New Wine in New Skins - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 390

and alternative game artists and developers often
emphasize more or less explicitly that the aesthetic
power and potential in games does not lie in the
simulation of reality alone. In the Realtime Art
Manifesto Harvey and Samyn (2006) express it this
way: “Make it feel real, not necessarily look real”.

tions. Interesting examples are titles by Amanita
Design, for example Samorost 1 (2003) and Samo-
rost 2 (2005). Blueberry Garden (Svedäng, 2009)
is another example where the physical, material
representation is questioned: Jumping reminds one
of the sound of a wooden stick being very quickly
dragged over a rough surface, flying through air
distantly reminds one of the synthesized sound of
a rope swirling in the air, and oversized fruit falls
on the ground with a dull “thud”. Also Grey Mat-
ter 13 (McMillen, Refenes, Baranowsky, 2008) is
an interesting case of “cartoonish” sound design:
When an abstract dot hits a flying cartoon-brain,
the latter “explodes” with sounds of breaking
glass. The relationship of sound and animation
is motivated strongly by how the explosion is
designed: The cartoon-like objects explode into
spiky particles, scattering like glass. In these ex-
amples, the sound narrative is transformed into
a trans-natural entity, whereby the sound design
shifts from the “real” to the metaphoric, the iconic
and symbolic, without losing the roots of “dirty
matter”. Yet, an impact is still an impact and
some of its “visceral” characteristics are always
maintained. These sonic aesthetics are common
in animation movies (Curtis, 1992; Beauchamp,
2005) and have only become possible through
the “liberation” of sound from its source, which
I will describe in more detail later.

Musical Approaches

Some titles employ musical elements without
being actual music games. In Primerose , a geo-
metrical puzzler by Jason Rohrer (2009), different
colours produce different tones that are tuned to
a minor chord, and dissolving rows results in an
interval of a fifth. When a chain reaction of dis-
solving rows occurs, the fifth rises by one tone.
This, and like approaches, are similar to design
strategies used in some vintage arcade games, such
as Cakewalk (Commavid, 1983), Mr. Do! (CBS
Electronics, 1983), Oink! (Activision, 1983), or
Dig Dug (Atari, 1983), where tonality and musical
motives are strongly liked to gameplay and user
input. Aquaria (Ambrosia Software, 2007) adopts
a more innovative and distinctive approach to
linking musicality with interaction. The player has
to make her avatar sing to activate certain spells.
This is achieved through drawing a sequence of
connecting lines between symbols arranged in a
circle. Touching a symbol with the mouse pro-
duces a tone and each of the tones belongs to a
harmonic scale tuned to the game's soundtrack. An
interesting fusion of interface, avatar, interaction,
and soundtrack is achieved which transgresses
diegetic limits with ease.

Abstract is Beautiful

Another aesthetic category in experimental games
relies upon the total detachment of sound from
any actual physical or even metaphorical source.
Some of the examples here follow traditional
design techniques (emitters, zones, event-based
triggering of samples and so forth) but use them
in interesting ways to create unique sonic aes-
thetics. In Brainpipe (Digital Eel, 2008) spatial
navigation generates an abstract soundtrack that
blurs the borders between music, voice, and
sound effects and challenges diegetic borders by
pitching down all sounds when the player de-

Animation Film Aesthetics

Of course, a prototypical, “pure” aesthetics of
animation film or cartoons does not exist, but still
one can speak of a certain affinity of many indie
games to animation film. This manifests itself in
sounds that are more or less de-naturalized in a
comical, playful, or surreal way, characterized by a
subversive interpretation of sound-source associa-