We've finally finished up our audio design unit in Advanced Game Design at DSA. Here are my takeaways:
1. Check audio levels for multiple types of speakers: One problem I had when I was making an audio book for Advanced Game Design was that it came out too quiet when I sent it away to my teacher. This surprised me because the day before, when I had listened to it on my earbuds, it had sounded fine. I found that while I could easily hear the soft sounds on my earbuds, as soon as they were put through speakers these subtle sounds were lost. This meant I had to go back into audition and readjust the levels on my audio so they would come out right when I sent them to my teacher. 2. Less is more with effects and often presets are all that's needed: Another issue I noticed was when applying effects to different tracks it was hard to get the sound just right on my own. When putting things like echos or flangers on tracks I found it was easier to just use a preset instead of trying to customize it on my own. I also found the sound came out a lot clearer when I didn't mess with the effects a ton. Those were my two major takeaways from working in audio for the past couple weeks and hopefully they'll continue to help me in the future as we move on to video editing. -My takeaways on audio editing from the past two weeks
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Recently I've been playing a TON of a new game called Hex:Shards of Fate. If you've read my many of my past posts you'll know how much I love the card game Magic: the Gathering. However, magic's online client leaves a lot to be desired. This is where Hex has come in.
Hex is a card game very similar to mtg in it's core mechanics. At it's base it is yet another card game in which two players use resources to play cards and reduce their opponent's life total. However, one thing Hex has done really well is change the things it can change about magic's formula using it's power as a fully digital TCG. An example of this is how Hex is able to track cards through different zones. You can put modifications on cards in Hex, then shuffle them into your deck. Next time you draw that card it will still have the modifier you gave it earlier in the game. This adds a new depth of play to Hex that can't possibly be replicated by a physical TCG. Another good thing about Hex is its price: free. THat's right Hex is completely free to download and play. This means that while you don't start out with all of the top-tier cards you need to be a competitive player you can grind for those cards without paying a single cent. If you don't want to put money into Hex you don't have to. However, if grinding for hours against AI opponents isn't your thing Hex also has an in-game economy. Using websites like Hexprimal.com you can just go ahead and buy a tier 1 deck and get playing competitive Hex at a high level instantly. Might I add too that the most expensive Hex deck at the moment only barely reaches $200 dollars all said and told (compared to magic's expensive formats where tier 1 decks average $500 and up). Lastly I'd like to point out Hex's single player campaign. That's right casuals: single player. This is a cheap way to have fun playing hex and get free rewards. There's even a storyline which from what I've seen, while it lacks the history and detail of magic's decades-long saga, has incredible diversity and creativity you don't often see from mainstream games these days. But, to say anymore than that would be spoilers. This game gets many thumbs up from me and I've included the download below for anyone who would like to check it out. -What is Hex? -Why I like it -Why you should too Games create community. This is the basis of our love of games. At their core, games create social experiences. Whether it's an obvious one as seen by player interactions in multi-player games, or the more subtle community of fellow game enthusiasts that form around single player games. Last night I had the opportunity to see this community in action as I volunteered at the EK Powe Elementary School game night. Game night is the most diversely attended event at EK Powe and boy do all the kids show up for it. For my part I was left in the cafeteria e=where there were many games set up. We did everything from play Yahtzee to build puzzles. I was astonished by the good sportsmanship all around. No one got mad when they lost a close game nor did they fight over placing the final piece. Such a happy group of kids gives me hope for the future of game playing, and making, everywhere.
This is great behavior was exemplified in one group of kids who spent a large amount of time playing the Pokemon TCG in the corner of the cafeteria. Remembering how heated those games could get I walked over to see if I could work as a mediator for rule calls in some way. What I found over there however was not Pokemon. Sure from a distance it looked similar, but on closer examination, none of the kids knew how to actually play by the rules. Instead they had formed a complex game in which both sides did whatever they wanted and everyone just accepted that as the new rule. This may seem like it would make an extremely lop-sided game where only the loudest, most confident "rule maker" would have any chance of winning. However, the game was close. Any argument was washed away instantly with a quick compromise and neither side tried to take advantage of the others' ignorance of the actual Pokemon rule book (take notes Washington). Maybe one day they'll grow up. They'll separate out into strictly defined groups of people who only share their beliefs. They'll lose the ability to play for fun at the expense of rules and forget the benefits of compromising. But, for now, their future looks bright as they do what children do best: play games. -EK Powe game night summary -A game of Pokemon? Accessibility seems like and obvious improvement to any game. After all the more people who can play your game, the more people who will end up buying it. However, issues with accessibility are some of the hardest to solve. How can a color blind person recognize different potions of varying colors? How can a deaf person recognize when the next wave is on the way without the aid of that loud trumpet blast.
Many companies solve this issue as well as they can. Often games offer options in their menus such as "large text" or "easy mode". The problem with many of these solutions is that they use a brute force method of solving accessibility problems. Sure, the text is big now, but due to lazy graphic art skills or other issues the original font was lost and replaced with basic boring block script. Situations like these are just companies trying to be accessible as possible while in reality they completely ignore the experience some of there players are getting. They are trying to be as accessible as possible for the least work instead of focusing on quality game play throughout their entire product. There are elegant ways of solving these problems. For example simple shapes can be used conjunction with colors on items. This gives color-blind players a way of telling apart items that is just a rich and full, experience-wise, as players that can see color. Using creative solutions like this helps retain the experience of the game for all players while making it more accessible to a wider audience. This will be the challenge for games going forward as more people start to take an interest in games. The more people who play, the more diverse our games will have to be in their inclusively. -Why is accessibility important? -How to do it wrong -How to do it right This past week in advanced game design we’ve focused on audio editing in adobe audition. This has been an entirely new experience for me since I’ve never done audio editing before. So far, everything has been very intuitive for me. I’ve enjoyed editing sound clips to make cool sounds and creating radio commercials out of raw voiceovers. But what is it like to be a real sound designer vs. a game designer. Is this a career path I want to take.
Well to start off with the average salary of a sound designer is about $9,000 less than that of the average game designer (according to payscale.com). While not everything should be decided on money that’s admittedly not a good start to the dream of being a sound designer. However, there are some good things about working in sound. For one, sound design branches into many more fields than game design. This would give me the liberty to live in more places than a game designer can choose from. It also means that I would have more jobs to choose from. I could work in the theatre industry, for example, or even for the radio. That is the biggest advantage of sound design. It gives me the opportunity to explore a bit more and wouldn’t trap me in one industry. -weekly update -sound design vs. game design |
AuthorSamuel Henry is a Senior at DSA in NC. He has 3 years of prior experience in the game design pathway and he's looking forward to becoming a great game designer. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools Categories
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