上篇的部分

篇目6，探讨声音表达效果在游戏沉浸方面的影响力

在声音的表达效果层面将从共鸣层、陈述层、形态变化层、技术层和方案解决层五个角度进行匹配解析。

共鸣层

Peter Drescher在分析游戏多层面对玩家的吸引力的时候曾认为大量的游戏都做得相当精致，并且总是抱着无限的期待希望玩家能够持续地在游戏中投入时间甚至金钱，但是往往又无心地忽略了一个最严峻的层面，玩家并不总是喜欢那些无限制反复播放的音乐，而这恰恰是更多开发者所不能提供的，且抛开音效是否真的和游戏本身匹配得亲密无缝，单无所顾忌的重复播放就足够将某种赏心悦目败坏为最恶俗的艺术以致玩家要么怨弃音乐要么则远离游戏。

Keith Stuart在论述玩家在游戏中的情感沉浸归属时曾描述得淋漓尽致：玩家在游戏中进入了某种沉浸，可能很快就进入了虚拟的状态，忽略了时间的流逝、没有觉察身边人员的走动、完全与游戏的当时氛围同步。Sean Baron更进一步拓展了这种随机意识：玩家本来可能只是打算稍微体验下游戏单纯消磨下时间，但是因为游戏设置的关系突然间完全融洽在其间，不知不觉几个小时过去之后才后知后觉地意识到自己正在扮演一个某个游戏角色，并一直努力试图在游戏中获取更高成就和分数，而后才不无惊讶地追问自己这究竟是怎么回事。这其中就包含声效在听觉方面对玩家的沉浸促动，Ariel Gross认为声效的这种场景因素能够将玩家的临境感通过听觉的迷幻陶醉带入到更为逼真和投入的层面，这就意味着只是单纯写个需求就随便找家音效外包商的行为并不一定能深切地找到游戏中最贴切玩家心扉的旋律，甚至还可能出现理解力的偏差导致游戏在当刻缺乏音效的辅助而失去最完美的表现张力。这也是我们所顾忌的，就如音效设计师Marc Lamber所称谓的环境音效强调是游戏音效中最别致贴心的一点，比如说玩家突然从地下室入口走出来第一刻见到阳光的那种雀跃和欢乐愉悦的氛围或者身处在一个让人惶恐且远处不时传来低沉且痛苦的呼喊声的那种毛骨悚然的心慌，如果类似这样的特殊感受被无限循环的曲目以不着调的方式一带而过，那种剥离感可以深刻到让玩家主动去逃离游戏。

最直接呈现的是K. Hew、M. R. Gibbs和G. Wadley在墨尔本大学所作的一项关于玩家对听觉腻烦的忍受度分析，事实上当这种效果达到实质性让玩家烦恼的时候，他们的第一行为就是抛弃原本是用户促进游戏交互和沉浸的听觉交流方式。这种描述类似于Peter Drescher所归纳的，做游戏的声效需要具有相应的游戏临场感，展示具体的场景需求，将声效愉悦转归为玩家的听觉享受而不是苦恼于各种简单生硬的或者无节制重复的播放效果。

或者可以从专业执行者的角度来看待声效对共鸣沉浸的影响。Splash Damage音效总监Chris Sweetman认为声效甚至能够可以很好地提升玩家的游戏意愿，以致可能有些看起来一般的游戏在音乐的陪衬下突然就显得有十足的把玩性，就如Jerry Ibbotson在探讨MotorStorm Arctic Edge所称道的关于汽车换档以引擎的声效来提示玩家游戏正在带来不断加速的冲刺愉悦（很典型的方式：在游戏中模仿玩家日常环境让玩家通过听觉意识来模拟游戏的临场感）。

形态变化层

有两个趋势的演变其实是反而不利于音乐元素在游戏中的强渗透表达的，一个是规模化的团队正在为小作坊式的框架所取代；一个是Unity、Unreal或者Torque的便捷工具正在被更广泛地运用。

Brad Meyer很清晰地表达了这个层面，在SNS和Mobile游戏释放了游戏独特创解的时代新纪元的同时，小预算几乎让很多研发团队阻隔开了研发和声效配置本身，更多地表现为音乐部分大多为外包服务，甚至是远程服务，而有些音乐的外包商本身并不参与游戏的全程运作只是在必需的情况下额外介入，既可能不关心细节，也同样可能没法理解某些场景的当刻需求，还可能因为外包资金需求不匹配而产生的各种敷衍行为，以致游戏出现各种非针对性的声效灌输，或者不够协调或者对游戏的美感没有丝毫的提升效果。

就像我们早先所强调的声效或者音乐是游戏无处不在的细节，开发者会在游戏视觉画面的美轮美奂投入无限的精力，或者在前端和后端的程序运营或者服务器负荷方面做到没有瑕疵，但在音乐层面却在表现力和游戏的匹配层方面吝啬投入，要知道开发者最大的奢望是玩家在体验游戏后能够长时间地留存下来并时刻牵挂着回访或者无限骄傲地向自己的好友推荐和分享自己游戏的心得和欢乐，只是缺乏针对性和表达力以及无限重复的音效有可能在听觉方面第一时间败坏了玩家的游戏兴致，就如我们前面分析的，无所顾忌的重复播放足够将某种赏心悦目败坏为最恶俗的艺术，以致厌倦逃离。

随着游戏工业的进程所验证和展示的，声效并不是可有可无的附属成分，声效所营造的是深入心扉的体验氛围，渗透开发者十足情感的音效将在捕捉用户灵魂和沉浸度方面更具魔力。或许工具和技术手段可以带来不错的声效体验，但只有跟上游戏进程的专业音效师才能更好地理解游戏。

陈述层

就现在来讲，着实有两个层面可以印证音乐的表达力在游戏中有不可取代的效能。

其一是游戏音乐从业者的薪酬范畴，按照Game Developer调查数据（2500份的数据取样），2011年美国游戏声效师的薪酬均值为83182美元（相比2010年的68088美元提升近1.5万美元），高于游戏行业平均薪酬的81192美元。如果从岗位分工看，2011年，游戏声效师的薪酬低于运营、程序员和游戏制作人但高于美术动画、游戏设计师和QA从业者；相比较于2010年，游戏声效师的薪酬待遇有了最大幅度的提升，2010年，游戏声效师的薪酬为68088美元，仅仅高于QA从业者的49009美元，远远低于运营、程序员、美术动画和制作人。

一年的变化，游戏声效师的价值报酬超越了美术动画和游戏设计师（相比较2011和2010，后两者的薪酬提升也在3000到4000美元之间，但落后于游戏声效师将近1.5万美元的幅度）。

其二是游戏音乐在产业中的独立效能，典型的包括Christopher Tin凭借Sid Meier《文明IV》声效获得格莱美Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists（获得格莱美的认同可能将进一步挖掘游戏原声音乐的潜力，要知道这些只为玩家默默奉献的音乐人终于有属于自己的机会参与音乐界最具影响力的盛会。在最佳视觉媒体音乐、最佳视觉媒体改编配乐、最佳视觉媒体原创配乐和最佳视觉媒体歌曲都有界定了游戏音乐和其他音乐类型同等角逐的地位）；而Zynga旗下的经典力作castleville的原创音乐插曲已经提交iTunes Music Store独立出售，定价为0.99美元；早先Farmville巅峰期时，Steve Kirk制作的Farmville Song只有很短暂的30秒钟，却可能成为当时每天播放量最大的音乐曲子之一（数千万次）；拓展远一些还可看到各种不同的顶尖音乐人都试图和游戏产生营销关联，诸如Bon Jovi、Grateful Dead、LadyGaGa、Dr.Dre。

游戏业顶尖的音乐人包括Plants vs. Zombies的Laura Shigihara、Super Mario Bros的Koji Kondo、Dead Space的Jason Graves4）Final Fantasy的Nobuo Uematsu、Call of Duty的Sean Murray、Red Dead Redemption的Woody Jackson以及Prince of Persia的Penka Kouneva等。

技术层

Sander Huiberts以IEZA（Interface、Effect、Zone、Affect）四个层面来解析游戏的音乐结构和最终的声效问题。在他的观点中，游戏的声效分为两个环节，一个环节是游戏的自然来源，主要附着为游戏的背景乐、或者与实际场景氛围相挂钩的背景音效，诸如雨天的声音、城市嘈杂的声音或者丛林兽鸣以及鸟鸣等声音源；另外一个环节则和玩家的游戏操作行为休戚相关，属于游戏的玩家表达反馈，诸如游戏角色行走发出的声音、枪械战役中的打击声、汽车引擎的发动声或者游戏中的物件碰撞等可选择操作的声音源。前者渗透在游戏每一个细微的进程，后者则与游戏事件或者玩家的直接操作行为引动产生。

