how important is sounds and animation in a game?

[pro_designer]

^^^^

[scotch]

^^^^




Seriously though, please try to write a proper first post in a topic.Ã,  I think probably what most people will tell you is that sounds can add a lot to an adventure game; most of the games that people remember as being very atmospheric, or tense, or otherwise engaging did at least some of that through good sound design.Ã,  On the other hand, poor sounds, and especially poor voices will tend to bring a player out of the game even more than poor graphics, so only use them if you can use them to good effect.
Animation, I find, usually adds somewhat less to a game... it's mostly just extra eye candy, but it can help you add some more personality to a character.

[Pet Terry]

^^^^;

What scotch said. If possible, use sound and music in your game but keep in mind that bad sound may also destroy the immersion.

On the other hand (totally unrelated hand), you might want to change the title of your game because a game called Cold Fear already exists (which you seem to know already as you have ripped the logo).

[Anarcho]

I kinda disagree with Scotch here.  I think animation can add a whole lot to a game.  When characters remain static, eternally standing still at the fruit cart or shop desk or whatever, the game world feels static.  Think about in Monkey Island 1 when the shopkeeper leaves his store and you have to follow him.  The game world comes alive in a way, you feel a new sense of urgency and relevance. 

Now I'm not simply talking about little animations involving the character picking things up or stuff like that...I think bigger animations involving NPCs are critical.  But also time consuming.

[Mr.Crow]

Bigger animations are essential such as walking and movement but i think the animations theyre on about are such things as Passerbys on a street or traffic lights changing lights.

[m0ds]

Sound is extremely important! A story driven game should obviously take into consideration creating real emotions and feelings to a player, enough to immerse them so that they can truly enjoy themselves! Sure, not all games have sound or much animation and are still fabulous, but I think you'll find you are achieving a higher level of immersion when you bump up your efforts in sound and animation.

Although we can't really simulate touch, as a player we are still engrossed in two of the main senses, sight and sound. Like a movie, sound is 50% of the picture - sounds explain what is happening just as much as visuals, and sound can even mix with odd visuals to give a much clearer impression of whats going on. Sound is essential! In fact, I'd say sound effects are more essential than music - music is merely for pleasure, but very pleasureable it is too Especially if in MIDI

Animation? I think this links into "rewards" for the player. I love seeing a character physically give something to another character. Just saying they've picked up/received an item doesn't cut it for me. I can't draw for shiz, but I can animate - because simple little animations don't take long and usually only consist of one or two frames. With a giving/taking animation you'd only need 1 or 2 frames and within those you'd really only need to edit the characters arm! So it's not always as tricky as it may seem to bump up the eye-candy.

[The Inquisitive Stranger]

Although we can't really simulate touch, as a player we are still engrossed in two of the main senses, sight and sound. Like a movie, sound is 50% of the picture - sounds explain what is happening just as much as visuals, and sound can even mix with odd visuals to give a much clearer impression of whats going on. Sound is essential! In fact, I'd say sound effects are more essential than music - music is merely for pleasure, but very pleasureable it is too Especially if in MIDI

Can't music serve the role of explaining what's going on? Why is it merely for pleasure?

[pro_designer]

kk ty do i have to change my title? i already used it in my game a few times and i like the title.

[m0ds]

Can't music serve the role of explaining what's going on? Why is it merely for pleasure?

You're right, it can.

[Fuzzpilz]

I'm sorry, but I still think General MIDI is one of the worst ideas anybody ever had in the history of the universe.

Apart from that, though, I don't think "explain" is the right word for what music can do. It can vaguely set and/or influence the mood (and is fairly important for that; good music really adds a lot to a game in my opinion), but I wouldn't say it can explain anything unless it has lyrics to replace the in-game narration and dialogue, which would be very difficult to pull off and probably rather annoying for the player.

[Nikolas]

I'm sorry, but I still think General MIDI is one of the worst ideas anybody ever had in the history of the universe.

Why? I find it inovative and a great idea!

btw, sound and animation are both very important...

Towards realism. in both departments.

But music can describe things. It's just extremly difficult to do, and of course it will always be abstract so you can't expect to have a description like "The forest is dark but there's a squirll who blah blah", but certainly it can work in physchologic ways...

