Sound Design: Alpha Level

For the last spring before Alpha, I was assigned to produce and submit the sound design for our game. For Alpha, I created this list of foley and non diegetic sound effects that would be necessary for the initial build of our game:

• Collection
• Running footsteps
• Hitting the ground
• Ledge grab
• Loading Screen Music
• Victory Noise - Gong
• Victory Noise - Objective Complete
• Combat woosh
• Double jump
• Glide

My previous experience with sound design was with the course Machinima. As the director for both the short and final film in the class, I did a lot of sound design to have the correct natural and thematic music and sound effects.

Finding the clips took a large amount of research and comparison. It was interesting to me, because unlike the film projects I worked on previously, the sound I found for the game would likely be heard by the player multiple times. With that in mind, I had to find sounds that in some cases would sound natural and realistic when played together with other sound effects or when looped.

I used Audacity to manipulate and clean up the audio. With the effect controls, I changed the pitch, tempo, and length of the clips. Even the shortest audio file like the 'hitting the ground' sound effect required precision manipulation and work.

I enjoyed the process and look forward to seeing where I can improve in the coming weeks as we add more elements.

Ross