这就涉及到游戏声效/音乐的逻辑呈现问题，比如如何在技术层面在不影响游戏流畅度的情况下保障这些声效能够从更系统性的角度得到更好的表达（假定声效部分已经完美实现，只需要通过技术层面进行合理嵌合，并能够在玩家需求的位置得到良好的表达展示）。按照Damian Kastbauer话讲，再好的音效如果技术层面处理配合度不好也可能变成一般或者略显低品质的听觉感受，或者说这是音频团队和整体游戏效果处理的默契配合度的考验。

Lionhead音效总监Russel Shaw在谈到类似的问题时认为这首要的就是建造一个合理的系统将环境音效层更加真实地加载在游戏的地图中，比如当玩家开始在丛林中跑动的时候，游戏就适时地将音效处理调整到丛林环境之下，而当游戏环境切换到流水旁时，又必须准确地将声效定位在流水声的氛围内，这个就必然需要从整个的技术层的实现可能进行考虑。

因为任何一个环节的差异对玩家来讲都可能产生临境感的差异，比如玩家处在流水旁所展示的却是车辆轰鸣的引擎声或者喇叭声就显得相对失真。Raymond Usher曾从声音的层面来考量过玩家在游戏进程中生理方面的变化问题，引述的例证包括有恐怖探索氛围的Amnesia: The Dark Descent和有各种嘈杂环节的Flatout系列游戏。接受试验的玩家需要分别接受有声环境和无声环境的情绪测试，对参与者的心率和呼吸频率的分析显示（包括皮肤温度），那些玩带有音频的游戏的人拥有更高层次的激发状态，由此呈现了游戏中音频促进玩家融入的能力（特别是在引擎轰鸣声、碰撞音效和背景摇滚音乐等情况下更显著，即使是并不具有强挑战性情形的游戏情境中，有音频环境同样能够增加玩家在游戏中的沉浸度）

方案层

Marcelo Martins曾专门就游戏中曲目循环播放的历史问题进行了回顾，认为在预算有限的情况下，大部分的游戏都会选择曲目循环播放的策略，尽管众所周知的原因循环曲目在一遍遍的循环往复之后终究可能坏于玩家的集体唾弃。他给出的方案是消弭音乐中的起点和终点对音效做无缝衔接，降低音乐节段的识别度，在循环播放的流程中从形式上获得玩家的差异认同造成音乐比实际长度长相当多的错觉，当然在无限的循环之后玩家的警觉性仍然会强烈地意识到这个频段有限的音乐只是在做重复播放的机械动作而非感觉上的不同曲目的跳跃（尽管这种感受将因人而异，有些人无法忍受短暂的重复，而有些人则能够和音效合拍数小时而不腻烦，当然音效的终极意义是在游戏的听觉方面配合游戏的进程吸引玩家，而不是成为玩家厌烦的一个爆发点）。

Philippe Vachey的方案是适当整合进静音（音效间歇、音高或者音频）来环节循环曲目中时刻的高相似度（事实上因为游戏存储空间和为音效预留的预算有限，重复曲目似乎已经成为了某种必然需要直面的问题），并进行细节调整从间歇层面、频率层面微调，从差异化的角度继续为娱乐玩家创造空间。Dain Saint认为从情感控制和诱发的角度，音效首先都不能成为玩家觉得厌弃的对象，与之相反则需要表达出加分渲染的效果，诸如在有悲伤氛围的地方，一旦加上贴切的哀婉的音调，则整个气氛就立马能够感染到玩家本身了。

篇目7，音乐是增强游戏玩家沉浸感的重要元素

作者：Sande Chen

第一部分：首席音频设计师Gina Zdanowicz将讨论电子游戏音乐会如何加强玩家的游戏体验。

音乐是娱乐媒体的一个重要组成部分。随着游戏不断发展，游戏音乐更加依赖于与游戏视觉效果的互动，以此引入情景并激发玩家的情感。游戏音乐应该影响游戏玩法，游戏玩法也应该影响音乐。玩家的行动会影响音乐的互动与发展，就像音乐会在游戏过程中影响玩家的决定一样。这种结合能够让玩家更深入地沉浸于游戏体验中。

面向电子游戏创造音乐的最大挑战之一便是在尝试着提供无缝互动体验的同时理解游戏音频引擎的局限性。

像变化的拍子，类型，乐器和音乐节点等技巧能够为每个游戏领域设置最完美的氛围，并准确地告知玩家他们将在这些领域获得怎样的情感。

分层配乐是一种使用不同乐器演奏出不同流的技术。通过作曲而成就的这些流本身就非常强大了，并且能够与游戏视觉效果很好地合作，但同时也能够与其它流混合在一起，随着游戏玩法的改变而变换音乐。

通过创造逐渐加强的音乐能够告知玩家危险就在前方。与boss的战斗需要带有乐器和沉重敲打乐器等多个层面的强烈音乐。在boss被打败后，音乐的速度将放缓，乐器声将逐渐变小，以此告诉玩家危险将不再出现。

《超级玛丽兄弟》便通过加快拍子去告知玩家快没时间了，这将唤醒玩家的紧迫感，推动着他们在时间用完前完成关卡。《死亡空间2》利用了环境音景和大型管弦乐队去创造了一种可怕的氛围。游戏还使用了弦乐四重奏去与大型管弦乐队的演奏形成对比，以此描述了主角的脆弱性。

不管是音乐和视觉效果都是开发者必须谨慎对待的内容，只有将其紧密结合在一起才能创造出一种强大且逼真的环境。游戏的节奏与音乐增强效果一样重要，即为了传达下一个紧张时刻而先让玩家感到安心。

当你着眼于游戏中的音乐发展到什么程度时，它清楚地证明了自己在游戏产业的重要性。音乐不再只是设置在游戏的背景中。像《摇滚乐队》和《吉他英雄》等基于节奏的游戏类型改变了标准的游戏玩法并将音乐变成一种游戏。

Gina Zdanowicz是Seriallab Studios的创始人，Mini Monster Media的首席音频设计师，以及Berkleemusic的游戏音频导师。Seriallab Studios是一家全方位音频内容供应商，即面向电子游戏产业提供定制音乐和音效。Seriallab Studios已经参与了60多款游戏的音频开发。

第二部分：关于游戏中剧情音乐与非剧情音乐的一些例子。

剧情音乐是游戏产业中越来越受欢迎的一种技术。剧情音乐指的是源自游戏世界的音乐。如果游戏配乐能够在游戏世界中整合史诗音乐的话就太棒了，但是在现实中，当你在公园里或海边散步时，你是不可能提到任何音乐的，除非你带着耳机。尽管剧情音乐是源自游戏中的一个对象，但却仍然能够设定环境的氛围。

让我们着眼于一些利用剧情音乐去加强玩家沉浸感的游戏。

《辐射3》有效地利用了剧情音乐和非剧情音乐。游戏中的角色配有腕带式计算机，名为Pipboy 3000，同时分配在游戏世界各地的收音机也会播放音乐和其它来自游戏内部广播电台的广播。如果玩家打开了自己的Pip-boy 3000，他们便需要小心收音机会引来NPC。当受因此被关闭时，非剧情背景音乐便会响起。

《生化奇兵》也结合了剧情音乐和非剧情音乐，以及没有音乐去设置游戏氛围。在游戏的开场中，玩家将从飞机残骸中逃到一座小小岩石岛上的灯塔中。在这个场景中为出现任何音乐将让玩家有种不顾一切地生存下去的感受。在玩家进入灯塔后，音乐将渐渐融入场景中。音乐是源自楼下，即让玩家会循着音乐走下楼去寻找球形潜水器中的收音机。在这个例子中音乐扮演着两种角色：它让玩家有理由在游戏中向前移动，同时还能感受到游戏的氛围。

在《生化奇兵》中当玩家进入一个传出刮擦声的60年代录音机时，剧情音乐有效地强调了那座衰败的城市。我们可以从角落或门缝中听到剧情音乐（游戏邦注：用于替代管弦背景音乐）。

《侠盗猎车手》便是剧情音乐的典型例子。玩家可以在游戏中驾驶汽车的同时选择播放不同的音乐。毕竟没人不喜欢伴随着音乐开车。

剧情声的转换可以用于贯穿游戏持续剧情音乐。音乐作为收音机或游戏中其它来源的剧情广播出发，随着剧情的改变，音乐将转换成同样歌曲的非剧情版本并继续回荡在环境中。

《塞尔达传说：时之笛》便是从塞尔达的剧情音乐版本开始，并引导着玩家通过迷路森林的迷宫。当歌曲声越来越大时，玩家便知道他们是朝着正确方向前进。如果玩家偏离了正确道路，歌曲的音量便会下降，以此提醒玩家改变方向。当玩家熟悉了歌曲时，它便会在环境中转变成非剧情音乐。

