Short Story - Evaluation

As a culmination of our work in audio in games this term we were tasked with creating our own short stories and storyboarding a scene from said story, looking at the way sound helps give the scene more depth and meaning overall. Throughout our time we have looked at the way audio has become more and more important to the genre of video games over the years, going from simple repetitive sound effects that merely coincide with the visuals on screen, to how they have become a fundamental element in games that help to add emotional and meaningful weight to the events being displayed, which has coincided with the way games have become more nuanced and cinematic over the years.

To help with our task in finding sounds to perfectly complement our own work we looked at the way sound in general works in entertainment media, looking at the way different types of audio effect the scene, such as the difference between reactive and adaptive sound, and looking at our own personal favourite pieces of audio from our careers as computer games players. I found this in particular very useful as it gave me the opportunity to reflect on some of my favourite games and why I had grown such a personal attachment to them, and also gave me the realisation of just how much sound is a fundamental factor in the creation of games. Looking back at games such as Streets of Rage 2 or the Metal Gear series it made me understand that the soundtrack behind the games can be just as iconic as the games themselves, and that, specifically in the case of Metal Gear, music can help relay certain meanings and emotions to the player that would have been ruined with a different piece of music or dialogue. By studying the audio of games, it gave me the opportunity to appreciate games from a whole new direction that had previously been overlooked, allowing me to grow a greater appreciation of a medium I already loved.

From looking closer at the way audio effects the audience, we gained a higher understanding of how not only it can help create atmosphere and feelings of nostalgia that help the player or viewer relate to the events more, but at the same time how sound can cue important events and allow you to see when something in particular is going to happen. This way, particularly in gaming, a player can understand that a certain thing is going to happen or that they need to perform a certain action as indicated from these cues, which can be important if the solution to a puzzle is rather obscure, or if the player has to go a certain way without being directly told, which in turn allows the creator to add more freedom to their games and allude to the fact that players are given more freedom without being guided through prompts in a rather bland, linear manner.

In looking at these and other things we have learnt over the past term I was able to craft a story that, while being fairly subtle in its nature, by not giving the reader direct information but rather allowing them to imagine themselves what was happening to the characters in the scene, and due to the emotional nature was further able to imagine the sounds and music that would help create a natural and suitable emotional effect for the audience. By looking into the nature of storyboarding and what is best used to provide enough information to the audience through camera angles and audible prompts, I was able to incorporate this into my own work and create something that, in my mind, would be meaningful without being too direct. As such, throughout research and a further understanding of the impact and usefulness of audio I feel that I was successful in the task set and gained a more appreciative knowledge of sound in games, and how designers use it in an effective manner.

Short Story - Audio Assets

• Song: No I Don't Remember - Anna Ternheim
• Bird songs
• Scuttling distant noise
• Dripping water
• Rain in distance
• Wind through cracked window
• Iron door creaking
• Iron door slamming against wall
• Electrical crackling from broken machinery
• Glass bottle rolling along the floor
• Dialogue - listed in scenes
• Coughing
• Wheezing
• Crying

Short Story - Storyboarding

Action: Close up of man's face (Jacob) looking off into the distance, clearly contemplating things that have happened in his past

Dialogue: Jacob (voice-over) - This is perfect...

Action: Camera pans back, revealing a young girl laying on the floor behind him (Daisy)

Dialogue: Jacob (voice-over) - Soon all this will be over, Daisy can have the life she...

Action: Close up of Daisy, asleep but slowly stirring, disturbed from her slumber

Dialogue: Daisy - Mmmm... daddy...?

Action: Looking at Jacob now, an anguished look on her face

Dialogue: Daisy - I miss mummy, I just want to go home...
Jacob (off screen) So do I baby...

Action: Close up on Jacob, sudden coughing outburst as he grabs his chest

Dialogue: Daisy (off screen) - Daddy?! What's wrong daddy?!

Action: Dropping to his knees, Jacob coughs more violently, losing his composure completely

Dialogue: Daisy (off screen) - DAAAAD!