[m0ds]

I'm going to go back to what I said about it being pleasureable.

In real life situations, music does not play to accompany our thoughts. When you've been dumped by your girlfriend, you probably don't try and highlight the situation by singing Ave Maria in your head whilst you discuss your problems. Music is an added extra in all things visual like games and movies. It certainly does serve a purpose so far as building emotions (not explaining - sound fx explain) but how "real" is that - it's not. It's building emotions but in a fake kind of manner, and so its just there for pleasure - in this case, "Sensual gratification or indulgence". That to me interprets as being eligible to any sensual gratification, whether its to want to feel sad, to feel overjoyed or to feel in danger. Music pleasures us and guides us.

Anyway, I'm not saying we're right or wrong here, I'm just giving proof for music in a game mostly being pleasureable. It's not nice when you have to sit through a gruesome or traumatic scene without music, because it feels more real then. That though, could be a strong-point for developers. Especially horror developers!!!

If this hasn't made any sense, I swear never to speak again

[Trumgottist]

I'm sorry, but I still think General MIDI is one of the worst ideas anybody ever had in the history of the universe.

Why? I find it inovative and a great idea!

General MIDI, and MIDI in general, is great, but should be avoided in games (unless coupled with soundfonts in something like DirectMusic, but then we're not really talking just MIDI anymore), since your carefully crafted music may end up sounding horrible on another computer.

[Fuzzpilz]

Exactly. MIDI is still a useful interfacing standard; it's obsolete in many ways, but not enough to be likely to be replaced anytime soon. I think General MIDI, however, really shouldn't be used for "serious" purposes - you get far too little control, or none, over almost every aspect of sound design and production. This is fine if you want to exchange or store compositional material in a way that isn't essentially a picture of the score. It is not if you want to accompany a game with reasonably well-crafted music. It's akin to giving the player just a description of the background art and making them draw it themselves... er... if you live in that one alternate universe where everybody can draw really quickly.

But enough thread-hijacking on my part. I should probably say something that actually relates to the topic, but I don't have anything of importance to contribute - I do think both sound effects and additional animations are important (although from playing the few tiny games I've made you wouldn't know I care about them at all ), though not essential, but to be honest there isn't much more that I would see as necessary to say.

[CaptainBinky]

Personally I think the abandonment of MIDI / MOD type music in favour of MP3 and CD Audio is one of the worst things to happen to games since their conception. Interactive music was just starting to get going with iMuse, and then BANG! Non interactive CD Audio came along. It's a travesty.

[Fuzzpilz]

There is a case to be made for interactive music, but General MIDI really, really, really, really isn't the way to do it.

[Adamski]

Interactive music hasn't gone anywhere since everyone stopped using OPL3 soundtracks. The Dig, Monkey Island 3, Grim Fandango all had an 'interactive' soundtrack to the same extent as any other Lucasarts game, without any restrictions as to what sounds could be used. For a more recent example check out Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Any musician would agree that the progression from bloopy bleeping with a Yamaha chip to being able to use ANY sound concieveable is the best thing to ever happen in game music. I mean, what would you rather have: a person playing a casio keyboard rendition of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, or the London Philharmonic Orchestra?

[CaptainBinky]

Horses for courses. Beepy boopy crappy instrument music can still be cool if the actual tune is any good. I agree that there are still some semblences of interactivity in game-music nowadays, but most of this is crossfades, not layering in the bass, now the drums etc. Make soundcards with decent soundfonts on them manditory in all PCs and we can all be happy

Edit: Besides it's a question of matching style etc. I'm not going to argue that beepy music is going to suit a cutting-edge XBox 360 game. It needs to gel. However, within a 2D adventure game that's harking back to the days of MI, then I don't think anything other than beepy music would particularly suit that.

[Fuzzpilz]

But that's just it. With General MIDI, you have essentially zero control over the style. You're entirely at your players' equipment's mercy there. Somehow mandating the same soundcard in every system is an utterly ridiculous idea, although the smiley suggests you're aware of that.

[CaptainBinky]

Yeah, I wasn't being entirely serious. However, with the speed most modern PCs run at, there's a case for using software synths and MIDI files then we really can all be happy! Yay!