随着电子游戏的发展，游戏音乐也跟着发展着，推动着无缝视觉效果与听觉体验的互动，并将玩家更深入地带进游戏世界中，直至他们按下暂停键。

篇目8，优质音效设计能够显著提高游戏的沉浸性

作者：Caleb Bridge

“沉浸性”已成为一个司空见惯的词语。这通常是谈及游戏优秀之处的另一流行术语，但这些游戏鲜少深入探究构成沉浸性的必要元素。

和所有游戏设计要素一样，音效必须同图像和游戏机制相互配合，方能促使玩家沉浸于各式各样的玩法体验中，这主要通过向玩家传递众多细节内容，通常是在他们没有意识的情况下。

Visceral Games的J White、Playdead的Martin Stig Andersen以及Freshtone Games的Thom Kellar都是音效设计师，他们在制作音效体验上经验丰富。

这属于精神层面

《地狱边境》的音效设计师及作曲人Martin Stig Andersen表示，“若你创造出音效循环及恼人内容，这种媒介就会自彰其丑。当游戏揭示机制时，这些元素背后的媒介及装置就会遭到破坏，玩家就会跳脱体验之外。”

《地狱边境》是2010年的一款杰作，深受粉丝喜爱，虏获众多年度大奖。

游戏突出的视觉画面备受赞誉，但作品之所以取得成功部分归功于它让玩家有种与世隔绝及不祥之兆的感觉，这主要源自于优质的音效设计。

Andersen及《地狱边境》总监Arnt Jensen的合作契机始于Andersen在看完游戏的最初预告片后，觉得自己的独特音乐（电声乐，非商业性，完全基于融资形式）能够有效强化体验。

Andersen表示，“看过预告片之后，我就非常着迷于男孩的表达方式。它让我回想起光与声的美感；这些内容颇具辨识度，非常逼真，但同时也很抽象。”

“这就是我所欣赏的音效运用方式。这是着眼于模糊性的少量引用，所以更多涉及听众的想象，而非我想传递的东西。”

很多人会回想起如下的《地狱边境》情境：他们因男孩在这一地点的行为而萌生某种感觉。但《地狱边境》并未让玩家完全把握具体发生的情况。Andersen通过有意扭曲物体的音效，促使玩家更多思考所发生的情况以及如何要做出回应，做到这点。这带来一定程度的模糊性，让玩家能够“置身其中，做出自己的诠释”。

Andersen表示，“音效特性越鲜明，我越会扭曲它们。所以我不会融入带来更多联想的音效。如果我们添加带来鲜明特性的内容（游戏邦注：如语音或动物），那它就会破坏氛围。所以通过这一风格，《地狱边境》呈现能够深入玩家脑海中的音效和视觉氛围，让他们感觉到恐惧、担忧或紧张情绪。”

《地狱边境》围绕恐惧主题，但在这一题材中，合理音效设计在激发玩家共鸣及吸引玩家眼球方面必不可少。

一个典型例子就是《死亡空间》。J White（LucasArts元老，是Visceral Games《死亡空间2》的音效设计负责人）因团队能够做到这点而颇感自豪。

在谈到《死亡空间2》的音效时，White表示，“在制作过程中，我们会遇见这样的人士——他们来到这里，从未看过眼前的内容。我们正在体验内容，他们会直接跳到椅子上。这着实吓到大家。在我看来，这有些低劣，但我从中获得许多乐趣。”

我们投入许多精力思考要如何通过游戏音效元素吸引玩家眼球，有时甚至是在毫无意识的情况下。

“促使玩家忍不住做出回应的一个基本要素是，人类的声音，更准确来说，是人类遭遇困境时所发出的声音。这是人类无法避免的深刻反应。所以我们会用作音景的一个元素是，人类置身痛苦中时发出的声音。这也许被深深潜藏起来，但人耳和人类思维都习惯于人类所发出的声音，因此他们会做出回应，即便这只是整个音效设计的亚声音。”

情感元素在更小规模游戏（甚至是iOS游戏）中的运用方式和AAA作品类似。举个例子，iOS平台的《只有一条命》赋予玩家角色一次从系列屋顶跳至另一屋顶的机会。Freshtone Games音效设计师Thom Kellar希望带给玩家这样的感觉：他们真的置身屋顶上，准备进行跳跃。

他表示，“我想要运用各种能够让你感到紧张的音效，所以你在屋顶上会听到风声及各种声音，如小鸟拍打翅膀，飞机从头顶上飞过。但这总是会回到这一问题：‘这带给我什么感觉？’这也许是最棒或最酷或最精彩的声音，但若这没有配合游戏的情感或氛围，那么很遗憾，我们也只能将其弃置一旁。”

进行操纵

“操纵”是个肮脏字眼，用来指开发者用于激发玩家情感共鸣的糟糕举措。但实际情况是，音效设计师试图利用他们的技巧以全新不同方式进一步操纵玩家。

许多游戏会利用激动人心的分数强化玩家某个时刻的情感状态。虽然音乐有其作用，但它并非影响音效设计游戏的关键因素。

Kellar表示（游戏邦注：尽管他的最初角色是创作游戏音乐），“我们初期融入更多惊动人心的音乐，但我们觉得，从情感方面来说，仅让高分出现在玩家濒临绝境的末尾阶段效果更显著，他们已在游戏空间确立自己的位置。”

因此《只有一条命》对于音乐的高效及选择性运用让游戏呈现额外的紧张感。同样，Andersen也在《地狱边境》中追求类似感觉。

他表示，“我和Jensen鲜少将音乐比作操纵玩家情感或操纵任何东西的工具。我们都觉得，所有内容都应该让玩家自由诠释，玩家要能够将自己的感觉和情绪映射到体验中。当你提供这一空间，同时创造能够吸引玩家眼球的内容时，他们就会释放这些感觉和情绪。所以在他们感到恐惧的情况下，如果没有音乐引导他们，告诉他们如何去感受，他们将更加恐惧。”

《地狱边境》这类的游戏非常富有美感，因此具有可行性。相反，《神秘海域》或《质量效应》若没有通过音乐则很难传递情感高潮，因为这是动画体验风格的组要要素。

当然，这并不意味着，《地狱边境》丝毫没有配乐，只是音乐元素更加抽象，就和Andersen自己的音乐一样。他表示，“这是对男孩及其‘地狱边境’之旅的个人诠释，而非执行操作，突出既有内容，我们尝试添加其他尺寸。在我看来，男孩承受所有这些暴力非常悲惨。他已经习以为常，因此音乐存在宽恕情感。”但这也用于并置动作和情感，例如“当你首次遇到加特林机枪时，背景会出现神圣音乐，但若你添加动作音乐之类的元素，这就变得非常肤浅。”

《死亡空间2》采用更加传统的音乐和音效混合模式。自始至终，Isaac Clarke前女友Nicole的幽灵经常萦绕在他身旁。在随后章节中，这一关系发生变化，在他们达成和解之后，她出场的音效由唐突和不安（因为玩家对此毫无意识）转变成这样的效果：提示玩家她的出现能够带来促进作用。

White表示，塑造这一效果的一个方式是通过兼容幽灵特有的音效，在“空间中的一次性出场”进行多元化运用（游戏邦注：能够让人联想到角色或事件的音效），随着玩家逐步靠近幽灵，音效会越来越清晰。

配乐和音效的混合最终带来协调的体验。White列举如下例子：在某房间中，玩家对抗成群尸变怪，这些尸变怪赶走政府军队，而Nicole幽灵则尾随其后。

他表示，“我们寄希望于这些竞争性元素。我们设置这些背景音效，旨在让你有追随此大型战斗的感觉，但同时，你获得一个辅助角色，那就是Nicole。组合所有这些元素完全就是舞蹈设计问题，在此你获得有关战斗、逃亡、宁静及女友的感觉。”

音效设计还能够带给玩家地域感觉，游戏音效能够奠定游戏体验的基础。留心此基础环境音效能够强化游戏效果。

Andersen表示，“我们通过较大脚步声告知玩家，环境非常寂静。当然你无法在整款游戏中都融入较大脚步声。它们的层次非常重要，所以我们添加不同参数，例如男孩奔跑多久，若这已持续特定时间，那么情况就会出现变化。内容需要持续变化，否则持续听到这些脚步声，你将非常抓狂。”

同样，精心设计背景音效能够带来独特的玩法体验。White表示，《死亡空间2》运用其背景音效“预示未来发展情况。如果玩家在清理房间或打败boss后回到同个地方，那么音效将截然不同。用华丽词藻来表述，《死亡空间2》的背景音效本身就是个角色。这是用户体验及游戏心理体验的内在组成要素。”

沉浸性

White表示，“杰出游戏机制能够自然吸引玩家眼球。《Pong》包含很棒的boops & beeps游戏机制，玩家着迷其中，因为这非常有趣。如今，作为音效设计师，我们能够获得令人满意的核心机制，但依然存在许多微妙元素有待我们深入挖掘。”

White表示，音效是整体体验中的重要沉浸性元素，音效设计师的部分职责是协助强化这些游戏机制和环境，进而吸引玩家眼球。

Andersen（游戏邦注：他除涉猎游戏外，还涉足电影行业）就游戏音效的沉浸性特性发表自己的看法。

“体验游戏和观看电影截然不同，因为在游戏中你只有在重要时刻才会听到音效。通常在游戏中，你可以置身音效的上下左右位置， 你可以靠近它，跳过它，但当你跳过它时，你依然会在前进过程中听到它。”