Short Story - Defining Emotional Moment

The defining emotional moment in the story will be just before Daisy wakes up, as Jacob thinks to himself about everything in his past, up to the moment where he has his has his collapse. This will be the most emotional because it allows the characters to share their feelings on their family, and also see the rapid decline in Jacob's health.

Short Story - Family Values

As soft sunlight shines through the cracked, grated windows of the abandoned factory, Jacob Leiter, a man in the middle years of his life sits on a broken crate, once used for packaging stuffed animals. He's a tall, well-built man with greying brown hair and a face that hasn't been shaved in mover a week. He's wearing a light grey suit, with a crumpled suit and loosely hung tie around his neck, hanging heaving on his worn figure like like a noose. As he sits quietly contemplating all that's happened in his life to get to this point, all the pain he's caused, the orders he'd blindly followed, he looks at his young daughter, laying on a folded up sheet of cardboard, fashioned into a makeshift mattress. Daisy's her name, she's young, five years old with a pink dress and blonde hair, sleeping peacefully and clinging on to a stuffed rabbit. Wooly, as she calls it, has been with her since her birth, she can't sleep without it, clinging tightly to it as a comforter.
Jacob looks around the decrepit factory they've found themselves in, the dull ache of his head thumping like a jackhammer as he thinks to himself silently “this is perfect”. A million other thoughts race through his mind. Looking around this abandoned factory, he thinks how it is almost a reflection of his own life now. His failing health is almost getting the better of him, and he's lost almost everything he held dear. All that is left now is his daughter and vengeance.
Almost as if she hears his thoughts, Daisy stirs, looking at Jacob and sleepily asks, “Why are we here daddy? It smells funny, and it's dirty, I want to go home... I miss mummy. And Simon and Jonathan.”
“So do I baby,” Jacob replies sadly, “so do I.”
He thinks back to himself on that fateful day, all the ways that things could have changed. If he'd just followed his orders this one time, listened to what he'd been told and done his job, his wife would be with them, and he wouldn't have put his daughter in this awful position. He feels the rage building in his blood, he starts seeing red and then suddenly the anger changes to pain. It pulses through Jacob's body, he stumbles to the floor. His vision begins to blur over and the room begins to spin. He tries to stay steady, but the feeling of nausea is rising once again. Daisy stands in mute shock as she watches her father, unable to help in any way.

“Baby, do me a favour and go play in the other room for a little while please? Daddy needs a few minutes alone right now.” Jacob sputters out, not wanting his daughter to see him like this.
His young daughter silently obeys her father's wish, picking up her stuffed animal and walking into the adjacent room, kicking debris as she goes meekly.
The nausea being suffered by Jacob suddenly gains the upper hand, causing him to collapse to the floor once again, violently vomiting, until there's only dry heaving left in him. He kneels there for several minutes, waiting for the feeling to leave him, waiting for the dizziness to subside and for him to recover.

Several minutes pass, Jacob finds his composure and goes into the adjacent room, finding Daisy sitting quietly, leaning against a wall and talking to her doll softly. Jacob walks towards her, shuffling as he does so, and sits down beside her, leaning against the wall too.
“You know, Daisy, back in the day my father used to work in a place like this, all my friends fathers did too. You need to understand that sometimes things just change, and sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. But I want you to know that whatever happens you'll be safe. I've made arrangements for you, okay?”
She looks at him, confusion spreads across her face. He knows that she doesn't fully comprehend what is happening to him. Or that her mother is now gone, as are her brothers, but she understands that things have changes.
Jacob looks around the room once more, thinking to himself of all the horrible things he's done in the past, all the lives he's ended and families he's destroyed, regretting every moment of it. And thinking once again “this place is perfect”, knowing that there's just one more life he needs to end.

Short Story - Synopsis

Family Values follows retired mob member Jacob Leiter lives with his wife and family in a small suburb, the kind of town where everyone knows each other’s business. Jacob now works in a nearby factory and the kids go to school around the corner. Jacob has recently been diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour, yet has chosen to hold on from telling his wife for the time being.

