Design the final sound design that the player will get
In the current version of the game we have five different endings – all correct, one wrong, two wrong, three wrong and no correct. I start each sound design with a scenario, or a simple storyline, so that I have a clear goal in mind when designing the sound, and it’s easier for the listener to visualise what’s going on when they hear it, and it adds a bit of interest to the 20 seconds or so of sound design.

 

 

1.The first sound design is a version with all the right sounds, the sound materials used are: the sliding sound of the car, the spinning sound of the bowl, the sound of the water in the shower and the electric current sound of the lamp.
My idea for the first sound design was a man walking through the sand and mist as if he was searching for something, and then when he finally touched what he was searching for, his life was consumed and the object fell out of his hand and rolled away and disappeared permanently into the sand and wind. The sound of the water in the shower and the electric current of the lamp are the background sounds of this sound design, with echoes and reverberation superimposed after the use of an FFT filter. The sound of the bowl spinning after removing the bottom noise removes the high frequency audio as the main line in the entire sound design continuing to the end of the audio, the skidding of the cart appears as a coda and foreshadowing of the main line in the audio.

 

 

2.The second sound design is a version of the wrong one. The sound materials used are the gliding sound of the cart, the friction of the chopsticks, the sound of the water in the shower and the electric current of the lamp.
The scene and simple storyline I gave the second sound design was. A flower in the desert, a particularly precious flower that has been around for a particularly long time so it has its own perceptions and thoughts as well as extreme vitality. It intermittently senses a particularly large creature approaching it, so its heart beats more and more strongly, and eventually the creature just skims over its head and walks away. The sound of the heart beating is the main sound that guides the storyline, and is created by the sound of chopsticks being rubbed together, with the part of the wood hitting being chosen, and then convolution reverb and echo being used to create the illusion of looping.

 

 

3.The third sound design is a version of the wrong two. The sound materials used were the impact of coins in a coin purse, the friction of chopsticks, the sound of water in a shower and the electric current of a table lamp.
The action and scene I constructed for the third sound design was a man in a light rain with a glowing lightsaber slashing at a non-existent enemy, a lightsaber that disappears if not used correctly, disappearing every time it is about to hit the enemy. With one failed attack after another, the sword never exerts the great power it originally contained, and at the end it accidentally unleashes a force that defeats the enemy outright. The shower and current sounds remain ambient and ambient throughout the sound design. The sound of coins crashing gains an electronic sound with convolution reverb and pitch alteration, mimicking a digital sound and adding a different sense of material to this sound design.

 

 

4.The fourth sound design is a version of the wrong three. The sound materials used were the impact of coins in a coin purse, the friction of chopsticks, the sound of water in a shower and the current sound of a stereo.
The scenario I constructed for the fourth sound design was a person driving through an intersection on a foggy morning, the car’s headlights could be swept side to side to illuminate the road ahead, the road was wet and the air was humid, and because of the fog you couldn’t see anything, you had to grope your way through it while moving forward slowly. Because I wanted to have a sense of space to explore left and right, I carefully adjusted the audio direction to create a simulation of the action.

 

 

5.The fifth sound design is that there is no one correct version. The sound materials used were the sound of coins in a coin purse, the sound of chopsticks rubbing together, the sound of water dripping from a tap, and the sound of an electric current in a stereo.
The significance I give to the fifth sound design is a warning, because the player doesn’t get any of them right, and doesn’t get a very complete sound design with a storyline or scene setting. So a harmonic flanger and a convolution reverb were used to make the current sound of the stereo sound like the reverb of a police siren. An FFT filter was used to soften the high frequencies of all the currents to make them less harsh.

Apr 25, 2024

One of the roles I held in the group is to select the sounds that determine the correct sound answers for the game and to do initial simple manipulation of these sounds to increase the difficulty of the choices in the game. We had four rooms in total and the themes are children’s room, kitchen, bathroom and studio. The sounds I chose were the sliding of a toy car, the spinning of a bowl, the running of a shower and the sound of electricity from a lamp. (Since the current sound itself is very difficult to distinguish, there is no need to increase the difficulty of the game any further and the last room’s sound is not treated.)

1. The sliding sound of the toy car is very different from the other items in the first room, such as the bouncing sound of the bouncing ball and the shaking sound of the change jar, so I intercepted some of the sounds of the wheels and added filters and convolution reverb to their sounds to get the correct sound for the first level.

2. The sound of the bowl turning will be slightly similar to the sliding sound of the pot in the second room, so I didn’t use too many effects to change the original sound as I did in the first room, and again, I intercepted a part of the turning sound and added reverb.

3. Since the third room was a bathroom, our idea for the bathroom was to have all the objects that made the water sound at different strengths or made of different materials. The sound of running water from the shower, dripping water from the tap, flushing water from the toilet, and the sound of water being squeezed out of a damp fabric. So only the frequency and intensity are different, and in dealing with that I try to confuse the original correct frequency of the water sound and lengthen the original sound.

4. The fourth room correct sound in the choice, chose the electric current emitted by the table lamp because, the most regular, and will not have too much harsh murmur, it is easy to go as the final sound design of the background sound padding.

Apr 24, 2024

Regarding the exhibition of our game, we design and consider from the following directions in order to show our game better.

