A Combined Model for the Structuring of Computer Game Audio - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 115

Figure 6. Warcraft III analysis example. Numbers are collected from Table 2 as an imaginable snapshot
of sounds. The combined model visualizes the possible cognitive load in the audio layering. The more
central a sound is placed, the higher its level of encoding; the more peripheral a sound is, the lower its
level of encoding

the game environment, exploring its possibilities
in a dynamic flow (Figures 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8).

and as snapshots of the audio layering within the
combined model (Figures 5, 6, and 7).
While employing the combined model, we
found that the internal emphasis on the different
parts of the IEZA-framework vary between dif-
ferent types of games, due to limitations of tech-
nology and genre conventions, which in turn
depends on the gameplay and the relationship
between player and game environment. For ex-
ample, a first-person shooter or a shoot'em up
game will emphasize the Effect sounds, and have
fewer Zone sounds. A typical example of this is
F.E.A.R. (Monolith Productions, 2005).
There are indeed a lot of yellow effect sounds
in the game F.E.A.R. (2005). Luckily, not all of
these sounds are always played simultaneously.
However, sometimes, many are played together,
which results in a big wall of sound that is hard
to make sense of. This can be used to emphasize
chaos and, in the context of an action game, it
might well be useful. Nevertheless, that would be
its only use. With regard to the analysis, F.E.A.R.

UsING tHE cOMbINED MODEL tO
ANALYZE cOMPUtEr GAMEs

In the following section, we provide 3 sample
analyses using the combined model. The games
used for these analyses are: F.E.A.R. (Monolith
Productions, 2005); Warcraft III (Blizzard Enter-
tainment, 2002); and Legend of Zelda (Nintendo,
1987). The aim of the analyses was to find each
sound source possible within these games and
then estimate the properties of the sounds. Not
every single sound is included as it would have
taken too long to find them all. Thus, for example,
sound 25 in Table 2 “Hero uses magic” represents
every sound created when a Hero in the game
uses some kind of magic spell. In this way, the
results are applicable to the combined model and
are presented both as tables (Tables 1, 2, and 3)