最后，Andersen表示，对于某些音效设计师来说，创造或打破沉浸性是项艰巨任务。“你创造的是富有粘性但同时维持幻想性的内容，那么这就是强有力的东西。但这操作起来非常棘手。”

篇目9，巧用音效可完美呈现游戏情境和沉浸感

作者：Gina Zdanowicz

随着时间的推移，游戏音频逐渐从由音效芯片产生的配有简单音乐旋律的哔哔声演变成带有史诗般声轨的立体SFX。过去，游戏音频往往被视为游戏视觉效果的背景。但是，近期的游戏音频提升的现象显示，音效不再是游戏体验中微不足道的组成部分。事实上，音效是促使玩家融入3D虚拟环境的关键元素。互动音境是形成玩家与游戏间互动关系的媒介。游戏音频设计师的任务是促使玩家沉浸入这些3D世界中，通过为游戏中的线性和互动性元素创造综合音境来持续吸引玩家。

随着突发性游戏玩法逐渐成为游戏设计中的主流技术，玩家互动的规则和界线（而不是脚本化路径和事件）开始组成全球化设计的游戏系统。玩家可以使用故事或策略移动等游戏基本元素来玩游戏，玩法可能与游戏设计师设计或执行的预设玩法有所差异。这对游戏音频设计师意味着什么呢？简单地说，游戏音频设计师需要创造技术来适应这种突发性和高用户互动媒介。

突发性游戏设计可提升游戏的再玩性，因为玩家每次在游戏中都会做出不同的决定，这可能会导致游戏整体发生改变以及产生不同的动作和结局。这些不同选择所产生的不同动作就需要各种不同的音效和配乐。比如在游戏《涂鸦冒险家》中，玩家可以从上万个预编程的词语中做出选择，通过写出词汇来创造完成游戏任务所需的物品。比如，如果玩家想要锯子，他们只需要输入“锯子”，所需的东西就会在游戏中出现。随后，玩家可以自由地使用和移动这个锯子。从音频的角度来看，这种系统的有趣之处在于玩家所创造出的物品会带来许多独特的音效。在更大更为开放的游戏世界中也会有音效，但《涂鸦冒险家》的吸引力在于创造物品以及看到和听到它们在屏幕上做出动作的双重效果。

随着游戏玩法选择和游戏本质上变得更为电影化和现实主义化，游戏音频设计师也开始采用电影音频技术来为游戏环境营造史诗般的音效。在过去，SFX不断重复以及音乐片段在游戏过程中不断循环且从未改变，这是游戏音频面临的重大问题之一。

随着现代主机可用内存的不断增加，游戏音频设计师可以在游戏的音境中加入各种能够显著提升游戏质量的音效：

1、嘈杂声中的清晰对话：《神秘海域2：纵横四海》在录制所有对话的同时融合了游戏的场景效果。让所有的配音演员在同一个舞台上阅读台词，让游戏场景更加逼真。

2、使用交替SFX来使重复最小化：如果只有几种音效的话，那么脚步声和装甲移动等游戏动画的音效重复性会很高，因为这些动画在游戏中经常会出现。增加游戏中脚步声的多样性很快便能够改变这种重复性过高的现象，让玩家更喜欢在游戏世界中四处走动。在《Good Foley》中，音效循环随环境发生微妙的改变，同时保持游戏内和过场动画中音效风格的一致性，注重小细节，这些都使游戏音频得到提升，促使玩家完全沉浸在游戏世界中。它还能给用户提供更多或许没有注意到的有关环境的信息。

3、在音境中融入足够的动态：《战神3》是动态音境的绝妙例证。精心设置的融合使音效元素可以随奎托斯在世界中的移动而发生微妙的改变。动作音效可以呈现出其与玩家的距离。再融合上环绕音轨，使得音轨为场景增添更多的情感深度。

4、灵活而有“弹性”的乐谱：弹性乐谱会根据游戏玩法随玩家选择的改变而进行“可适应”调整。使用分支音乐系统使得音乐或敲击层次可以覆盖于核心层次上，加强紧张感或产生积极的情感共鸣。层次可以用来在玩家需要向前移动时构建紧张感，随着敌人靠近和包围玩家的角色，可以添加更具紧张感的旋律和层次。当玩家角色生命值较低时，也可以用音乐层次来构建紧张感。即时DSP效果可以用来协助这些音乐层次，过滤音效产生生命值逐渐丧失的效果。通过移除特定音轨，便可以剥离之前附加的层次，在玩家重新获得生命值、杀死包围自己的敌人、回到游戏的探索中并进入下个阶段时让游戏的紧张感消失。《黑色洛城》使用的便是能够随游戏玩法变更的音乐暗示，引导玩家在游戏中做出下个动作。在首个任务或教程阶段，游戏引导玩家去搜索线索。屏幕上的文字告诉玩家，当该地点中的所有线索都被发现时音乐便会淡出，音乐旋律也会暗示场景中可以检查的物品。一段小旋律显示物品需要进一步调查。教程阶段结束后，玩家在游戏中就需要根据音乐暗示来收集线索。

游戏中音效设计的技术层面也随游戏音频的演变而改变。音频设计师可以通过使用Fmod或Wwise等中间件来执行音频设计，无需程序员过多地参与其中，这样便可以加大对音境效果的控制。为互动性游戏成分设计音频充满挑战性，因为玩家的动作可能在游戏过程中不断改变，所以音效也同样需要做出改变。FMOD之类的音频中间件可以帮助音频设计师克服游戏音频中的重复性问题，最优化使用游戏平台资源来创造出动态音效环境。它还能够让音频执行者察觉到在游戏中的情境发展时音乐层次发生何种改变。这使音频执行者可以确保音乐无缝地从简单流向综合和复杂再回到简单，中间不会出现断层或差错，从而迅速地让玩家沉浸入游戏世界中。

篇目10，举例论述促使游戏富有沉浸性的7大要素

作者：Chris Allen

虽然我是公司CEO，但经常要扮演软件架构设计师、销售员、IT支持人员以及偶尔的洗碗工角色。我常扮演的另一角色是游戏设计师。游戏设计本身就是种艺术形式，包括能够凭直觉判断什么会富有趣味，也许更重要的是，把握什么会富有沉浸性。最近我已就游戏沉浸性发表许多看法，我觉得这是非常有趣的话题，而且是制作优质作品的核心。

那么什么赋予游戏沉浸性特性？现代电子、在线、手机和社交游戏存在什么不同之处？我总结出若干关键要素，同时分析若干包含这些元素的成功作品，旨在试着探索造就沉浸性游戏的模式。

定时

例子：《宝石迷阵闪电战》和《Word Play》

有说法认为定时就是一切，这点在游戏中再正确不过。《宝石迷阵闪电战》（1分钟游戏）通过运用定时元素令我反复体验其中内容。游戏的简单前提就是在1分钟内竭尽所能地获得高分。我脑中所想的是游戏非常短暂，因此带来这种情况：游戏已结束，而我的想法是“再试一次，只要再1分钟”。将此定时原则发挥到极致的另一作品是《Word Play》，这是款Boggle风格的iPhone文字游戏，也融入沉浸元素。快节奏加上来自其他玩家的竞争性只会令玩家产生继续体验的欲望。我和妻子非常着迷其中，最终选择将其从手机中删除，因为这已变成真正的问题。

社交反馈和竞争

例子：《德州扑克》、《Farmville》和《魔兽世界》

来自伙伴的竞争是促使玩家持续回访的主要因素。谁不想变成社交圈里的佼佼者，获得来自其他伙伴的反馈信息？电子游戏一开始就嵌入排行榜，名字能够出现在当地披萨店的1983 Atari《星战》游戏上，这份荣耀不容小视。在原版电影《电子世界争霸战》的Flynn游乐场里，Jeff Bridge的角色被观众包围，旨在查看他是否能够在最后关卡中胜出，这充分体现值得玩家反复体验的游戏作品所带来的社交影响。

现在我们拥有facebook、twitter及其他社交网络平台，其中我们能够分享生活中发生的点点滴滴。社交网络的一大突出衍生品是社交游戏。我不确定自己是否要深入探究为什么《黑手党战争》或《Farmville》之类的游戏能够富有沉浸性，但我觉得这些游戏的一大吸引之处在于能够同好友互动。

当然《魔兽世界》之类的MMORPG游戏通过运用社交元素令作品变得引人注目。Zynga及其他公司推出的Facebook游戏设定这样的机制：邀请好友参与其中能够提高自己在游戏中的能力。

