Daniel Dehaan

Sound Design Assignment: Video Game Sound Design - Part 1: Design

Sound Design Assignment: Video Game Sound Design - Part 1: Design

Provided Materials

  • Gameplay Video - Click on the three dots near the bottom right corner of the video to download it.

Resources

  • FreeSounds.org - You’ll need to create a free account to be able to download sounds
  • SONNISS Free Collections - A collection of free sound libraries from SONNISS
  • Airwiggles Community Collection of Free Sounds - A community of sound designers and their ever-growing collection of free sounds

Situation

You’ve just agreed to create the sound effects for an indie game. The developer wants the game to sound dark, whimsical, and a little scary but in a fun rather than a scary way.

During your meeting with them you identify all the SFX the game will need (see list below). You’ll begin by creating mockups of each of the sounds to a gameplay capture the developer will send to you and use the videos to figure out what everything should sound like before worrying about how to implement each sound in the actual game.

The developer has seen on social media that you also produce original music and they might be interested in having you do the music too, but right now they just need the SFX.

Creative Brief

Using the gameplay video the developer sent you, create short mockup videos showing each of the SFX listed below. In situations where you are not sure about a particular sound, it might be helpful to create a few variations of different styles that the developer can review and help give you some creative direction.

SFX List

Player Category:

  • Player-Yawn
  • Player-Movement
  • Player-Hurt
  • Player-Death
  • Player-Shoot

Hellephant Category:

  • Hellephant-Movement
  • Hellephant-Hurt
  • Hellephant-Death

File Format & Standards

When you are done designing each sound, make sure that the peak volume for each SFX is between -1 and -12 dB. For now, we just want to make sure that the developer can hear each SFX. We’ll worry about the balance/mix of each sound later during delivery and implementation. Export each SFX from your DAW as a separate movie file (.MOV or .MP4) that is only as long as is needed to show the SFX in action.

Naming Convention

Your files should be named exactly as follows for each of the SFX listed in the table above.

SP24-MUSC-228_P3_FirstName-LastName_SFX-Name_V001

Example: SP24-MUSC-228_P3_Daniel-Dehaan_Button-Click_V001

Naming Convention Explained: [Semester]-[Department]-[Course Number]_[Project Number]_[Composers First Name]-[Composers Last Name]_[File Name]_[Version Number]

Evaluation Standards

CriteriaPoints
File Format & Standards - Did you follow all file formats and standards described here or previously discussed in class?3
Naming Convention - Did you follow all naming conventions and standards described here or previously discussed in class?3
Creative Brief - Did you realize everything that was asked in the creative brief?3
X Factor - Does it have that “X” quality?1
Total10

Submission

Upload your completed materials to the same Dropbox folder as last week: SP24-MUSC-228_P03

Warning: Please take extra care when uploading your files to ensure everything is in the correct file format and named exactly as requested. If, for any reason, you need to upload additional versions, please increment the version number at the end of the file for each new version of a file.

Example version progression:

  • SP24-MUSC-228_W07_P3_Daniel-Dehaan_Button-Click_V001
  • SP24-MUSC-228_W07_P3_Daniel-Dehaan_Button-Click_V002
  • SP24-MUSC-228_W07_P3_Daniel-Dehaan_Button-Click_V003

Peer Critique

Please be prepared to present your DAW project to the class so that we can collectively learn from or improve your work.

Example Documents

  • Example Contract - Indie Game - Sound Design.pdf (35.8KB)

Additional Practice

You can find millions of gameplay videos online. Just download the video, mute the audio and you’re ready to go!

Additional Resources