Making some sound
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For this week, I have been working on the background soundtrack for Umibozu. Since the game we are aiming to create is supposed to be uncomfortable and mysterious, music wasn’t necessarily something we wanted. Instead I decided to try and keep the soundtrack somewhat ambient, with the odd uptick in certain sounds. I encountered some issues with saving the project in Audacity (the music editor I use). Eventually I managed to fix it, but this took up a significant amount of time. Audacity also does not have samples, rather it is recording only. As such I took the help of my lead programmer Jeppe to obtain some sample sounds of public domain. I in turn used these to make a combination of sounds with a background noise and such a prototype of the background soundtrack was made. The idea I hade behind the sound was to have some sense of the water you are drifting through, which was simulated by a soft sounding tap running. This combined with the drifting wind used as background to the soundtrack emulated the sound of the water swirling around the rudder. As well as this, I wanted there to be some sense of unseen events transpiring, of you not being safe. Essentially this is to promote the fact that you are looking for a legend, a myth. This again was done with sample sounds, but put together they have created something I am happy with so far. The original samples where a little too long however, which meant I had to cut them down to shorter segments. This lead to some pretty crappy cutouts, which I decided to mask with transitions, which in turn actually added to the soundtrack. As of right now, the soundtrack is not finished and will not be implemented into the game, but other parts of my sound work this week is now ready to be used. As mentioned, I did work on some other smaller soundbites. To find sound effects, I essentially went to websites offering Public Domain or at least royalty free sound samples. These I could later tweak or add effects to and in that way tailor them to our game. It turns out, finding the specific sound I was thinking of was difficult, and editing would have to be more extensive than I anticipated, but I did find some pretty spot on effects as well. As it stands, we have a finished sound effect for the powerup activation, the harpoon gun and the battery recharge for the floodlight. As of now I am happy with what I have, but there is still a lot more to do and learn. Unfortunately I have to pay for wordpress to upload audio, so the end results of my work will be first heard in playable versions of the game.  |