Add Sound to Your Game - Beginning iOS6 Games Development - page 251

Correct Audio Behavior
Apple's Human Interface Guidelines explain how they expect applications to behave in terms of
audio. This is worth a read at some point, and can be found here: http://goo.gl/L0vYH .
Without going over Apple's guidelines point by point, let's look at some of the highlights in regard to
how they apply to games. Before we get started, I must say that these points seem to apply more
to the iPhone than to the iPad, since the usage of the iPhone is more sensitive. People always have
their phones on them and often are in social situations that demand a specific behavior. If you are
at a wedding or some other event, you really don't want your phone to start beeping even when you
have the Silent switch set to silence. Which brings us to our first point.
really good reason. For most run-of-the-mill time-waster games (my favorite), I want to be
The last point on this topic concerns the volume controls for the device. A game should honor the
volume levels of the phone. So when users adjust the buttons on the side of the device to lower the
volume of the game, the volume should go lower. Again, it sounds obvious, but paying attention
to these little details will ensure your game plays well with the rest of the system and meets user
expectations.
Your Game May Not Be the Only Application Making Sound
Many users like to play games while listening to music or other audio that's playing through their
iOS devices. It is important that your game allow this other audio to play while your game is running.
Apple recommends that a game (or other application) in which the sound is not a critical part of
the experience should remain silent if other audio is playing. Personally, I deviate slightly from this
philosophy. If your game has background music, then I agree that the audio track should yield to the
user's music or podcast. However, there are other types of sound in a game that might make sense
to play over the user's audio. Perhaps a sound that warns the user of a boss fight might be a good
exception to this rule. You can make the case that some sounds should be played regardless of
which background music the user has selected.