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.