Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
often presents the first warning of approaching danger, so use sound as an indica-
tor that something needs the player's attention. Suspense movies do this well, and
you can borrow techniques from them: Play the sound of footsteps or the sound of
a gun being cocked before the player can see it. You can also use sound to provide
feedback about aspects of the game under the player's control, such as judging
when to change gears in a racing game by listening to the pitch of the engine.
You should also include sound effects as audible feedback in your user interface,
not just in the game world. At the very minimum, make sure the screen buttons
make an audible
click
when pressed, but try to find interface effects that harmonize
with the theme of your game world as well (as long as they're not corny). Be sure to
support audio feedback from the UI with visual feedback too so that when players
hear a click or beep or buzz, the visual feedback directs them to the issue that gen-
erated the audible signal. We interpret events that we can see more easily than with
audio alone.
Vibration
Many modern controllers include a vibration feature, which you can use to provide
sensory feedback (often called
rumble
) about game events. Although rumble is not
technically an audio element, the player can usually hear it as well as feel it.
Normally you can control two aspects of the vibration: intensity and duration. Be
sure to scale these appropriately to the game world phenomenon that they're asso-
ciated with. Rumble can be very startling when it's unexpected, which makes it an
excellent feature for survival horror and stealth games. Don't use rumble constantly,
or the player will learn to ignore it. Also, if you use rumble too much, the player's
hands will begin to tingle unpleasantly.
It's best to use rumble when something big happens, such as an explosion, or when
something bad happens, such as when the player's racing car scrapes the wall of
the racetrack.
Ambient Sounds
Just as the main view gives the player visual feedback about where she is, ambient
sounds give her aural feedback. Traffic sounds tell her that she's in an urban street;
cries of monkeys and exotic birds suggest a jungle. Anything that ordinarily makes
distinctive sounds in the real world, such as a fountain or a jackhammer, should
make the same sound in your game.
A first- or third-person game should definitely use
positional audio
if the platform's
audio devices support it. Positional audio refers to a system in which different
speakers present sounds at different volume levels, allowing you to position the
point sources of sound in the three-dimensional space of the world. Some personal
computers support as many as seven speakers, but even two-speaker stereo can help