Upon coming home one day Leiter discovers his wife and two sons dead, however his young daughter is found still to be alive after hiding from the killers. Leiter packs a bag and takes his daughter with revenge in his mind.

After tracking down some leads Leiter visits an old business associate, who informs him that the person that is responsible for the death of his family is his old business partner, Greg Wilson.

After kidnapping and holding hostage Wilson’s family, the two have a confrontation, ending with Wilson revealing that it wasn’t his idea to kill Jacob’s family, and it was in fact the main boss’, after the failure of Leiter’s last mission.

Jacob and Daisy go to face off against the big boss, with Jacob murdering all of his guards but finally being defeated and killed. The film ends with Daisy picking up a gun and shooting the boss in the back, avenging her family in the process.

Storyboarding

If you tell a story, you try to entice the audience into imagining its content. However, if you show the audience, you must rely less on telling and more on showing.

Storyboards are a series of sketches that are used as a planning tool to visually show how the action of a story unfolds.

• While at Sucker Punch, former art director Edward Pun worked with a four-man team whose members combined pencils, storyboarding, line art and ink, drawing the material for the cut scenes before handing the photoshop plates off to the video production lead.

Who's Storyboard?

• Advertising - Used to sell campaign strategies to clients. Highly detailed including key frames only.
• Television - Used to storyboard complex sequences - eg. CSI, The West Wing.
• Video Games - Take a lot of pre-planning. Once developed game designers storyboard for key events, cut scenes.

Remember

Questions to ask while storyboarding:

1. Is each drawing necessary?
2. Is the information of each drawing clear?
3. Consider the type of camera shot.
4. Consider the lighting of the scene.
5. Consider the dialogue of the scene.
6. Consider the sound/music.

The Power Of Sound

On Sunday, October 30th 1938 America was sent into a state of panic thanks to War of the Worlds. This was due to the belief in what was being presented, thanks to sound and imagination being the only medium.

The Foley Artist

• Often called spot effects.
• Created and developed by Jack Foley (1927)
• First move to use spot effects was show boat.

Here are some classic Foley sound effects:

• Punch - thumping a watermelon, smacking a piece of meat with a meat tenderizer, a heavy telephone book rolled and taped up
• Bones Breaking - Breaking a bunch of celery, a head of frozen romaine lettuce
• Footsteps in snow - squeezing cornstarch in the bow or in a leather pouch
• Kissing - kissing the back of your hand
• Flapping bird’s wings - a pair of gloves
• Grass or leaves crunching - balled up audio tape (walk on it)
• Creaking sound - use an old chair that creaks, a water soaked rusty hinge placed against different surfaces
• Crackling fire - cellophane
• Gun - a heavy staple gun and a piece of metal
• “Whoosh” - swinging a thin stick or arrow
• Horse’s hooves - coconut shell cut in half and stuffed with padding
• Wet Squishy Sounds - Flubber, gelatin, dish soap
• Voice - any sound you can make or imitate

Analysing Sound and Music in Games

Aspects of Sound

Creating Atmosphere
- This may set the overall theme, sound is core to making a space a place.
Assigning Meaning to an Event
- Making sounds that sound how they should, and assign importance to the act. Reloading etc.
Appeal to a Certain Market
- DJ Hero Vs Guitar Hero. Making things fit into the game. Who are you making the game for?
Providing Rhythm for Gameplay
- Bit.Trip Runner. [FLOW STATE, LOOK UP]
- Polynomial
Cueing Gameplay Events
- 5.1 sound noises coming from certain directions in stealth games, dialogue, also in FPS’s.
Linked to a Broader Set of Concepts
- Sounds and music may have a deeper contextual relevance to individuals.

TASK 1

Individually look at your list of games from the previous week, pick two and apply the categories to those games, establish what is happening at those moments in game and what sounds you are hearing.

TASK 2

Look at one of your favourite films and apply the same categories to it.

TASK 1

Game 1 – Far Cry Blood Dragon

Creating Atmosphere
Soundtrack by Power Glove, all in 80’s electronic style reminiscent of classic 80’s action movies such as The Terminator, Robocop, Predator et cetera. This instantly allows the player to know what to expect from the game in terms of style and sound.

