New Wine in New Skins - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 408

existed only as small movements within a bigger
system, infusing it with alternative ideas to debate,
but could not (and should not!) become the ulti-
mate guideline for “good” artworks. The same is
true for game development. As movie history has
shown, technological innovation has always been
a fruitful ground for creative re-appropriation. For
example, multichannel sound has led to an artistic
exploration of the technology at hand by innova-
tive movie makers such as Francis Ford Coppola
and Walter Murch. Why not take this example as
a motivation for a similar attitude towards new
technologies available today in game sound? The
point is not to let oneself be restricted creatively
by dominating conventions such as “simulating
reality”.

appear. Scripting languages need to be created to
ensure that the creation of complex game systems
is accessible to artists and designers as well. A look
at the impact that visual patching has brought to
artistic approaches to programming in general or
the effect of accessible open source electronics
platforms, such as the Arduino, on artistic ap-
propriation of “physical computing” shows the
potential of a broad range of accessible tools.
To make this all possible, education plays an
important role. At the Zurich University of the Arts
Game Design programme, we have been trying to
foster a critical, sometimes subversive and always
playful approach to game design. In relation to
sound design, we developed a curriculum that
constantly oscillates between experiment, research
and design (Hug, 2007). We have limited access
to the latest technologies including those available
to create advanced game sound design. But this
does not matter: If the students understand what
is at stake in the design of interactive games, they
will be able to realize the same innovative ideas
with more advanced technology later. It is also
important to provide a space for experimentation,
literally, to understand our classrooms as experi-
mental laboratories. These labs should offer tools
for experimentation with standard computers, but
also with embedded systems, sensors, tiny loud-
speakers, loudspeaker arrays and so on.
Our students have taken to this approach by
producing some fantastic games with some of them
performing successfully in festival competitions. 27
Of course; there is still a lot of room for improve-
ment, in particular in terms of sound design. All
too often, the preconditioning to a conservative
approach to sound, and the general inability of
our culture to deal with sound in a creative way
outside of what is considered “music”, has stifled
creativity. However, there are always encouraging
projects emerging, which embody many of the
ideas presented here. So, there are good reasons
to hope for a ”next generation” that truly deserves
the term.

Analysis for Inspiration

Analytical concepts such as those presented by
Grimshaw (2007) and Jørgensen (2007; 2011) are
extremely helpful for game sound designers in
terms of inspiration for new concepts and design
approaches. What, for example, if other players
can also hear a system sound, which presumably
was addressing only a single player (under certain
conditions)? What if a causal link of a sound is
not established through a direct association with
a player's activity, but with certain interaction
patterns of whole player communities? The point
I would like to make here is that, in the end, one
of the biggest advantages of analytic theory lies
in its ability to infuse new ideas by playing with
them, by deconstructing their “rules” and under-
lying assumptions in a creative way. This is true
for the notion of diegetics as well as for any other
analytical concept.

creative Environments
for creative Minds

We also need new production processes and tools.
Drescher's humorous “Homunculonic AEStheti-
cator” might not be as farfetched as it would first