此外，我们不应忽视Open Feint及其他社交整合SDK（游戏邦注：如Dimerocker）所取得的成就。Open Feint被许多iPhone游戏开发者植入自己的游戏，旨在确保玩家能够进行社交互动及同好友分享信息。Open Feint让开发者得以在游戏中添加排行榜、成就、挑战和其他社交元素，给玩家创造更具合作性的体验。Dimerocker在在线游戏中所起的作用与此相似，允许更简单的Facebook整合操作。这些软件包表现如此突出的原因在于来自伙伴的合作和竞争带来更富吸引力和沉浸性的体验。

重复性

例子：《俄罗斯方块》、《吃豆人》、《超级马里奥兄弟》、《Star Wars Trench Run》、《愤怒的小鸟》和《Falling Balls》

很多引人入胜的作品都通过缓和的重复内容吸引玩家眼球。重复性是各种成瘾模式的主题。人类大脑存在某种元素促使他们希望反复进行相同操作，很多富有沉浸性的游戏都突出的重复性特点。我不确定是否有人能够制作出比《俄罗斯方块》更具重复性和沉浸性的游戏。我觉得这和游戏的重复性有关，以至于玩家能够内化各种形状的移动和配合。其实排列组合各种俄罗斯方块的形状非常富有沉浸性，以致出现“俄罗斯方块效应”这样的术语，这其实就是：玩家玩过游戏后，持续在自己的外围视线和梦境中看到这些形状。

有些人错过游戏《Star Wars: Trench Run》的亮点。批评声集中于该游戏缺乏内容，或者用户觉得内容过于短暂。这款游戏的要点和《俄罗斯方块》相同，因为我们故意让游戏融入重复内容。因此，《Trench Run》存在众多沉迷者，包括我在内，若我们选择将其制作成基于持久故事的游戏，我觉得游戏应该无法获得此般关注。

当然有时简单是游戏设计的最佳选择，这通常意味着重复。我这里要举的例子是iPhone游戏《躲避降落球》。这款游戏1年内2次成为app store第一热门免费应用。这是款通过加速计来回移动，回避头上落下小球的简单游戏。此重复性及保持存活的简单欲望就是众多玩家在此欲罢不能的原因所在。

另一充分利用重复性的成功作品是《愤怒的小鸟》。各关卡缓慢地建立在下个关卡之上，游戏从始至终始终都采用相同基本机制（瞄准各目标物体，逐个射出小鸟）。

技能

例子：《Rock Band》、《街头争霸》和《真人快打》

有些游戏的主要目标只是掌握控制装置。Take Harmonix的热门作品《Rock Band》就是一个例子。独特用户界面、谜底破解同音乐契合，及游戏跟进屏幕流动视觉线索，所有这些元素都令游戏成为吸引眼球、玩家愿意反复体验的内容。体验越久，《Rock Band》玩家的技能就会越好，因此游戏就会变得更令人愉快。这变成持续存在的积极反馈循环。

另一将控制装置视作沉浸元素的游戏风格是战斗游戏。在经典游戏《真人快打》中，随着玩家发现越来越多按键/姿势组合，他们会得到更多满足感，这些操作组合反过来会让他们面临更多“FINISH HIM!”的毁灭性选择。

奖励

例子：《文明》和《Farmville》

获胜机率的设置要刚好能够促使玩家继续前进。Sid Meier在自己的热门作品《文明》中将此技巧发挥得淋漓尽致，他还曾公开讨论奖惩方程所蕴含的数学原理：

玩家觉得偶然在2-1的战斗中失败没什么大碍，但若是输掉20-10的比赛，就会遇到麻烦。所以我们进行相应调整，并询问：“现在你们是否感到高兴？”“有一点，但还有一点：在某2-1战斗中输掉，没关系。但随后又某在2-1战斗中又失败——为什么会出现这种情况？显然游戏打算消灭我！”所以我们得确保这种情况不会出现，让玩家感到高兴。

游戏分数在奖励玩家方面也扮演重要角色。有多少游戏，你进行体验的目的只是想要看看自己能否超越曾经的最高记录，或是他人的最高分数？

但那些没有真实分数的游戏呢？它们是否具有同样的沉浸性？是的！代表例子就是Facebook上的Zynga游戏《Farmville》。在《Farmville》中，游戏奖励就是农作物、建筑、动物及其他需要玩家逐步收集的配备。Zynga非常擅于逐步向玩家呈现奖励，用户需要持续参与游戏，获得进步。某《Farmville》沉迷者这样表示：

这款游戏非常具有沉浸性，因为投入越多，玩家就能够在农场中添加更多有趣元素。忽视游戏几天，所有操作就都变成徒劳。

探索

例子：《魔兽世界》和《塞尔达传说》

有些游戏充分利用发现和探索元素保持用户粘性。虽然社交互动是《魔兽世界》的一大亮点，但游戏吸引玩家的地方还体现在探索游戏世界。玩家无法获悉下个角落会出现什么，下步操作会产生什么结果。《魔兽世界》还利用众多其他元素吸引玩家眼球。我推荐大家观看Jane McGonigal关于“Gaming Can Make a Better World”的TED视频，视频里她深入分析《魔兽世界》，论述什么元素促使游戏富有吸引力，以及如何将这些元素运用到现实生活，将其变得更美好。

稍有偏差

例子：老虎机和《投分球台》

当然让玩家胜出，或者甚至是“几乎快胜出”特定次数的模式在游戏刚问世就已出现。博彩游戏一直以来都是这方面的高手。在赌场中胜算最低，但玩家却从不厌倦的游戏就是老虎机。那么除赌博欲望外，究竟什么促使老虎机如此富有沉浸性？似乎就是其“稍有偏差”机制，或者是玩家稍有偏差的表象令他们想要再试一次。

研究者发现，游戏设有30%的情况让玩家处在“稍有偏差”境地（游戏邦注：根据之前调查这是促使玩家持续回访的最佳比例）。

这些迷你奖励或“稍有偏差”情况也常出现在《魔兽世界》或《Farmville》之类的MMORPG游戏中。这样我们就不难想象《投分球台》会是什么样子，这款游戏依然处于app store榜单的首位。

总结

很多元素能够促使游戏富有沉浸性，游戏设计师应留心其中心理学原理差异，以及如何通过这些元素制作富有粘性的作品。但需指出的是，上述作品不是只有一个沉浸元素。我们需要仔细处理各类元素，方能让游戏变成轰动巨作，从而促使玩家变得欲罢不能。我要指出的另一点是，我不认为制作富有沉浸性的游戏是件邪恶的事，但我也不建议大家过度沉迷于游戏，让此变成一种社会问题。这些技巧可以让教育活动变得更富趣味和粘性，通过体验这些内容所获得的技能能够有很好用途。

篇目6，篇目7，篇目8，篇目9，篇目10（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

篇目7，Video Game Music: Player Immersion (Part I)

by Sande Chen

In Part I of this article, lead audio designer Gina Zdanowicz discusses how video game music enhances a player’s gameplay experience.

Music has always been an important part of entertainment media. As gaming continues to evolve, game music is more heavily relied upon to integrate with the games visuals, to set the scene, and to evoke players’ emotions. Game music should affect the gameplay, and the gameplay should affect the music. The player’s actions influence the interactivity and evolution of the music, just as the music influences the player’s decisions during game play. This combination immerses the player deeper into the gaming experience.

One of the biggest challenges in creating music for video games is in understanding the limits of the game audio engines while trying to provide a seamless interactive experience.

Techniques such as varying tempo, genre, instrumentation and musical notes can set the perfect mood for each area of the game and tell the player exactly what emotions they should feel in those areas.

A layered score is a technique that has several streams with different instruments on each. Those streams should be composed so they are strong on their own and work well with the games visuals, but also be able to be mixed together with the other streams to evolve the music as the game play changes.

Music that builds to a crescendo can signal to the player there is danger just ahead. A boss battle may require more intense music with several layers of instruments and heavy percussion. After the boss is defeated, the music slows down in tempo and the instrumentation thins out, signaling to the player that the danger is no longer imminent.

Super Mario Brothers utilized increased tempo to signal to the player that time is running out, which evokes a sense of urgency to complete the level before running out of time. Dead Space 2 uses ambient soundscapes and a large orchestra to create an eerie, yet larger than life feeling. A small string quartet was used in the game to contrast the large orchestra and to portray the vulnerability of the main character.

Both music and visuals must be well thought out and tightly integrated to create a cohesive and ambient environment. A game’s pace is just as important as the musical build up that allows the player time to feel safe in order to deliver the next tense moment with impact.

When you take a look at how far music in gaming has come, it speaks volumes to its importance in the game industry. Music is no longer just set in the background of the game. Rhythm genre game titles such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero offer a twist on standard game play and offer music as the game.

Gina Zdanowicz is the Founder of Seriallab Studios, Lead Audio Designer at Mini Monster Media, LLC and a Game Audio Instructor at Berkleemusic. Seriallab Studios is a full service audio content provider supplying custom music and sound effects to the video game industry. Seriallab Studios has been involved in the audio development of 60+ titles.

