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surefootingdev · 7 years

Audio

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Tommy: For this month's diary, I wanted to talk about a big part of Sure Footing's aesthetic and appeal: our music and sound design. Despite being such a critical part of the game's identity, it didn't appear in the game until recently during our itch.io first access builds. At the time of writing, we now have several music tracks alongside in-game sound effects and voice work for Pete, Polly, Blip, Plunk and Dave. So in this piece, I want to talk about the journey to finding our sound and let you hear some of the development and progression being made.

History

First things first, I need to talk about the timeframe. Our audio came on board late in the development process, given we were still unsure of the game's visual identity. In the video I link to below, you can see the visuals shifted several times. While not significantly, it did leave me pondering what that should sound like. I started to get an idea in my mind, but a new problem emerged in finding someone who could deliver.

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We’ve met a lot of musicians and sound designers in the last couple years. But when listening to portfolios I was struggling to hear something that said: 'this is the person we need to talk to’. Then from an unlikely source, I found my answer. Back in 2015 I gave a talk at PROCJAM about the first playable Sure Footing build. But before that, there was a talk by Sean Oxyspring and Kieran Hicks on their PCG project 'Hashtag Dungeon’: a PC game where you fight through dungeons influenced by Twitter data.

You can watch Sean and Kieran’s talk here.

You can buy Hashtag Dungeon on Steam here:

The game launched on Steam last summer (go pick it up, it's great) and I was immediately drawn to the soundtrack by Liz Rainsberry. It had an intensity but mellowness to it that caught my ear. It wasn't what I wanted Sure Footing to sound like, but I felt confident that Liz would give my ideas form. Also, as you'll know if you check out her impressive portfolio, Liz is highly versatile in her music and shows a lot of range and creativity. This made me all the more confident given what I wanted from the music. I dropped Liz an email and after some initial discussion, she was happy to be on board!

The Music

I always envisaged that Sure Footing had a core beat to it. Something that synchronised with the movement happening on screen. The music itself would always play off that beat or tempo and shift as we visit new worlds. For me, one of my favourite features of the game is how we move from one sector to the next. Introducing not just a change in scenery, but often in game modifiers to introduce a new challenge. I imagined that the music would also be unique to each world. This would really help in establishing progress to the player, but still, keep that underlying sense of pace and urgency.

Liz continues to deliver on this premise in spades: with each world carrying its own distinctive tune. They're all kinda catchy too. Check out the track to Cacheville I’ve linked to at the top of the post. The tracks we have are also embellished with more thematic elements; specific inflections that repeat themselves in different ways across each track. One track that has been updated several times is the opening main menu theme. One aspect that can be found in the more recent versions is that these thematic elements are being added to it. That way when you hear them for the first time in a given sector, you may well be wondering why you’ve heard it before.

However, one exciting and important aspect of this is that sometimes - as more music is added - tracks are revisited in order to improve the synergy between them and reinforce the core beats, tempo, and themes of the music.

Sound and Voice

With our music largely established and development ongoing, we’re now just putting the finishing touches to many of the sound effects into the game itself. These effects are really important in order to reinforce the feedback a player receives when conducting a given action. Did this action prove successful? How do I need to respond to the sounds that I have heard in the game? We’re currently embedding these throughout both the main gameplay as well as the user interface, such that we can reinforce whether actions made have been processed by the UI, which can often be confusing for users if there are little to no visual cues being produced.

However, the most recent change is the introduction of voices to the game which we added for the EGX Rezzed launch. The voice work arose from a discussion between Liz and me about having some element of voices to add some charm and charisma to each of our playable characters. With this in mind, Liz contacted her colleague Eddie Bowley - an established voice actor and writer in his own right - to deliver a collection of sounds that would allow us to add some spice to our characters.

A big thing for me was ensuring that the characters rang true in Eddie’s voice work. While our game is relatively straightforward in its structure and style, I have a very particular understanding of who each of our characters is in the game: their personality and history which informs them. We brought this to the table as Eddie worked on establishing what each voice should sound like and I feel he did a fantastic job of aligning our characters with my understanding of how they should sound.

At present, the big challenge is deciding what sounds to use and where to use them. We’re fortunate in that Eddie and Liz have provided us with loads of different takes of each character, allowing for us to decide which sounds to use at particular points in time. It’s a great problem to have rather than struggling to scrape together what we want from a limited collection of sounds.

Lessons Learned

There are several aspects of this experience that we’ve found highly positive. If anything, my takeaways from this are below:

Wait For The Right People: It can take time and a lot of networking, but you need to find people who understand and appreciate the project you’re working on and you feel will be a great asset to your team. We’ve been fortunate in that our collaborators in every aspect of the game have been fantastic to work with.

Establish What You Want: While a game design document is not necessarily critical to the development of your game, I would encourage creating documentation on core aspects of lore and game world. Who are your characters? What is the backstory or theme of your worlds? These are really useful not only in establishing the sound you want, but also give direction and clarity to your sound designers.

But Despite That, Be Flexible: You might have a very concrete idea in your mind of how you want your game to sound, but remember that you are not the person entrusted with completing this task. More importantly, you’re not the expert on this topic. Your sound designer is. You’re also paying for them to deliver this work (this is a given: pay your contractors), so let them work. But make sure to work with them, reach common ground on what these deliverables should be and trust them to do their job.

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