Assigning Meaning to the Event
This is represented by the sound of footsteps on the ground, a gun being holstered or drawn, leaves being pushed aside, and cyber hearts being removed forcibly. It can also be seen from the sound of the zooming cyber eye being equipped, producing a mechanical sound. It can also be seen when guards are alerted to your presence, with the soundtrack becoming more tense and dramatic until danger has passed.

Appealing to a Certain Market
Fans of 80’s movies predominantly, through the use of the soundtrack, or through the cheesy action movie dialogue that sounds like it was ripped straight from Predator.

Providing Rhythm for Gameplay
Intensification of music when the player is noticed, this helps to add to the drama of the event.

Cueing Gameplay Events
Guards commenting on dead bodies, or saying that they’re going to carry on on their patrol.

Linked to a Broader Set of Concepts
Long Tall Sally by Little Richard plays in the opening mission, as you fly past an enemy base in a helicopter, mowing down legions of cyborg enemies. This is a clear reference to the famous helicopter scene from Predator, showing that the creators had a clear knowledge of the film and wanted to pay homage to it in this way.

Game 2 – Resident Evil

Creating Atmosphere
The sounds of echoing footsteps off the hard marble floor create a feeling of solitude and and separation, subtly giving the impressing of isolation and in doing so, also fear of the unknown. The ominous music used while characters search for survivors also helps to add to the fear factor as well.

Assigning Meaning to an Event
The noticeable sound of doors in the game gradually creaking open and closed, as well as giving a sense of foreboding also makes the sound instantly associated with the action of progressing to another area. Likewise, the bleeping sound from when a player picks up an item or uses their inventory could be seen to do the same thing.

Appeal to a Certain Market
The use of cheesy, poorly acted dialogue from the voice actors could be seen as a conscious effort to appeal to fans of shlocky horror movies which are fraught with this particular trope.

Providing Rhythm for Gameplay
When zombies are interacted with in the game there is an unmistakable sound of them moaning and also the soundtrack becomes more exciting and tense.

Cueing Gameplay Events
The sound of gunshots off screen, while prompting the player to head in a specific direction, also helps cue the game's first dramatic action scene in the players first confrontation with a zombie.

Linked to a Broader Set of Concepts
The sound of a single ticking clock echoing in an empty room is a familiar aspect in horror movies, particularly those such as House on Haunted Hill and other similar films, and helps to remind players of the terror of these atmospheres. The zombies, and the wet chomping noises it makes when eating people, is unmistakably reminiscent of other zombie movies, as are their desperate, mournful moans.

TASK 2

The Brothers Bloom

Creating Atmosphere
The use of a jaunty, almost fairytale-esque soundtrack running through the opening imply the film will be lighthearted in nature with a playful, childlike attitude to the events that occur in it.

Assigning Meaning to an Event
The use of a rhyming narrative throughout the opening of the film help to inform the audience of the events of, what is actually a rather bad upbringing, while at the same time implying that the two children walked to the beat of their own drum.

Appeal to a Certain Market
The mature, old-fashioned, almost noir like dialogue from the cast in general help sell the idea of two children growing up on crime novels of daring thieves and grifters, helping the viewer to ascertain the general themes and understand if the film is for them or not.

Providing Rhythm for Gameplay
The theme of Bloom asking for an "unwritten life" comes up a lot, and becomes a focal point for the plot.

Cueing Gameplay Events
Whenever you hear the theme tune of the film kick in you understand that something is happening to do with Stephen planning a new con, be it an aspect of his plan coming into play, or adapting the plan in an emergency.

Linked to a Broader Set of Concepts
The catchy Jazz theme of the jazz intro to the film ties into the idea of it being a vibrant, exciting film that will feature a lot of improvisation and elements that you may not catch if you're not paying attention, much like Jazz in itself.

My Top Ten Audio Tracks

Columns (1990)

The first Mega Drive games I owned, and one of my favourite theme tunes of all time.