Video Game Music: Player Immersion (Part II)

In Part I of this article, lead audio designer Gina Zdanowicz discusses how video game music enhances a player’s gameplay experience. In Part II, she offers examples of diegetic and non-diegetic music in games.

A technique that is becoming more popular in games is diegetic music. Diegetic music refers to music that originates from within the game world. It’s always nice when a game score can incorporate epic music in the game world, but in real life when you are walking around in a park or on a beach, you don’t hear any music unless you have your headphones on. Diegetic music, although coming from an object within the game, can still set the mood of the environment.

Let’s take a look at some games that use diegetic music to enhance the player’s immersion into the game world.

Fallout 3 makes great use of diegetic and non-diegetic music. Characters in the game have wrist-mounted computers called the Pip-boy 3000, as well as radios scattered around the game world which play music and other broadcasts from in-game radio stations. If the player has their Pip-boy 3000 turned on, they have to be careful of the radio alerting NPC’s to their presence. When the radio function is turned off, non-diegetic background music is played through the game world.

Bioshock also uses a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic music, as well as no music, to set the mood. In the game’s opening scene, the player escapes from the plane wreckage to a lighthouse set on a small rocky island. The lack of music in this scene hints to the player the feelings of a desperate struggle to survive. After the player enters the lighthouse, music starts to fade into the scene. The music is coming from downstairs, which provokes the player to follow the music down the flight of stairs to find the radio in a bathysphere. The music plays two roles in this example: It gives the player a reason to move forward in the game, as well as sets the mood.

The use of diegetic music in Bioshock really underscores the dying city when the player enters a room with a scratchy, 60’s-era record playing. Diegetic music, which is used in place of orchestral background music, can be heard from around corners or can be muffled by doors.

Left 4 Dead allows a player to turn on a jukebox, which will attract a zombie horde. During this attack, instead of non-diegetic music playing, the jukebox music continues to play even if the jukebox is out of visual range.

Grand Theft Auto is, while cliché, a good example of diegetic music. Car radios broadcast different stations and songs that the player can choose to tune into while driving the vehicles in the game. After all, who doesn’t love riding in a car with the music pumping?

A diegetic switch is a technique which can be used to continue the diegetic music throughout the game. The music starts off as a diegetic broadcast from a radio or other source within the game, and as the scene changes, the music switches to a non-diegetic version of the same song and continues to play in that environment.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time starts with the diegetic version of Saria’s as it directs the player through the lost woods maze. As the song grows louder, the player is aware that they are moving forward in the right direction. If they player goes off course, the song’s volume decreases, alerting the player to change direction. After the player learns the song, it becomes non-diegetic music in that environment.

As video games evolve, game music must also evolve, allowing for a cohesive integration for a seamless visual and aural experience, which will deeply immerse the player into the game world and keep them there until they press the pause button.

篇目8，Creating Audio That Matters

by Caleb Bridge

“Immersion” has become cliché. It’s often just another buzzword when talking about how great a game is, but it’s all too infrequent that those discussing games will actually break down the finer details of what that immersion entails.

Like all pieces of the puzzle that is game design, audio must work in concert with graphics and game mechanics to help immerse the player into gameplay experiences of all shapes and sizes through its ability to convey vast amounts of the detail to the player, often without their knowing.

J White, Martin Stig Andersen, and Thom Kellar, of Visceral Games, Playdead, and Freshtone Games respectively, are three sound designers who have ample experience in creating such audio experiences.

It’s Mental

“It can be easy for the media to reveal itself if you’ve got a sound loop or something that becomes annoying. As soon as the game reveals the mechanics, the media and the machinery behind these things is ruined and the player is thrown out of the experience,” said Martin Stig Andersen, sound designer and composer on Limbo.

Limbo was a critical success and fan favorite in 2010, putting many end-of-year awards under its belt.

It was lauded for its striking visual aesthetic, but part of its success came from its ability to make the player feel a sense of isolation and foreboding that is largely the result of top quality sound design.

Andersen and Limbo’s director, Arnt Jensen, teamed up after Andersen saw the game’s initial trailer and felt his unique area of music (electroacoustic music, a non-commercial, almost entirely funding-based form) would add to the experience.

“I watched the trailer and I was really captivated by [the boy's] expressions,” said Andersen. “It reminded me of the aesthetics of light and sound; you have something recognizable and realistic, but at the same time it’s abstract.

“It’s the same as what I love about how we use sound. We have all these slight references that focus on ambiguity, so it’s more about what the listener imagines, rather than what I want to tell them.”

Many can think back to sections of Limbo where they were struck by a certain feeling or sense for what the boy was doing in that place. But one thing Limbo never allowed the player to do was fully understand what was happening. Andersen achieved this by intentionally distorting the sounds of objects in an attempt to make the player think more about what’s going on and how they’re meant to react. This gave it a level of ambiguity that allows the player to “be there and make their own interpretation.”

“The more identity the sounds had, the more I would distort them,” Andersen said. “So I wouldn’t include sounds that gave too strong associations. If we added something that had a strong identity like a voice or an animal, then it would almost destroy the atmosphere. So with that style, Limbo offered an audio and visual atmosphere that can really get into the player’s mind, and make them feel scared, worried or on edge.”

Limbo toys with horror themes throughout, but it is in that genre that exacting sound design is essential in eliciting player emotion and getting inside the player’s head.

One series praised for its ability to do this is Dead Space. J White — a LucasArts veteran who served as sound design lead at Visceral Games on Dead Space 2 — took great pride in the team’s ability to do just that.

“During the course of production, there were meetings I would have with people — they’d come in and have never seen [the section] before. We’d be playing, and they would literally jump in their chair. It genuinely frightened people. It might be kind of mean on my part, but I took a lot of pleasure in that,” said White, when discussing the effects of the sound in Dead Space 2.

Much effort was put into thinking about how they could use the game’s audio elements to enter the player’s mind, sometimes without them even noticing it.

“A fundamental thing that people cannot help but respond to is the sound of the human voice and, even more specifically, the sound of human suffering. It’s just an unavoidable, deep reaction that people have. So one of the elements that we’ll use as part of our soundscapes are the sounds of people in misery. It may be deeply buried, but the human ear and human mind are so attuned to human vocalizations that they’ll respond to it even if it’s just a sub-audible aspect of the overall sound design.”

This sentiment applies to smaller games — even iOS games — in the same way it does to triple-A releases. One Single Life on iOS, which literally gives the player’s character a single life to jump from a series of rooftops to another, is one such example. Thom Kellar, Freshtone Games’ sound designer, wanted to give players the sense that they were actually on that roof, preparing to jump.

“I wanted to use a lot of sounds that would make you feel a bit on edge, so there was wind and a lot of noises you’d hear on a rooftop like birds fluttering and planes flying overhead,” he said. “But it kept coming back to ‘What did that make me feel?’ and it might have been the best or coolest or most wonderful sound, but if it’s not contributing to the emotion or atmosphere of the game, unfortunately it had to go into the basket.”

Manipulation

“Manipulation” can be a dirty word, and is generally used to call out poor attempts by developers to force emotions or reactions from the player. But the reality is, that audio designers try to use their craft to manipulate players in new and different ways as an enhancement.

Many games will use a rousing score to heighten the emotional state of a moment, and while music certainly has its place, it doesn’t have to be the crutch used for affecting sound design games.

“We experimented early on with putting dramatic music over the top, but we felt that emotionally, it was a lot more effective to only have that big score happening towards the end when players were getting to the very edge, and they’d established themselves in the world already,” said Kellar — despite one of his initial roles being to write music for the game.

As a result, One Single Life’s efficient and selective use of music gives it an extra sense of tension. Likewise, Andersen went for a similar feel with Limbo.

“[Jensen and I] rarely like music as an instrument to manipulate the emotions of the player, or manipulate anything really. We both feel that everything should be open to interpretation, and people should be allowed to project their own feelings and emotions into the experience,” he said. “When you allow for that space, and at the same time create something that’s captivating and immerses the player, it lets them let go of those feelings and emotions. So if they’re scared it will probably make them more scared when there’s no music to take them by the hand and tell them how to feel.”

Of course a game like Limbo is aesthetically such that this is possible. Conversely, Uncharted or Mass Effect would be less likely to convey emotional and energetic peaks without the use of music, as it’s such an integral part of the style of the cinematic experiences they’re trying to create.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there’s no music at all in Limbo, it’s just more abstract, like Andersen’s own music. “It’s the personal interpretation of this boy and his journey through limbo, and instead of playing the action and emphasizing what’s already there, we’re trying to add another dimension… For me, it’s really melancholy that this boy has been subjected to all this violence. It’s just the idea that he’s been habituated to it, and there’s a kind of forgiveness in the music,” he said. But it’s also used to help juxtapose actions and emotions, such as “when you come across the Gatling guns for the first time, there’s this divine music in the background, but if you add something like action music, it becomes so one-dimensional.”

