Sound for Fantasy and Freedom - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 40

simulation of room acoustics and acoustic occlu-
sion and obstruction, just to name a few.

How we interpret a sound depends on, and
draws from, our previous personal experiences.
Well-known sounds will spawn a myriad of pic-
tures in our inner, mental movie theaters. Unknown
sounds can create both confusion and excitement.
Working in parallel with the gameplay and the
metaphor aspects of computer game design, and
making sure that the two match and support each
other, is a powerful way to find and design the
sounds that build the total soundscape of the game.
By working in parallel with and carefully balanc-
ing the graphics and the sounds of a computer
game the users' bodies and fantasies can be set
free, creating unique, immersive, and rewarding
gaming experiences.

cONcLUsION

Sound is a complex stimulus and it is only in
recent years that science has started to under-
stand auditory perception in any depth. Much
of the knowledge and practice in sound design
for computer games and other interactive ap-
plications is based on experience and anecdotal
evidence. But the awareness of sound's potential
and scientifically-based knowledge in sound de-
sign is slowly increasing. This is not only true in
the computer game industry, but in industry and
society in general. The implications of the fact
that our ears and our eyes complement each other
are slowly beginning to have an effect. Graphics
alone gives one type of experience: sound alone
gives another type of experience, and graphics
plus sounds gives new and unique experiences.
By working with the balance of ears, eyes and
other senses and human abilities, new opportuni-
ties emerge for the computer game designer. The
Wii , Dance Dance Revolution and DigiWall are
just a couple of examples of this.
Sounds in the physical reality of our bodies
are the results of physical events in that same
reality. Our hearing is designed and “hardwired”
to constantly scan and analyze the soundscape
surrounding us and react rationally to the sounds
heard. Most of the time this is done subconsciously
and our hearing can therefore be described as, to a
large degree, intuitive, emotional, or pre-cognitive.
The soundscape reaching our ears demands inter-
pretation and disambiguation in other ways than
the visual stimuli reaching our eyes. This need
to interpret and disambiguate can be turned into
a great asset in computer game design. A game
with a well-designed, rich, and varied soundscape
will play on the user's intuition and emotions: the
game will be immersive and give fun and reward-
ing gaming experiences.

rEFErENcEs

Association for Computing Machinery. (2010).
ACM computing classification system. New York:
ACM. Retrieved February 4, 2010, from http://
www.acm.org/about/class/.

Avanzini, F. (2008). Interactive sound . In Polotti,
P., & Rocchesso, D. (Eds.), Sound to sense, sense
to sound - A state of the art in sound and music
computing (pp. 345-396). Berlin: Logos Verlag.

Bregman, A. S. (1990). Auditory scene analysis:
The perceptual organization of sound . London:
MIT Press.

Cowley, B., Charles, D., Black, M., & Hickey, R.
(2008). Toward an understanding of flow in video
games. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 6 (2).

Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychol-
ogy of optimal experience . New York: Harper
Collins.

Dance dance revolution [Computer game]. (2010).
Tokyo: Konami.

DigiWall [Computer game]. (2010). Piteå, Swe-
den: Digiwall Technology. Retrieved February
10, 2010, from http://www.digiwall.se/.