Category: Teneberis Tenebris

This is a page of some the games that inspire me to work in game sound, and what about them inspires me for this particular project

Left 4 Dead 1&2 – Sound motifs

The ‘Left 4 Dead’ duology is an interesting case study in stylish use of soundtrack and sound design to communicate with the player. These games are set in a world that has been taken over by a ’28 days later’ style flu, turning most of the population into rage-filled “zombies”. however, the way the game presents your interaction, your journey through the games story, is far different to how most games present the player. In Left 4 Dead, each campaign is presented as a movie, with each campaign being a movie, and each gameplay environment being its own chapter. Visually, it does this in many ways, presenting each campaign with a movie-style poster of the characters stood in front of the main environment of each campaign, with a movie-style name; they even attach a movie-style tagline on each poster. For example, take this below image of the loading screen for the :eft 4 Dead 2 campaign “Dark Carnival”

The soundtrack and sound design very much follow this theme, with the music using the same motifs with different instrumentation for each Campaign. For example, the title screen for the ‘Dark Carnival’ uses a theme that follows the same rough tune but using a horn and what sounds like a synth, accentuating the environment, whereas the ‘Dead Center’ campaign uses accordions and banjos for the same tune.

The gameplay consists of 4 players making their way, as a group, through an environment to a safe house, combating large hordes of the infected and occasionally facing “special infected”, which have some kind of mutation giving them special abilities. Each special infected has its own motif that is played when it spawns into the game, in keeping with the instrumental style of each campaign and, contrary to how most games will attempt to immerse you into their worlds, reinforces you into this position of being someone witnessing these events through a camera, as if a viewer in a cinema, in my opinion, this comes from a place of reinforcing the theme instead of the world. The theme of the games is one of the many things about it that makes it unique to so many other videogame experiences. The 2nd game especially commits to the theme, being extremely campy and using huge set-pieces and giving the characters more excessive personalities, having them tell little jokes and engage in banter between each other while gunning down crowds of foes, as if they were in a movie.

Rainbow Six: Siege – positional audio

Rainbow six is a tactical shooter series based on the novels of the same name by Tom Clancy, one of many series based on his works. Sound is a huge component in the Rainbow Six games, Siege especially as the sound of a player moving around is so heavily emphasised, being one of the biggest innovators for positional audio in the gaming industry, being one of the few shooter games to utilise shooting through certain walls, sound is very important for the success of any team.

In Siege, a small sound trigger by something as miniscule as aiming down your sights or leaning can be the difference between life and death. The attention to detail and desperation to present a realistic sound system is inspiring but also quite cautionary. Many have criticised the game for having a system too unintuitive for new player who are used to the more simplistic sound systems of other games, meaning the casual player can often become frustrated when a sound they thought was coming from a doorway was actually coming from the other sound of the wall and simply travelling down the hallway and through the door, much like a sound would in real life. it has also become rife with people who like to “sound whore” which is a fanbase term for abusing the sound system with high-end sound equipment, turned up to an unreasonable volume, to find players through walls. This also means that players with worse-than-average hearing or are unable to afford headphones that turn up to 11 are at a significant disadvantage, as they will be unable to hear or register the sounds of other plays, or may be unaware of the sounds they make.

Halo 3 – expressive audio

the Halo series overall is a masterclass in expressive sound, with my main inspiration coming from the sound design of the weaponry and player-vs-player interactions. In a particular fight between 2 players, the strategy of these players can be completely informed by the sounds the other players spartan is making. For example, when another player is using a plasma pistol, a highly controversial but extremely popular weapon in the Halo games for its ability to disable another players shields, it will make a loud charging sound, meaning the other player knows to keep to cover and keep their distance to prevent a shield overcharge-melee combo, a common tactic for shortcutting close-range encounters in Halo. at the same time, if one player was to launch a grenade into an area they are sure houses another player, the enemy player will make a recognisable grunt if hey are damaged, and if their shields break it will make a very loud snapping sound, letting the aggressor know that their enemy is at a disadvantage.

Another one of my favourite weapon sounds in the halo games is the activation sound for an energy sword, a weapon that, in most cases, will kill any player in 1 hit, which means that when you hear one activate nearby you are reminded to watch your surroundings and keep your distance.

Halo, like most competitive games, tries to utilise recognisable and distinct weapon firing noises to help further aid informing the player of what they’re up against and how to proceed. For example, the sniper rifle makes an extremely loud cracking sound, completely different from any other weapon sound, besides the alien sniper, the focus rifle, which makes a more electrified, synthetic version of the same sound, more like a ZAP.

This approach inspires me to make sure that danger is telegraphed in a proper way for the player to respond accordingly to make the gameplay experience as fun and engaging as possible.

Nine Inch Nails – Right Where it Belongs (version 2) – 20/11/23

Now this might seem like an odd one as it’s not a game or piece of interactive media or even an academic source of some kind whose methods I’m inspired by. Instead, I have placed this here as it’s very much the tone of this version of the song that’s inspiring my design process with the project/game.

DeadFright – 06/12/23

After reading “My Zelda Cane” I heavily dove into the idea of utilising auditory landmarks to aid in navigation of the environment. DeadFright was a blind accessible horror game that proposed using this very mechanic to aid in navigation, as well as sound beacons and contrasting 3D audio environments to help in informing the player of their whereabouts, another thing I set out to do at the beginning of this project for the same reason. In fact, it seems that this game is already doing everything I wanted to do with Tenebirs Tenebris, right down to eliminating visuals overall.

The game was still suposedly in the development stage at the time of writing, however there has been no information about the game released since november 2020