Meticulous care was put into the foley for the protagonist of this game, as it is a constant sound throughout the game. There is an option in the game to equip ‘stealth armour’, this makes you less evident to enemies. The care put into the sound design can be seen in this element of the game as the designers did not just turn down the volume of the default armour ‘backpacking’ sounds, rather they rerecorded the foley handling the items more carefully. This is not only a more accurate representation of the sound, it also provides a subtle auditory narrative, caution. It’s this care that enriches the sonic world of the game and therefore the immersion of the experience.
Another example of care is the variation in water sounds, different objects have a specific sounds when dropped into water. The sound is dependant on the size of the object, this is also the case with objects on fire, an arrow on fire sounds like a smaller fire than a larger weapon a blaze. This informs the player of how different fires have different uses in the game. When designing the sonic world, it seems one of the most important thing to consider is how objects interact with different elements in that world. These variations in sounds give the objects a weight in reality.
Currently my practice is more focused on the musical side of sound design, and the music in this game is very well thought out. Each village in the game has a theme that reflects the environment, not only that but each has a day and night version of their theme that transition seamlessly into each other. I think that this is a very smart decision on the sound designers part, it makes the environments informationally denser and enriches the players experience of each town. There is new musical information to be discovered based on the amount of time the player stays in the town. This reminds me of a concept I read about in the article ‘Extending Musical Form Outwards in Space and Time: Compositional strategies in sound art and audiovisual installations‘. In the same way installations should be an invitation for perceptual investigation, so should games. As a sound designer for games we must consider the modulating factor of the agency of the mobile visitor, it is a modulating factor for our creations.
I think one of the most effective use of sound design in this game is the interweaving of music and action in combat situations. The game is designed to play combat themes when the player gets within a certain distance of an enemy, there are many variations of this theme depending on the difficulty of the opponent. The most interesting part of this design, in my opinion, is the fact that musical accents are added to the theme when a player lands a hit on an opponent. These accents are also modulated by the strength of the hits, the stronger the hit, the louder the musical accent. These accents are added to the beat of the bar directly after the hit. This piece of innovation is genius in my opinion, as it blurs the line between musical score and action. The musical score is there as a way to influence the player, to amp them up in combat. However the player is influencing the score while engaging in the combat, resulting in a kind of feedback loop of exhilaration.
There are multiple sound design techniques implemented in this game that I wish to engage in, and researching them has given me a better appreciation of how sound design can provide a lot of information to the player.