as it sounds however because we have to anticipate what the game will play out before we are able to even get it into testing; it is after that point which we will be able to tweak the audio tracks to work even better.

A little bit of everything

While we are off to a good start this semester it feels like we are back at the beginning. Taking a step back to look at our game so we can iterate and make things even better. The idea for right now is that in our game we would try out a bunch of different themes and styles for our game and figure out which works best. The way our game works with the minigames being so closely designed with the art, we found that the sound is the same way. I can't really know exactly what to make for the levels until they are made and I can actually put the audio into the game. In the meantime I am finding more source material to take for inspiration and am just playing around with Fruity Loops.

At this point it is nice because I have really picked up a lot of skills in Fruity Loops. The other nice part is because of my class last semester I am much better at editing clips for us to use to make these tracks for the game. Hopefully this will all end up becoming some really good music for our game. As I said before right now I am just kind of making a little bit of everything to fit a bunch of different themes that our team may go for. Due to the extensiveness of the games soundtrack (From all the minigames) we want to get a headstart on the load of work that will be ahead of us.

As of now it takes about three days of work to just make one track that is worth playing for people. Now I am just playing around and still learning but I definitely need to prepare myself for what is to come in the future when we move further into the semester. I will definitely want to share my workload with my Sound Director, should the work become too much. I still can't be 100% sure on what to expect workload wise. Off to a great start though and hopefully my team stays as productive as it has been thus far!

Just a few Sounds

We are off to a good start with our game. Ideas have been flowing from everyone and we have a lead on a direction we would like to follow, theme-wise. For myself I need to continue to research the use of my new audio tools and practice making some tracks. These tracks will be somewhat of a proof of concept kind of thing. I will create some different audio clips or one larger track that demonstrates what the music will sound like and that it can be done in the program we are using.

I also came up with the idea that we could play recorded voice acted lines through the phone at certain moments in the game. We would have only a few phones or maybe even just one in the game play a line at a time; this would increase bonding between friends and strangers and would also keep us from playing the same audio a million times through many devices. We will be testing this with many different phones, from cheap to expensive in order to test the abilities of the phones speaker.

As a group we are meeting in order to connect the design, sound and art with the main game mechanics and each other. This will create a cohesive theme even if one isn't presented visually it will still be represented in some other way. The point of this week is to prove all of this and give ourselves a reason to move forward and progress into greenlight.

The start of a process!

So this first week we were put together in our new groups and filled in on what the game was about. My team is great and I have been made the sound designer; it seems as though they liked the audio I created for my last game and recruited me for that reason. I have a sound director who has been giving me the ideas and suggestions that he has to influence some of my work for the game. So far we have had one official meeting to discuss things about the game and we are trying to settle on an overall theme for the game. We need to make this important step because the design, audio and art are so tightly linked in a game like this.

For my portion when it comes to audio I have been collecting samples of music that has a similar style to what we could possibly use for our many themes. Along with this I have begun talking to someone who was actually interested in playing some samples for me to use and create a track from. This would be very cool because we would have some extremely original music from a real musician. At that point I can use my production skills to enhance and improve upon the music and add some of my own touches to create a really good soundtrack.

This first week went by fast and I hope we figure out a theme to do and I will start creating some sample tracks for our game.


Aaron