Dead Space 2 featured a more traditional mix of music and effects. Throughout, the apparition of Isaac Clarke’s ex-girlfriend, Nicole, haunts him. In the later chapters, that relationship changes and after they have a reconciliation, the audio relating to her presence transitions from being abrupt and uncomfortable as the player is unaware of what’s coming, to one which indicates to the player that her presence is actually a helping one.

According to White, one of the ways this was portrayed was by incorporating sound effects that became characteristic of her apparitions, and using them differently in ‘ambient one-shots’ — effects that elicit thoughts of a character or event – that would begin to play the closer you came to an encounter with her.

The mixture of music and effects ends up being an orchestrated experience. White gives the example of a room where the player has fought of a phalanx of Necromorphs, who were chasing off government forces, which was followed by another apparition of Nicole.

“We have these competing things we want to pay off on,” he said. “We’ve got these ambient sounds devoted to giving you the sense that you’re following this massive battle, but at the same time, you’ve got this helping presence that’s Nicole coming in. It’s really a matter of choreography to get all those kinds of elements to play together, where you’ve got this sense of the battle, the desertion, the quietness and the girlfriend.”

Sound design can also manipulate the player’s mind to give them a sense of place, for which game audio helps set the foundation of the game experience. Taking care with such base-level environmental effects is part of what can help make a game great.

“We had loud footsteps to tell the audience that the environment is really silent,” said Andersen. “Of course you couldn’t have loud footsteps through the whole game. Their level is very important, so we added different parameters like how long [they boy] has been running, and if he’s been going for a certain amount of time it starts to change. It needs constant variation, otherwise you’d go crazy hearing those footsteps all the time.”

Likewise, such meticulous care with environmental sound design can help give unique gameplay experiences. According to White, Dead Space 2 used its ambient sound to “foreshadow what’s coming next. If the player backtracks to the same place after they’ve cleared the room or beat the boss, it sounds different. In the most flowery terms, the ambient sound in Dead Space 2 is almost a character in itself. It’s such an intrinsic part of the player’s experience, and the psychological experience of playing a game.”

Immersion

“A good game mechanic will naturally immerse players. Pong has a great game mechanic with boops and beeps, and people are drawn into that because it’s fun,” said White. “These days, as audio designers, we still score that core mechanic in a satisfying way, but we have a lot more subtlety available to us.”

White recognizes that audio is an important, additive element to the overall experience, and part of the role of sound designers is to help enhance those game mechanics and environments in order to immerse the player.

Andersen, who has worked on films in addition to games, gives some perspective to game audio’s immersive nature.

“When I’m playing games it’s so different from films, because there you only hear sounds when it’s important to the viewer. Often in games, you can go up and down or around a sound, you approach it and you pass it, but when you pass it you still hear it as you progress.”

Ultimately, for some sound designers, walking the tightrope of making or breaking immersion is a tough one, says Andersen. “If you create something that’s engaging but at the same time keeps the illusion alive then you’ve got something that’s very strong. But it’s so difficult to do.”

篇目9，Emergence in Game Audio

Gina Zdanowicz

It’s no secret that over the years game audio has evolved from sound chip generated blips and beeps with simple musical melodies to three-dimensional SFX with epic sound tracks. In the past, game audio has been viewed as a backdrop to the game’s visuals. However, more recent advances in game audio demonstrates that sound is no longer a subtle component of the game experience. In fact, sound is one of the key factors for total player immersion into to 3D virtual environment. Interactive soundscapes are the vehicle that forms the interactive partnership between the player and the game. Game audio designers are tasked with immersing the player into these 3D worlds and keeping them there by creating a unified soundscape made up diegetic (actual) and non-diegetic (commentary) sounds for both linear and interactive segments of the game.

As emergent game play becomes the more desired technique in game design, the outcome is a globally designed game system comprised of rules and boundaries for player interactions, rather than scripted paths and events. Players can use basic elements of the game such as the story or strategic moves to play the game in a way that was not specifically designed or implemented by the game designer. What does this mean for game audio designers? Simply put, game audio designers need to create techniques to adapt to this emergent and highly user interactive medium.

Emergent game design encourages replayability as each time the player plays the game they make different decisions, which changes the game as a whole and results in different possibilities for action and endings. Additional sounds and music are needed for the action brought on by these different choices. For example in the game Scribblenauts, the player can choose from over 10,000 pre-programmed words to create objects that will be needed to complete tasks in the game by writing it out. For instance, if a player wants a saw, they simply type or write, “saw” and it will appear in the game. The player then has the freedom to use and move the saw around in any strategic manner possible. What’s interesting about this from an audio perspective is the fact that there are so many unique sound effects associated with the magnitude of objects that can be created by the player. The same magnitude of sounds can be found in larger more open-ended game worlds but the draw in Scribblenauts is both the ability to create objects and to see and hear them in action on screen.

As game play choices and games become more filmic and realistic by nature, game audio designers adapt film audio techniques to achieve an epic and adaptive sound for their game environments. In the past, one of the biggest problems facing game audio has been the endless repetition of SFX that are triggered constantly along with short pieces of music which loop endlessly through the game without changing.

With increased memory available on modern consoles, game audio designers are filling their games’ soundscape with a variety of sounds that greatly improve the quality of this new generation of games:

Crisp dialog that cuts through the mix: Drake’s Fortune Uncharted 2 Among Thieves recorded all dialog while capturing the physical performance for the game on the Mo-Cap stage. Having all of the actors read their lines together on a single stage added a more definitive spontaneity to the scenes that you just can’t capture when recording lines separately in a sound booth.

Minimizing repetition using alternate SFX: Game animations such as footsteps, effort noises or armor movement can become very repetitive if there are only a couple of sounds, which are constantly triggered for each of those animations. Adding subtle variety to footsteps in a game can break up that repetition quickly and make walking around the game world more enjoyable for the player. Good Foley, ambient loops that change subtly with the environment as well as flow consistently between in-game and cut scenes and attention to the little details enhance the games audio and immerse the player fully into the world. It can also provide more information to the user about their environment that they may not have been aware of.

Mixing the soundscape with enough dynamics: God of War 3 is a great example of a dynamic soundscape. The carefully mastered mix allows the sound elements to change subtly as Kratos moves through the world. Action in the distance sound closer as the action moves into what was the foreground. Ambient tracks mixed in a way that allows action in the foreground to supersede while allowing the music track to add emotional depth to the scene.

Adaptive musical score: Adaptive Musical scores “adapt” as the game play changes and evolves based on the player’s choices. The use of branching music systems or stems allows the layering of musical or percussive tracks layers that can be flown in over the core layer to add enhanced tension or a positive vibe to the over all mood. Layers are used to build intensity as the player needs to be directed to move forward and additional layers with more tension and maybe more rhythm will be added as enemies approach and surround the players’ character. Layers of music can also build intensity, as the player’s character health is low. Real time DSP effects can be used in conjunction with these musical layers to filter the sound to give the effect of a dizzying loss of life. Layers can then be stripped away to lighten up the mood a bit by removing some of the rhythmic tracks and pulling back on the intensity as your player regains health or kills off the surrounding enemies and gets back to exploring the game and moving onto the next stage. L.A. Noire is a great example of using musical cues that adapt to changing game play or to lead the player to the next action in the game. During the first mission or tutorial phase the player is instructed to search for clues. On-screen text informs the player that the music will fade down when all clues in that location have been discovered and musical chimes will indicate objects that can be examined. A small chime indicates objects that need to be inspected further. Once the tutorial phase is over, it is up to the player to follow the musical cues through the game.

As game audio evolves, so does the technical aspect of sound design in games. Audio designers have the ability to handle implementation of audio by using middle ware such as Fmod or Wwise with little to no programmer involvement therefore generating more control over the soundscape. Creating audio for interactive game segments can be a challenge as the players’ actions are able to alter the course of the game constantly and the sound needs to evolve along with those changes. Audio middleware such as FMOD helps the audio designer overcome the issue of repetition in game audio by enabling the creation of a dynamic sound environment while optimizing resources of the game’s platform. It also allows the audio implementer to see what is happening to the layers of music as situations develop in the game. It unveils a sort of behind the scenes look at the process from the viewpoint of the middleware. This allows the audio implementer to be sure the music flows seamlessly from simple to percussive and complex and back to simple again with out any hiccups or a break in the sonic soundscape, which would quickly draw the deeply immersed player out of the game world.

篇目10，7 Key Ingredients for Designing Addictive Games

by Chris Allen

As we are a small company, we often wear many hats here at Infrared5. While I’m the CEO, I often play the role of Software Architect, Salesman, IT Support Person and even Dishwasher from time to time. Another role that I end up doing, or at least assisting in, is that of a Game Designer. Game Design is an art form unto itself, and involves the ability to know intuitively what’s going to be fun, and perhaps more important, figure out what’s addictive. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the addiction of games lately, as I find it a very interesting subject, and is at the core of making the best games possible for our customers.

