Often when playing a game for the first time the sounds that are used aren’t always the first thing you notice. But as you continue to play the game you may become more aware of these sounds, even without realising memorising these sounds. One of the most well known game sounds of all time is Mario’s ‘bwoop‘ as he jumps in Super Mario. As a game designer it is always important to not put the game sounds last, they are one of the most important aspects of a game. As Collin’s (2013) hypothesis’ in his book “Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games” that:
“Interacting with sound is fundamentally different in terms of our experience from listening without interacting; that there is a distinction between listening to sound, evoking sounds already made (by pressing a button, for instance), and creating sound (making new sounds). ”
What Collin’s says here is that we have become accustomed to listening to sound, it comes naturally to us to just listen to sound. But in game play you can evoke sounds, you can do this that make sounds play, creating an interactivity with them. In this way the sounds in the game become more important, they become more personal as they are the sounds that the user is making themselves. They have gained complete control over something within the game.
With that in mind, I feel that it is important to collect the right sounds for my game, I want them to be something that the user feels a connection to. Like the Mario ‘bwoop‘, I want the user to want to play the sound over and over. Not only these but I feel the theme tune of the song must be something catchy, something that will stay in your mind. Like any good TV show, you will always remember the theme song – take “The Fresh Prince of Belair”.
Under the Influence 