The Importance of Sound in Game Development: Immerse Your Player (Game Dev Day 28)

Objective: Identify the value of good sound design and how it effects the players’ experience.

Sound is design is an often overlooked aspect of game design; many players won’t even remember the sound, but they will remember the graphics or gameplay. However, sound design is just as important and in some cases it is even vital to the success of a game.

Imagine playing Mario Bros. without the iconic music. Or not having the sound effect when you pick up a mushroom. It would feel off.

There are three genres that require exceptional sound design to succeed

Horror Games (Alien: Isolation)

Rhythm Games

Stylish Fighting Games

Let’s look at an example from each

Horror Games (Alien: Isolation)

Pay attention to the weighty footsteps, the hissing of the Alien, and even the slithering of its tail moving something around.

Sound design in horror games is paramount. Creating tension through music or sound effects keeps your players on edge.

Unfortunately, many horror games have given up on building suspense and tension through exquisite sound design and have devolved into jump scare fests that simply use loud noises to startle the player.

Rhythm Games (Guitar Hero 3)

The music itself is the focus of most rhythm games. It has to pull the player in and keep them engaged.

Rhythm games make the music the primary focus of the player. The gameplay mechanics revolve around the sound in some way. In the example of Guitar Hero, the player must hit the appropriate keys to keep the music going.

Stylish Fighters (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance)

This title features dynamic music, meaning the background music will change depending on what the player is doing.

Only a few titles come to mind that really utilize this system of dynamic music (DOOM, DMC5,MGR:R).

While the music is not the focal point, it enhances the players’ actions by timing certain musical sections behind player input.

Finally, let’s look at our little Space Shooter and compare before and after we added sound.

Pre Audio

And now after we add music and sound effects.

Post audio