Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Designing audio for mobile games
The creation of good audio and sounds for mobile games poses specific problems to
audio designers that depend on both the technical characteristics of mobile devices
and the distinctive conditions at which mobile games are played.
In the following sections, we will discuss the most important considerations which spe-
cifically relate to the creation of optimized audio for your mobile games.
Planning the audio in advance
The speed at which the mobile games are developed usually means that music and
sounds are often the last element to be added to a game. However, poorly designed
audio can negatively affect the appeal of a title to its target audience and thus its
sales.
Therefore, if you want your title to sell well, we suggest taking care of sound as any
other crucial element of your game from the beginning of the development process.
Of course, gameplay must be fun, but poor sound can hurt an otherwise high quality
game.
Hardware limitations for mobile games audio
As far as the hardware capabilities of mobile phones constantly evolve, users expect
better audio for their mobile games and developers can go beyond the standard of a
few kilobytes for their music scores.
Still, mobile devices have limited audio capabilities when compared to PCs and home
consoles that mobile audio designers need to take into account.
For example, mobile phones are generally provided with a single speaker. Using
headphones can improve the audio experience, and with additional hardware the
iPhone can output stereo sound (on Wikipedia, you can read that
Stereo audio was
added in the 3.0 update for hardware that supports A2DP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