So, with that, what gives a game an addictive quality? And in particular what’s different about modern video, online, mobile and social media games? I took a look at what I think are some of the key ingredients (timing, social feedback, repetition, skill, reward, exploration and the near miss) and some successful games that implement these to see if I could crack the formula for what makes an addictive game.

Timing

Examples: Bejewled Blitz, Word Play

There’s a saying that timing is everything, and nothing could be more true for games. Bejewled Blitz (1 min game) employs timing in a way that keeps me playing over and over again. The simple premise of the game is to get as high of a score as possible within one minute. The fact that it’s so short gets into my brain and goes something like this: the game ends, and I’m like “well, one more try, it’s only a minute more”. The other game that applies this timing principal to great effect is Word Play, a Boggle style word game for the iPhone also has this type of addictive element. The fast paced game combined with competition from other players only fuels the desire to keep going. It was so addictive for my wife and me that we simply had to delete it off our phones because it was becoming a real problem.

Social Feedback and Competition

Examples: Texas Hold’m Poker, Farmville, World of Warcraft

Competition from your peers seems to be a driver that makes players come back for more and more. Who doesn’t want to the best in your social group, and to get feedback from their peers? From the beginning of video games, there’s been the leader-board, and the glory of having one’s initials on that 1983 Atari Star Wars game at the local pizza place is not something to take lightly. Flynn’s arcade in the original Tron movie where Jeff Bridge’s character is surrounded by onlookers seeing if he can beat the final level is a perfect example of the social impact in making a game worth playing over and over again.

Now a days we have facebook, twitter and other social media outlets where we can share updates on what’s going on in our lives. One of the most successful spin offs of the whole social media paradigm is social games. I’m not sure I need to go into what makes a game like Mafia Wars or Farmville addictive, but I think one of the chief appeals of these games is the interaction with your friends.

Of course MMORPGs like World of Warcraft use social aspects to make their games as compelling as possible. And Facebook games from Zynga and others make having your friends involved improve your ability in the game.

We should also talk about the success of Open Feint and other social integration SDKs like Dimerocker here as well. Open Feint is a platform that many game developers for the iPhone have incorporated into their games to enable social interaction and sharing with friends. Open Feint enables developers to add leaderboards, achievements, challenges and other social features to games they create a more collaborative experience for their players. Dimerocker does pretty much the same thing for online games, and allows for easier Facebook integration as well. The reason that these software packages do well is that collaboration and competition from peers adds a more compelling and addictive experience to any game.

Repetition

Examples: Tetris, Pac Man, Super Mario Brothers, Star Wars: Trench Run, Angry Birds, Falling Balls

A lot of really compelling games lure their users in with a soothing sense of repetition. Repetition is a theme that crosses all forms of addiction. There’s something in the human mind that makes people want to keep doing the same thing over and over again, and some of the most addictive games are extremely repetitive. I’m not sure it’s possible to make a game more repetitive and addictive than Tetris. What gets people hooked on Tetris? I think it has to do with the game being repetitive, and so much so that you internalize the movements and interlocking of shapes. In fact the lining up and fitting Tetris shapes is so addictive that the term the “Tetris Effect” has been dubbed, which is essentially the continuation of seeing those shapes in ones peripheral vision and in their dreams long after playing the game.

Some people missed the point of our game Star Wars: Trench Run that we developed here at Infrared5. The criticism circled around the lack of content, or people thinking it’s too short. The point of the game is much more like Tetris, in that we purposely chose to make it extremely repetitive. To that end, there are some serious Trench Run addicts out there, me included, and had we chosen to make it a long drawn out story based game, I don’t think it would have the same type of appeal.

Of course, sometimes simple is the best choice in game design, and that usually also means repetition. My case in point is the iPhone game Falling Balls by Infrared5’s Engineering Guru, Keith Peters. This game hit the number one free spot on the app store twice in one year. It’s a simple game of moving back and forth using the accelerometer, and avoiding balls that are coming from above. This repetition, and the simple desire to stay alive for as long as possible is all it takes for one not to be able to put this game down.

Another highly successful game that utilizes repetition to its advantage is Angry Birds. Each level builds slowly on the next, with the same basic mechanic throughout (flicking birds at objects one after the other).

Ting-Jui Chou and Chih-Chen Ting go into great detail of the science of repetition and gaming in their paper The Role of Flow Experience in Cyber-Game Addiction. There are various other studies on addiction and the role that repetition plays that aren’t game related that I also think are worth exploring simply for getting a better understanding of how the human mind works, and how this can be applied to game design.

Skill

Examples: Rock Band, Street Fighter, Mortal Combat

There are some games, where the overarching goal is simply to master the controls. Take Harmonix’s hit game Rock Band as an example. The unique user interface, the mashing of keys in time to music and the staying in sync with the flowing visual cues on the screen all combine to make this a compelling game that keeps people wanting to play it over and over again. As a player, your skill at Rock Band increases the more you play, and because of this, the more enjoyable the game becomes. It turns into a sort of self perpetuating positive feedback loop.

Another style of game that typically is focused on the controls as the element of addiction if the fighting game. Take the classic Mortal Combat for example. Players get immediate satisfaction as they discover more and more button/gesture combination that in turn give them more devastating moves to “FINISH HIM!”.

Reward

Examples: Civilization, Farmville

The odds of winning have to be weighted just right to keep players going. Sid Meier mastered this element in his hit game Civilization, and has openly discussed some of the math involved with getting the reward to punishment equation just right:

Players felt they could lose a 2-to-1 battle every now and then. But they had a problem if they lost a 20-to-10 battle. (!) So we adjusted, and asked, “Now are you happy?” “Well kind of, but there’s one more thing: I had a 2-to-1 battle and lost, which was fine (we went over that). But right after that, I had another 2-to-1 battle and lost again—how can that be!? The computer’s out to get me, obviously!” So we made sure that occurrence wouldn’t happen, and the player was happy.

Here’s the full article on how Sid Meier got the most by weighing the odds just right in his game.

The score of a game also plays a big part in rewarding a player. How many games have you played, simply looking to see if you could beat your high score, or your friend’s high score?

But how about a game that doesn’t have real score per say? Can they be just as addictive? Absolutely! Case in point, Farmville, the number one Facebook game by Zynga. In Farmville the reward is your crops, buildings, animals and other accouterments that the game player collects over time. Zynga did an excellent job at crafting the game in a way that rewards are dribbled out over time, and that the user needs to engage in the game regularly in order to progress. One self proclaimed Farmville addict described it well when interviewed for this LA Times article:

The game is truly addictive, because the harder you work at it, the more exciting things (like houses and animals and seasonal decorations) players can add to their farms. Neglect the game for a few days, and all the work is for naught.

Exploration

Examples: World of Warcraft, Zelda

Certain games make great use of discovery and exploration to keep players engaged. While WoW (World of Warcraft) is also a great example of using social interaction to create the hook, it also really engages players in exploring the world. They never know what’s around the next corner, or what’s next. WOW does utilize many other aspects to keep people going as well. I highly recommend watching Jane McGonigal’s TED video on Gaming Can Make a Better World, as she goes into detail on WoW, what makes it so compelling to users and then takes these elements and extrapolates into how these can be applied in the real world to make it a better place.

The Near Miss

Examples: Slot Machines, Skeeball

Of course, having people win, or even “almost win” just the right amount is as old as games themselves, and we would be doing ourselves a disfavor if we didn’t discuss casino gaming, as they have been the masters of this for ages. With that, the one game at the casino that everyone knows has the worst odds, yet they can’t seem to get enough of is the slot machine. So, beyond the standard desire to gamble, what makes the slot machine so addictive? It seems it’s the “near win”, or the appearance that you got so close that you want to simply try it again.

Researchers have found that they program their games to tease players with near misses about 30% of the time–a number previous studies have found optimal for getting gamblers to keep coming back [ScienceNOW Daily News].

I highly recommend reading this article on slot machines from Discover Magazine for some scientific insight on the human brain’s reaction to the near miss. Obviously if you can get a game down to where you are giving your players near misses more often, then you will keep their brains into the game.

The same exact scenario of these little mini rewards, and or near misses is also prevalent in the MMORPGs like WOW or in Farmville. With this feature in mind, it’s little wonder that a game like Skeeball was and still is at the top of the app store charts.

Bringing It Together

In conclusion, there are various elements to making a game addictive, and game designers should be aware of the psychological nuances and how to use these to make a game as engaging as possible. To point out the very obvious though, not a single one of the games mentioned above had only one element of addiction. It takes a careful crafting of many of the key ingredients to get a game to be a huge hit that few people can resist putting down. One other thing that I would like to point out, is that I don’t think making a game addictive is evil, nor am I advocating getting people legitimately hooked to a point where it becomes a problem for the individual. These techniques can be used to make educational experiences more fun and engaging, and as Jane McGonigal shows in her work, video games and the skills attained by playing them can be put to really good uses.

I would love to hear your feedback as to what you think makes a game addictive. What have you employed in your games that have made it successful? What did you do wrong? If you have any tips you would like to share, we would love to hear about them!