The Game Audio Tutorial

6

Making it Sound Good

Now we’ve got all the elements (sound, music, dialogue), we can start to bring them together. Before you begin you should always ask, “What am I trying to achieve?” Ideally you’re asking this question alongside the game producer and game designers in weekly design meetings. Even if you are working without this kind of support, you need to have a good understanding of the intended purpose of the gameplay from moment to moment, and the type of emotion you want your player to experience so that your soundscape can effectively support it.

For a long time sound has developed with the aim of matching the increasingly photo-realistic look of games, hence “making it sound real.” It’s true that to some extent the role of sound ...