1.Space design

Regarding the space design of the exhibition, we chose to use the sound lab space to display our game, because the sound lab is a symmetrical space, and we can use a large monitor to connect to the host computer to display the game screen. But because we don’t need to use the whole sound lab space to display our games, we plan to rent a pair of stereos from the school and place them at the two ends of the monitors to play relaxing music to bring out the atmosphere of the whole venue. The sofas in the room will be arranged in two rows for gamers to take their seats. One player at a time. Black Flag and C Stand were rented from the school to build a roof to mimic the feeling of a hamster’s burrow. At the end, place clean blankets between the two rows of sofas to mimic the softness of a hamster’s bedroom floor. Below is a diagram of the layout of the design.

2. Game poster and logo design

I designed posters to promote the game and to make people remember it. The overall colour of the poster is the hamster’s colour, yellow. It contains a brief description of the game’s purpose and zooms in on the main key words so that people can get a direct idea of what the game is about. The logo was also designed to be memorable.

Final version of the poster

                 

First draft of logo

   

Final version of logo

3. Game content concretisation

We endeavoured to complete a complete gameplay process, which would include the construction of four different themed rooms and the recording and processing of selected sounds for each of the four rooms, as well as the sound design for the correct composition of the results. Give the player a complete game experience flow.

Apr 8, 2024

We need to stylistically compartmentalise the sounds in each room so that we can facilitate the sound design once we have finished recording the sound of the items. For the recording equipment we used Sennheiser MKH30 and Nwumann KM184.

             

During the recording process we had no access to a variety of toys made of the same material, so we used a lot of objects made of the same material to mimic the sound of the toys. For example, the sound of a spring bouncing up and down, I used the plastic film of a make-up box to vibrate and record a similar sound with better sound quality. For the sound of the sand hammer shaking, we chose to record the sound of the rice colliding in the shaking box instead.

What really took time to experiment with was the sound of the hamster’s footsteps. We were going to record four different sets of footsteps, so that we could apply them to the hamster’s walk in the game. Considering that most of the time the hamster’s nails rub on the ground when walking, we used both the fingertips and the included fingernails, and at different speeds, to walk on a solid board to mimic the hamster’s walking sounds.

After this recording we have completed the first and second rooms, and we will soon complete the third room with various water sounds.

Mar 27, 2024

Painting style

With the hamster as the main character, it means that the style of the game will be warm and cosy. The colour scheme of the game will be light and multi-coloured. Characters and scenes will be designed in a rounded construction and hand-drawn style.
Examples of games with similar styles.

《Arise: A Simple Story》: Simple Colour Scheme       

   

《Sunset Hills》: hand-painted style

Style
Since our main character is a hamster, each room will be explored from the hamster’s point of view. In order to better immerse the player into the character, we decided to use the first person perspective to explore the map (RPG). Physics puzzles and room escapes were added to add more playability to the game. So this will be a role-playing game as well as a puzzle game.
Examples of games with similar styles:
《What Remains of Edith Finch》

Room Scenarios

Game Theme
Explore sounds in a relaxed and fun atmosphere and get a feel for them at the end of the game.

This game is sound-driven, so the importance of sound is important

The importance of game sound is reflected in the following aspects:
* Atmosphere setting: game sound effects are used to create a specific game atmosphere, such as scary, tense, happy, etc., which helps to enhance the player’s immersion.12
* Information transfer: sound effects can be used to convey instant information, such as the location of enemies, the health of characters, etc., which is crucial for players to react.2
* Emotional guidance: Different music and sound effects can affect the player’s emotions, making them feel joyful, nervous, or fearful.3
* Artistic contagion: game sound effects can enhance the artistic contagion and depth of the game, and sometimes even play the role of a finishing touch.4 * Immersion experience: the design of game sound effects can enhance the game’s artistic contagion and depth.
* Immersive experience: sound effects can be designed to better immerse the player into the situation, for example, the sound of birds chirping in the forest or the sound of wind in the dark forest can increase the sense of immersion.5 * Interactive experience: sound effects can also increase the sense of immersion in the game.
* Interactive experience: Sound effects can also be integrated with physical interactions within the game, e.g. in some games, changes in sound effects may indicate whether a player’s action was successful or not.
* Accessibility: Providing audible feedback to hearing-impaired players makes games more accessible.
* Game quality: Game sound is considered an important part of game quality and sometimes even a key factor in attracting players.
In summary, game sound is not only an important part of the game experience, but also a key element in improving game quality and player engagement.

 

Reference

• Zhongshan, Hu. 2017. “An Overview of the Increasingly Important Role of Game Sound in Gaming.” BAIDU. September 28, 2017. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1579765433141065410&wfr=spider&for=pc.​
• Game Music Production. 2023. “What Is the Important Role of Game Sound?” BAIDU. November 14, 2023. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1782519838067893198&wfr=spider&for=pc.​
• Game News. 2023. “The Importance of Sound in Games and Implementation Techniques.” Joyindic. August 12, 2023. https://www.joyindie.com/articles/38785.html.​
• choujiaofen8648. 2018. “Game Sound Is Not Important?” CSDN. January 24, 2018. https://blog.csdn.net/choujiaofen8648/article/details/101007913.​
• Zhou, Daxia. 2018. “Game Sound Design Revealed.” Shengyinjiangren. November 29, 2018. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA5MTk1MjgzMQ==&mid=2650343943&idx=1&sn=58fafa00a1e0ce523cebe9ae71a849b1&chksm=887929d7bf0ea0c1a9c61175fc9f145945c58be4caeb7ad43982607b26fb251e644526e70990&scene=27.

Feb 12, 2024