Game Design Essentials

CHAPTER 8

Sound

Sounds for games serve a myriad of roles. Along with creating the signature for a project, music helps to create mood, build tension, introduce mirth, and telegraph conflict. Ambient sounds help construct immersion, and clever audio effects for interfaces communicate a sense of panache, futuristic technology, dark themes, or wacky comedy. The addition of sound, an unseen component in such a visual medium, helps players use their imagination.

Well-designed audio can deeply enhance the gameplay experience, whereas a poor design can damage it. For games that have a long play time, where players may be immersed for 10–20 hours or more, one of the challenges for the audio designers is coming up with enough interesting variation in ...