First thoughts on ibb & obb sound

I'm excited to be creating the sound effects for the ibb & obb game in 2012!



I'll start with a disclaimer: I haven't been a gamer since the Amiga roamed the earth, and this is my first game sound assignment. So although I like to believe I have relevant skills all the same, I'm a complete novice when it comes to these specific fields. Richard, the game's designer, mentioned that he didn't want ibb & obb's sound to have a strong 'game sound' character, so I'm hoping it makes sense to frame my lack of experience as a different angle of entry.

Emotion schmemotion!

I hesitate to call what I'll be doing 'sound design' because of a couple of behind the scenes videos I watched lately. They dealt with first person shooter games primarily, so there's a question about how much of what they say is applicable to ibb & obb in the first place. But they did make some generalizations that I had some trouble with. The sound guys were describing how it's the job of a sound designer to add emotion to a sound, to help carry the story.

What does it mean to 'add emotion to a sound'? The example given was how to deal with a pistol shot. What's the emotion that's appropriate to pair with a pistol shot?, the designers tell us it's fear, so their approach in this case may be to find another sound that evokes a primal fear response, the roar of a lion, and layer that with the pistol shot.

I don't doubt that the result might sound great. But the rationale is very dubious in my opinion. In my view the job of this sound designer, if I'm going to refer to myself that way, will be to make sounds that work well in the game. That's an appropriately vague mission statement. 'Working well' might not have much to do with the initial thoughts I have about how to approach the project. Or my initial idea of what ibb & obb's 'story' is. I'm expecting an iterative approach: recording, processing, play-testing, and repeating that process as often as necessary. This leaves plenty of room for surprises, happy accidents, and it's through this process that I expect to learn exactly what constitutes the sound 'working well', as far as Richard and I are concerned.

Melon smashing

The sound design videos that I've seen also have in common the perpetuation of the idea that game sound should be 'larger than life'--for instance an in-game kill is accompanied by a melon-smash layered with several leak crunches and an oozing grapefruit squeeze for good measure. It's a bit like the game-sound analogue to the loudness war. I don't think this received wisdom--roughly: 'make everything POP!', is necessarily true. When we take this approach, I think the result is a kind of sound pantomime, crass. I think our ability to suspend disbelief, as well as our ability to 'live with' game sound, is harmed when every sound in the game is inflated like a steroid-popping bodybuilder, when all sounds are yelling 'Listen to me!'. I'm not talking about the level of the sound effects, but about their sonic character--the part that doesn't change as you turn the level up or down.

Sound goggles

I'm noticing that this assignment has already made quite a difference to how I'm looking at the world. I find it interesting to notice that the outward appearance of an object is a very unreliable indicator of the kinds of sounds that can be coaxed from it. I noticed, and grabbed a filthy bike chain off the road today. A mental air-punch / success kid moment.

When my upstairs neighbors dropped something heavy on the the floor above my bathroom, and my glass bowl light fitting dislodged and smashed on floor, my first thought--or maybe the second one--was 'if only the recorder was running'. The thin glass ricocheting against the hard tiles gave a terrifically long and detailed tail to the smash.

Vocalisations

I was happy hear that Richard sees ibb & obb, the protagonists, as mute. They won't have vocalisations in the game. I think this is pretty important. Many years ago I played worms with my brother. Somehow, the version we played included no vocalisations (squeaky worm voices) perhaps it was a demo version without the final audio, I"m not sure. Later we played a version with vocalisations, I really dislike the change. Previously we'd been supplying our own exclamations! Delivering a well-crafted burn, or repeating an evolving in-joke was part of the fun of playing. Having the worms speak felt as though the legitimacy of doing that ourselves was being denied or diminished. The effect was a degree of alienation from the characters who represented us on screen.

I appreciate that the social aspect of ibb & obb's cooperative gameplay is an important aspect of the game's design. The fact that two people are sitting in close proximity while playing isn't just an accidental side-effect. During a play-test Richard jokingly complained that my co-gamer and I weren't talking to each other enough while we played (in our defense my comrade was engaged in another conversation while he played). By 'stepping back', by getting out of the way of the process of players identifying with the green and red sprites, I think responsible sound design can--in a round-about way--help strengthen the real life interaction that the on-screen puzzle solving triggers.

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