Rita and Laura had different deadlines, so the workflow was different from what I expected. Up until the time of the launch, I had no idea what the game would look like. Me, Cai and Elliot, we only had the references given to us through the PowerPoint and the conversations we had directly with them, either by video call or face to face. I still remember being present at the ADR recording for the penguin, but we still didn’t have a pictorial vision of what this would look like. I was amazed to learn that the most interactive part was the part my partner Cai was working on and the look of the scene I worked on myself. I will leave my opinion on each scene in this post and talk about the sound itself.
Winter Wonderland (sound design by Cai Pritchard)
First of all, the look of the game itself is strange, and I still have difficulty understanding what kind of age it’s supposed to be for. I remind you that the main idea of the game is meditation.
I think Cai’s Scene was quite well done by him. I think the sounds work perfectly. The scene doesn’t require much sound design either. In conversation with Cai, I noticed that he found the most difficult was the music production since we both are not “sonically” made for that.
What I liked the most in Cai’s Scene can be seen in minute 7:20, in which the player is asked to do a breathing exercise. That is the only moment I can imagine the player having a meditation-like experience. At this point, the player is immersed in a quiet field recording, and I think that should be the case for the whole scene. The music works well as a characteristic element of the environment in which it is inserted. Still, I think it doesn’t help that much to achieve that end when putting the meditation motif in perspective.
Trippy scene (my sound design)
Watching my scene, I was saddened to learn that there were thousands of elements that could be sounded. I was asked for two sounds, the music and haptic sound, but only the former was used. Even the sound has no treatment whatsoever: there is no spatialisation, no 3D emitter that can be identified. It’s like a stereo recording coming out generally through the headphones.
It makes me think that possibly if I had had access to my scene before, it would have given a very different experience to the final result. I didn’t know, for example, that my scene was set in space and that there were giant hoops surrounding a platform made of crystal, with portals and many other interactive elements.
These are all considerations that I will have when the remake is made. I hope I can give the scene the sound it deserves.
Zenrappy (sound design by Elliot)
I believe this scene is the best achieved. Compared to the previous ones, this one is much more balanced. The interactions are not unmediated, and the surrounding space is not too extensive. However, I also feel some imbalance in the amount of time the player would have to dedicate to play this part. The player would not spend more than 2 minutes on this part of the video analysis. Compared to the Winter Wonderland scene, the player could happily spend 10 minutes.
What I think works well in this scene is the sound of the water in contrast to the gong. Technically, there might be a problem with Elliot’s chosen recording, as you can hear a plane fly by. Other than that, I think it works well.
There’s a lot more to explore in these scenes in terms of sound, which I’ll have to discuss with my colleagues. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to get our games into unity or Fmod, but together we can come to more logical conclusions to get a proper job.