Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Best practices for mobile games audio
design
In the following sections we will suggest a few basic practices that can help audio de-
signers to address the most common problems when creating audio and sounds for
mobile games.
Scripting skills for a mobile audio designer
Due to the reduced size of mobile developing teams, a very useful skill for your audio
designer to have is the capability to use the scripting language of your game engine
of choice to manage in-game audio. This will have two main advantages: the first is
that the other team members won't have to take care of this specific aspect, as they
will already be overburdened with the other elements of game development: design-
ing, programming, or artwork production. The second advantage is that, as the sound
expert takes care of putting audio and sounds in the game, the overall quality of the
project will improve.
Most game engine scripting languages, as we will see in the following chapters of the
topic, are Java or JavaScript-based (UDK and Unity among the others). If your audio
designer can deal with such tools, not only the overall quality of your game will be
better, but it can also help meet the deadlines of your project.
File compression
As mobile devices lack the memory capabilities of home consoles and PCs, it is fun-
damental to use compression algorithms to reduce the size of your audio files, while
keeping an acceptable quality. For example, in order for your iPhone game to be
downloadable under the 3G standard, its size cannot exceed the threshold of 20Mb.
As we said, the lower the bitrate of an audio file, the lower its quality. Fortunately,
when developing audio for mobile games, there is no need to produce optimal 5.1
sound quality. It is thus easier for the audio designer to balance the reduction in the
bitrate of the audio files and yet have those sound good on a mobile device. For ex-
ample, with MP3 compression, which is generally accepted by most popular game
engines, stereo audio file size is almost the same as their mono counterparts.