Street Fighter II (1991)

Guile’s Theme, I think it’s one of the coolest fighter levels ever, and Guile has always been my favourite Street Fighter characters.

Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

Sonic is one of my earliest game memories, and it’s my favourite level tune. I always liked the slow, peaceful tune playing when I was going insane trying to complete the stages.

Streets of Rage II (1992)

Another of my favourite tunes, it was one of the first times I realised just how great music in games could be.

Resident Evil (1996)

I always appreciated Resident Evil, because even though it’s one of my scariest gaming memories from my youth, it always had appalling dialogue, and this is the perfect example of it.

Abe’s Oddysee (1997)

As if this section wasn’t terrifying enough, the music accompanying it made it 100 times worse, making a truly tense experience.

Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001)

I love the MGS series, it’s probably my favourite of all time, and trying to pick just one thing from it is insanely difficult, but I thought this was the best rendition of the iconic tune, and every time I hear it it just gets me really pumped to play through the games again.

Mass Effect 2 (2010)

Two Steps From Hell – Heart of Courage

I was insanely hyped for this game to come out, with the trailer being what I thought was the high point in the promotion process, and this song went so far just to make the game feel as huge as it was.

Scott Pilgrim (2010)

I love chiptune, and this soundtrack was basically my gateway drug for the genre. That and Anamanaguchi are just awesome anyway.

Far Cry Blood Dragon (2012)

Friends (Forever) – Dragon Sound

This soundtrack had a lot of amazing songs from Power Glove, but I chose this one because it was the most delightfully ridiculous piece of 80s power ballad nostalgia that fit perfectly with the tone of the game. Plus it reminds me of Top Gun, basically.

A Brief History of Music

1972 - Pong
1974 - Tank: The first example of change in the pitch of sounds featured. Also the first driving game, and helped save Atari from closing down in the face of countless Pong clones.
1978 - Space Invaders: The first game to assign sound to different things. And the first to feature continuous soundtrack. Additionally the game itself sped up because of a coding error, as there was less to process the game would become quicker, unintentionally making it more difficult.
1978 - Stratovox: The first game with audible dialogue.
1984 - Tetris: The first game to have a recognisable theme tune.
1985 - Mario: First game to feature level specific themes.
1991 - F-Zero: 16bit compressed sample playback, meaning 8 tracks of sound all at once.
1995 - Wipeout: 24 samples allowing a more orchestral soundtrack - 32bit.
2001 - Halo: The first proper recognition that video game music can rival film scores.
2001 - Red Dead Redemption: A representation of how in game music can help construct the scene and fit perfectly into the story - Jose Gonzales

Reactive and Adaptive Sound

Reactive sound is any sound that reacts to the player’s direct input. This, for example, can be anything from a player shooting a gun, or punching an opponent in the face in a fighting game.
Adaptive sound is any sound that reacts to the game state, such as background noises such as NPC’s mooching about or environmental sounds such as a bird singing in a rainforest, or music playing automatically at the start of the game.

In the Flash game Portal, we have several examples of adaptive and reactive sounds.

Adaptive – At the start of the game and during levels music will start automatically, the player has no direct control over this.

Reactive – By making your character jump, you yourself are causing the jumping sound directly by pressing a button.

Reactive - Using the titular portals will directly activate a sound, as will jumping through the portal and emerging at the other end.

Another Flash game that has a number of examples of adaptive and reactive sound is the popular title Alien Hominid.

Adaptive - Again, the music is not directly caused by the player’s actions.

Adaptive – The sound of enemies shoot will automatically occur, and is not caused by the player’s actions.

Reactive – The sound of the player’s gun being fired is caused by the player directly.
Reactive – Enemies scream because they have been set on fire, this is directly caused by the player.

Examples of reactive and adaptive sound in film, taken from a scene from the film The Dark Knight.

Adaptive – music, the people on the screen have no direct involvement with the inclusion of the soundtrack.

Reactive – Sound is caused by a shotgun blast from one of the characters on screen.

Adaptive – Characters quietly speaking to one another in the background, this is not directly caused by the central character we are watching on screen.