Post by KovaKreative in Let's talk about sound!

GMTK Game Jam 2019 » Community

Viewing post in Let's talk about sound!

I've always been a music geek, and have been singing for almost 20 years, but I've only recently actually started to expand my game developer skill set to include sound design and music production. I find it a lot of fun, and I have to say, I'm quite proud of what I came up with for this jam: https://kovakreative.itch.io/power-source This is the first of my games for which I composed the music.

As for your game, Sean, I really like both tracks. The intro music builds into what I perceive to be a vibe of mystery and adventure really well. Unfortunately, it takes a while to build up, and I don't think most people would stay on the title screen for that long, but I did, and the composition is really good. Do you have a soundcloud page or something where you upload your music?

The music for the main game loop is just delightful. I have a very soft and nostalgic spot for the marimba, which you've used to great effect (that is a marimba, right?) The only problem, and I don't think this is your fault, but a few levels in, the music just stopped. I'm not sure if it just wasn't looped, or if it's a glitch, but yeah, it went silent after a while.

I hope you don't mind a bit of constructive criticism on the sound effects though. I'm not sure if this was a creative decision or not, but they sounded a little crackly, which sounds like a problem with the speakers, rather than, say, static or something of the sort. What was your approach to sound design for this one, may I ask?

Sean Ryan5 years ago

Thanks for the feedback!

The music:

So the funny thing about the sound the two sound tracks that I wrote for Callais is that the where supposed to be swapped. In other words, I wrote the title theme to be in game and the in game track for the title screen lol. They were also both created to be looped but the developers were working on other things so it just didn't happen in time for the deadline. Which I totally understand and they made sure to let me know that there will be updates that fix these and other issues. I'm still happy and proud of the way it turned out! If i would have known they were going to switch them, i would have made that main theme WAY shorter and spent more time on the marimba piece. That sound btw is the marimba sound that comes with Garageband! So you are correct! In fact, everything you heard in both songs either came from the stock Garageband sounds, free plugins or a mixture of both. Also for reference I listened to the "Ori and the silent forest" soundtrack on repeat for practically 48 hours.

Most of my work eventually ends up here: https://soundcloud.com/seanryanmusic4u

The sounds:

As far as the sound goes, I didn't see any art the whole time so I was working purely off of quick descriptions through a discord chat. Descriptions like: "mystic" and "rock guardian." So my brain immediately went to something big, like a rock giant that shakes the ground when he walks. To achieve this i went through some old foot steps I had and to add the weight I layered a mix of like 5 different presets on a free audio plugin: https://tal-software.com/products/tal-noisemaker. I then added a snare drum from a different free plugin: https://obxd.wordpress.com/ to give it a good punch. However it didn't really sound 'earthy' enough so thats when i added the crackling that you are talking about. I was going for the sounds of loose rocks/dust/gravel like sounds so on some of the tracks I added another free plugin: https://www.izotope.com/en/products/create-and-design/vinyl.html and cranked up the dust and detune features that it has to give them that extra detail. So sense it is vinyl crackling, I see where your concern came from and assure you your speakers are fine! For the future updates of the game i'll try a few different/more natural methods like fire crackling or actual dust and dirt!

Your game:

I really enjoyed it! I especially loved the title music! whatever synth you used for the bass gave me chills and I have to know what it is! The game theme I think was solid but I would have liked it if it went on for a bit longer (maybe a minute or so) before looping. Also, i think maybe a faster tempo or a more energized beat could be really beneficial during gameplay and perhaps even drive up the anxiety if that is what you are going for. The sounds were solid and I feel like they all stayed within the theme of the game very well! I especially like how you could hear a bullet/laser before you could see it in some cases. The only thing that threw me off was the fact that the energy bar didn't make a sound when it went down. I was pushing boxes around like crazy until i looked and saw that it drained my health. I think if you added a subtle sound that let the player know when they are draining their health it would help with this!

Over all great job, keep it up and thank you again for the feedback! You definitely gave me some things to think about!

KovaKreative5 years ago

Oh okay, that makes sense. It is possible that the reason the dust effect didn't quite work is because everything else was little quiet in the mix. Like, if you had something heftier on the low end of the jump, and the dust be a little more quiet and more on the high end, it would balance it out? I don't know, just spitballing. Also, may I suggest playing around with more of a grinding sound, maybe? Like, two large stones grinding against one another. I don't know if it'll work, but if I was supposed to create a sound effect of a stone character jumping, that'd be my first instinct, so it might be worth a try.

The bass I used for the intro was in a synth pack called Hybrid. https://www.airmusictech.com/product/hybrid-3 It's quite pricy, but I was lucky enough that my MIDI keyboard came with a download code for it. (My midi keyboard didn't even cost as much as this synth pack, hahaha). The funny thing is, the bass sound I used for the intro was actually supposed to have a voice-like quality, you know, a Living on a Prayer, wah-wah type thing, but I found the whole track to be a bit too bassy, so when I removed a bit of the low end in mastering, that voice quality totally disappeared. Except at the end of the loop, where you can hear it quite well. I found that a bit weird. But I'm still happy with how it sounds.

Yeah, I'll probably expand the main loop track to be longer. I wasn't really sure how long my levels were going to be and whether the track would restart or not, and plus, you know, making all the assets during the jam, I didn't have too much time to spend on the music. It took me about an hour to create both tracks, and I didn't want to spend longer than that, so I consciously kept the loops short. And actually, I wasn't really going for anxiety. I was going more for strategy and survival, rather than panic, but yeah, it's interesting, I found that as soon as people realize that they can't shoot their gun willy nilly, the flight instinct kicks in, and they just start running around frantically. I hadn't foreseen that. I do want to build on this game, but at this point, I'm not sure if I want to just roll with the more frantic pacing, or restructure it so that it'd be more intuitive for people to be more tactical about it.

As for the sound effect, yeah, I'm a bit conflicted about that. You're right, most people don't realize that pushing crates drains their stamina, but I really don't want to end up with something that ends up getting annoying because of how often the player hears it. Maybe I'll try for a visual queue first, and see if it's enough.

Thank you so much for your feedback! It's fun to talk music with someone. Like I said, I've only started composing recently, so it's been really fun and challenging getting into it, and it's nice to talk shop with another game composer.