Game Art With Hannah: Sound For Games: I Have A Lot Of Feelings

I'll start this off by says that I have a lot of strong feelings about video games soundtrack.

In fact, it's taking a lot of restraint to not just post 50 videos of different soundtracks that I'm a little in love with. I could talk for hours about how much I love Inon Zur, or Jesper Kyd, or Martin -O'Donnel, or Mike Salvatori or Clint Mansell, or Jeremy Soule, or Jack Wall or Sascha Dikiciyan, or Cris Velasco , Hanz Zimmer or even Trent Reznor... Well, the list goes on. However, that's not going to answer the question "How is sound used in games?" At least not right now it isn't.

First we should take a little look at the history of sound in games. Chiptune. That's where it all started really. It was common place back in the day because that's all we could afford to include with the technology we had. It improved with sampling and the introduction of MIDI in the 1980s but still, it wasn't up to the standard it is today.

However, the limited amount of space lead to some of the most memorable pieces of music in gaming history, the Mario Theme or Zelda's Lullaby being the big ones. These themes are imprinted on the minds of adults and kids alike because they have such a strong melody; the tune gets stuck in your head. This isn't an accident either; these memorable themes were created to define the franchises they were a part of, helping them take up a big old chunk of video game history, along with Koji Kondo, the man behind most of them.

Link to the Past - Zelda's Lullaby

Super Mario Theme

You ask someone today to sing you Zelda's Lullaby, chances are they can and many musicians still sample these track and remix them, creating huge numbers of new songs on sites like OC Remix.

Zelda's Lullaby Remix - The Triforce Has Too Many Pieces

Nowadays however, the technology has improved so much as games have become more complex and very often cinematic experiences as well as games. This has lead to so many beautiful soundtracks of varying genres and styles, often rivalling film soundtracks in their quality. We've moved far away from the old days of chiptune, which could be seen as a negative thing because we tend to not have the solid themes that games like Mario used to have. However, we have something entirely different; the ability to evoke strong emotions and create incredible atmosphere within our games.

Soundtracks, at least in my opinion, are very similar to the previous chiptune themes from the SNES era; they are brand identifiers to the people who play them. Let a person listen to a song from the any Halo soundtrack, chances are they know which series it is. This is done mainly using some kind of motive or genre.

Seeing as we're on the topic of Halo, I'll use that as my example. Martin O'Donnell, the main composer for the Halo franchise, said in a podcast with Bungie "Master Chief is still green, Cortana is still blue, and so you're going to hear the monks and the cellos" on the topic of the Halo 3 soundtrack. He said he took a " orthodox, almost formal approach to the trilogy". Essentially, the first game was big on the orchestral pieces, the second game had more of a... guitar/rock theme with the help of Steve Vai (MJOLNIR MIX). The third game, however, combines these two to create something gorgeous. Like, O'Donnell says "you're still going to hear the monks and the cellos"; Those are the motifs. You can tell almost instantly what game it's from if you've played it.

Halo - Orchestral Theme

Halo 2 - Mjolnir Mix

This is a recurring theme with game soundtracks. Each of the soundtracks for different games in the franchise tends to have some kind of underlying motif or instrument involved, usually with the same composer working on it. With Halo it's the monks and the cellos. In Dragon Age, both Origins and 2, Aubrey Ashburn is the vocalist used on the tracks and Inon Zur composes both scores. Her voice is fairly distinctive and there are similar hooks used in both soundtracks so, while they are different games, you can still tell they are from the same franchise.

Dragon Age: Origins - I Am The One

Dragon Age 2 - Rogue Heart

As well as being a brand identifier like those original chiptune melodies, sound is a huge part of what creates the atmosphere and emotion we feel when playing. Older games tended to have and overworld with different levels coming off of it and each one contained its own exclusive theme with its own unique atmosphere. Games like Pokemon also have this, with each town having a different pieces of music to set the scene. For example, LavenderTown famously has some of the most unsettling music with its own urban legend, involving kids getting sick and even committing suicide after listening to it. Each of these worlds had its own atmosphere that didn't change until you switched levels, so there tended to be one solid theme that would play throughout.

Lavender Town Theme - Pokemon Red

However, now that the way we make games has become more complex and we have better equipment and technology at our disposal we aren't stuck with one song per level. In fact, there are multiple songs per level and, in the case of open world games, the music changes all the time. Just look at Skyrim or Oblivion. Because games have become more cinematic now, often the music changes to help push the mood onto the player. In Dragon Age for example, you can be wondering around a forest quite happily until you're ambushed by a group of enemies. The music changes quickly; the contrast between the serene theme of the forest and the brutal, aggressive theme of combat is obvious and sets you on edge a little, letting you know this are heating up. The death of an important character in the plot or a sad/emotional moment will be accompanied by the music to emphasise that.

Well, I've rambled on about soundtracks long enough but I've missed out something important. Soundtracks and music are not the only part of sound design. Ambient sounds are just as important, if not more so in the case of some games. You can use sounds to lead the player around a level, to create tension and suspense and to scare them shitless. A lack of a soundtrack can sometimes be just as effective as a regular soundtrack. A good example of this is Slender. Almost no music involved at all, it's all footsteps, heavy breathing, heartbeats and ambient noise; it's terrifying. See, music doesn't follow you around in the real world so when you want to isolate a player and create that sense of suspense, silence is a great option. Music gives too much away. Then, when you catch a glimpse of the Slenderman, a great big sting booms through the headphones and you jump out of your seat and sprint the opposite way. It's clever and something that horror games especially take full advantage of.

Slender Gameplay

One of the big things about sound that many aspiring and working game designers overlook (and I know I certainly did) is how INCREDIBLY important it is. The sound design can make or break your game if it's done poorly. After reading Gamasutra's article on Sound Design (which is a great read and way better than what I can write about it) I learnt just how important it is. Randy Thom, a big sound designer for films such as Star Wars V and VI, stated that "a movie must be designed for sound, rather than the other way around" and the same can be said for video games. Sound designers to be involved as early as possible to make sure that every part of your game evokes the right response from the player. In the next generation of consoles and games, sound design has such a huge potential to improve. We just need to work harder at incorporating and planning out the scores and sound effects parallel to the stories and levels; if we do that, we could create some truly incredible experiences within our games.

I said I was trying hard not to post all of my favourite video game sound tracks but... you know what. I don't care. I'm doing it. Listen to these, just to name a few: