Listening to Fear - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 207

player” (p. 193). This way of introducing “event
sounds with no evident cause, sound not plausibly
attributed to an inanimate environment” is, for
that matter, the trademark of the Silent Hill series.
This way of conceptualizing sound even extends
to the atonal, extra-diegetic music of the game.
This aesthetic choice allows me to introduce one
last case of ambiguity between sound generators.
Some horror games aim at creating ambiguity
between the game system, the gameworld, and the
enemies, the emphasis being put, as suggested by
Kromand (2008), on blurring the line between
elements that are part of the diegesis and others
that are not. By choosing to exploit atonal music,
which is closer to musique concrète than traditional
orchestral or popular music, that blends and often
merges with the ambient and dynamic sound ef-
fects of the game, designers manage to lure the
gamer into thinking that there are more threats
than there actually are. This technique also often
succeeds at diverting the gamer's attention from
the real threats in the game. The most flagrant
example of such a scrambling between the sounds
emitted by enemies and the game system comes
from Silent Hill . During a gameplay sequence
in the alternate town of Silent Hill (Konami,
1999), the non-diegetic music, which is mostly
constituted of metallic, industrial sounds, also
includes in its loop a sound that is very similar
to the sounds generated by the flying monsters
of the game. Since the flying demons' sounds
are mixed very low within the music, the gamer,
who is concentrated on his activity, probably
won't notice that this cue is repeated on a fixed
temporal line and will be bound to associate this
sound to an oncoming monster.
A similar type of conception was also privileged
in the sound design of Dead Space . As Don Veca,
the lead sound designer of the game, underlined:
“We […] approached the entire sound-scape as
a single unit that would work together to create a
dark and eerie vibe. [...] In this way, Dead Space
has really blurred the line between music and
sound design” (cited in Napolitano, 2008, First

Question section, para. 2). Therefore, as mentioned
by Kromand (2008), “the constant guessing as to
whether the sounds have a causal connection put
the [gamer] in unusual insecure spot that might
well build a more intense experience” ( Conclusion
section, para. 2), which has the effect of augment-
ing the level of fear in the player.
As a unit, the techniques which aim at creating
ambiguity between sound generators are based on
the different circuits a sound can perform between
the on-screen, the off-screen and the extra-diegetic.
Indeed, it is by regularly making sounds pass from
on-screen (which allows the player to identify the
cause of the sound) to the off screen (where the
sound serves as a forewarning of a threat) to the
extra-diegetic (where sound simulates the pres-
ence of a threat), that videoludic sound manages
to condition the gamer to be wary of everything
he hears.

Fear and context

Of course, fear will not only be induced by the
morphological nature of a sound, by its fixed
relation with its cause or the constructions of
strategies. Fear, horror, and terror mostly depend
on the context in which the sound is heard. At this
level, many parameters will influence the percep-
tion the gamer will have of a sound: the spatial
configuration, the general difficulty of the gamer,
the number of enemies, the available resources, the
available time and so forth. The global situation
related to the perception of a sound will have a
determining impact on the attitude a gamer will
adopt towards this sound. A videoludic design
favouring such game mechanics will therefore be
an accomplice to the sound strategies.

cONcLUsION

In an attempt to scare their gamers, horror com-
puter games utilise different strategies of mise
en scène . Testament to the dialogue between the