Level Up.pdf

Sounds Like a Game to Me 403
Be careful not to have too many sounds playing at once. To prevent sound
effects from creating cacophony, you will have to prioritize them. Your sound
programmer can help you designate sounds into three categories: local,
distant, and priority.
Local sound effects play when the player is close to the source of the
sound effect. This may be a babbling brook, a ticking clock, a ringing
phone, the hum of machinery, or the growls of an enemy. As the player gets
further from the source, these sound effects fade away.
Distant sound effects are sounds that the player can hear even if they are
far from the sound ’ s source. These include explosions, a wolf ’ s howl,
approaching vehicle engines, or the ominous thrum of a tower o ’ doom.
Priority sound effects are sounds that will always play regardless of
where the player is. These are sounds that provide the player gameplay
feedback, including: loss of health, collection of treasures/goodies, score
or combo increase, power- up or countdown timer, successful enemy hit,
death, world interaction such as landing, collision or weapon impacts, and
footsteps/swim strokes/wing flaps.
Just as when naming level files, give your music and sound cues descriptive
but short names so the viewer doesn ’ t have to guess what they are. For
example, music for level 2 of your game may be called Lv2Song.wav, and
the sound file for a variation on a robot enemy ’ s blaster shot may be
roblast2.wav.
Sound is not only effective for communicating what is going on in the
game, but it can be used for gameplay. Whole genres of games are
centered on music, from Dance Dance Revolution (Konami, 1998) to Band
Hero (Activision, 2009). When creating sound - based and music - based
gameplay, don ’ t rely completely on the sound. Create visuals to echo the
music and sound. You can never provide too many clues for the player
and you get the benefit of creating gameplay that can be played by
impaired players.
Short - term memory games like Simon (Milton Bradley, 1978) or PaRappa
the Rapper (SCE, 1996) require the player to memorize and repeat a short