Selcuk Bor demonstrates the importance of audio and why Flash game developers should take it into consideration when creating their games.

1. Winning with Audio
By Selcuk Bor

2. I promise to make this quick!
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50 People Awake
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3. Today's Shenanigans!
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Audio's Role in our Lives
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Your Visuals as your blueprints
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Execution of Vision
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Working with us Audio guys.

4. Defining Maximum Potential
What does it mean?
When code, art, audio, and writing all tag team together to
create the perfect experience, we can say that game has
reached it's maximum potential. Consequently this also means it
has also reached it's maximum potential value.

5. Audio's Role in our lives
Every day, every moment we are bombarded with audio cues.
These cues define how we expect things to sound like both in
real life and during play.

6. Time to play a little game!
Yay! +15% wake audience achieved!
I'm going to play two clips for you now, and I want you to
imagine the kind of setting and kind of game you'd find these
two tracks in.

7. Audio's Role in our lives
So what did you see in your minds when you heard those tracks?
Chances are you saw a jungle/tribal themed game, and a retro
arcade game respectively.
without so much as seeing a single picture or touching a single
control and based only on what we grew up hearing these points
are made clear to us.

8. Audio's Role in our lives
Ever had goosebumps while listening to your favorite music? Or
during an intense emotional scene that had the saddest music
ever?
This reaction is a lot more important to your players then you'd
think. For it is a strong motivational force behind their opinions
on a project.

9. Audio's Role in our lives
The people who are playing your games grow up with
expectations based on the games they played and have learned
to expect some varient of the same in future titles they play.
This is exactly why poorly chosen/created music can kill a game
because your audience becomes somewhat distant (and
sometimes frustrated) from the game.

10. Your visuals are your blueprints
So how do you dissect what you should be looking for in your project to find/
create audio that is most appropriate? The art in your project as a
collective will tell you. For example, imagine you are making a match 3
game. Imagine it is a jungle theme, so that gives us a direction, pay
attention to the objects the player interacts with most for those will be
landmarks.
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If the pieces are crude/unrefined, enforces the jungle image,
more rhythmic stuff
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If the pieces are shiny and jewels-esque, leaning more
towards adventurous tones. Think Indiana Jones
•
If the pieces are mystical/magical, consider a more fantasy
vibe.

11. Time to play another game!
Time to watch some puppies!

12. Execution of Vision
Knowing what will work is a great step but it's not the whole
story. Small teams who can't bring on a sound designer to
prepare their files for them, reach out for stock sounds which
when used sparingly is fine.
When you put more and more of these sounds in the same
game, it starts to become more and more disconnected with
each other. Oddly enough adding more content serves only to
harm your game's potential value this way.

13. So what do D:?
Here are a few tips to ensure maximum coherence and quality of
your sounds.
- First, clarity. Does it have it? Background hisses or warbly low
quality sounds is deadly to quality.
- Volume appropriate is step two. Footsteps should not be
louder then gun shots. Music should not overwhelm the sounds
and vice versa.
These are just a few basic things that help keep a cohesive sound
scape.

14. So what if you have an audio guy?
Fantastic! You've got help and now you've got to think about how you
want to work with them.
Like most creatives, if you want your audio guy to follow your vision
you need to speak their language. You don't need to know music
theory and psuedo write the music for them but ensure consistency in
the big picture with descriptive phrasing focusing on mood and offer
reference clips where possible. 2-3 tops as too many different
references creates confusion and contradiction. Here is a short form
for you to go through to help provide meaningful instruction.

15. Points to consider

Length of track (roughly how long you You can download this checklist on the
envision it being) FGS or our site with more details on
what they mean and why they're

Looping? helpful.
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Have 2-3 reference clips?
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Specify time regions most relevant?

What emotion or thought do you want the
player to have when they play the
game/listen to the track.

Preferred instruments/sounds?

Screenshots of game/concept art?

16. Are we done yet :C?
Yes we have reached the end of today's adventure. Each one of these points
we touched upon today can be in of themselves an entire presentation.
However those are details and while these were all basic concepts they are
important ones which I am hoping gives you all a new understanding
regarding audio and are one step closer to unleashing that perfect storm.

17. Thank you!
You've successfully put up with my ramblings for over 10 minutes. You have
achieved something truly legendary this day.
selcuk@symphonyofspecters.com
http://www.symphonyofspecters.com