Greetings, fans of darkness and insanity,
In today’s development update we focus on the pinnacle of survival horrors - sound design. It sets the mood, warns you about hostiles, and lets you hear the tragedy of falling into madness by Carter.
At Vixa Games we don’t have sound designers in-house, so that’s why we came to Kacper & Piotrek from Ivory Tower Soundworks.
We asked them for their inspirations, funny examples, atmosphere and the role of music.
So let's start with an easy one. What are your main inspirations when adding sounds and music?
KACPER: First of all, the game itself is very inspiring and clearly "placed" in terms of atmosphere and content, so in a sense you don't have to create the music from scratch, but only fit what is immediately born in your head into the shape of the game.
To a large extent, I draw from the cultural "vocabulary" completed over the years. - I mean the now-classic movies, games or books that I absorbed in my early youth. So the starting point for me are musical associations of what a soundtrack for a Lovecraftian horror film set in frigid 1970s/80s Alaska might or "should" sound like.
From narrowed down specifics: Frictional Games (primarily Penumbra), The Thing (film), Anton Webern (classical composer), Lovecraft (books).
PIOTREK: Lovecraft, Twin Peaks, The Thing.
Do you have any funny examples of what the sounds used in the game are actually made of?
PIOTREK: Certainly :) . Extremely different sounds are used as the basis of the monsters. From the mooing of a cow to my daughter's laughter.
With the experience of turning sounds upside down, you stop looking at the sources in terms of their original meaning, but rather the sonic qualities they possess - tone, harmonic waveform, resounding profile.
In order not to ruin the immersion of the game, I prefer not to reveal which monster blossomed from livestock and which from the whistle of an unclosed balcony. Much of the timbre was also created entirely in plug-ins. It's interesting to note that most of the enemies cross various disturbing voices using a vocoder - a voice-changing instrument with origins in 80's pop music.
Is it easier or more difficult to work in a 2D environment from the sound designer's side (and in general how such a project differs from your perspective).
KACPER: The use of a first-person perspective automatically increases immersion, so the 2D perspective imposes a challenge to sonically catch up with this "reverse handicap." For example, the sounds made by the main character, reflecting his condition or psyche, are easier to match graphically in the FPS view (we don't see a gasping face, for example), while being more immersive for the player.
PIOTREK: The 2D perspective has its limitations but also its benefits. As Kacper mentioned, building immersion by placing sounds in a 3D space that is natural to humans is easier to build a believable atmosphere, especially in a horror context.
On the other hand, working in 2D doesn't impose such precise sound expectations and also gives room for tolerance in less templated sound implementation.
Should the music in a survival horror like Edge of Sanity be minimalistic or more outlined and when?
KACPER: The overriding thing for us is to match the visual layer and the pace of the gameplay, and that is the main determinant. But yes, it's fair to say that much of the music is rather minimalist - the strength of a horror soundtrack is usually not the catchy melodies, but the dense atmosphere.
On the one hand, this makes the task easier, because composing catchy melodies can also be a challenge, but on the other hand, you have to "enliven" the music in other ways, so that it's not just a bunch of slowly overflowing minor chords, and so that the individual tracks differ between each other legibly.
At the same time, an additional challenge is to maintain a balance between tension and relaxation: the music must be disturbing and keep you in suspense, but at the same time not so much that it suggests "you are about to be attacked by a nightmare from another dimension." - a large part of the game is exploration, during which we don't encounter enemies or other terrors.
What kind of atmosphere are you aiming for when it comes to the sounds in each location?
KACPER: Aside from the obvious match to the content and atmosphere of the locations, the main goal is to capture and reflect in the music the deepening madness of the main character from chapter to chapter, the gradual unraveling of his dark secret and following his path towards inevitable disaster.
PIOTREK: With Edge of Sanity's structure, it's easier to use more cinematic and precise sound direction - in a good way. It's easier to reflect the character's degrading mental state and the perception of reality through the lenses of madness through sound. So I wouldn't put the changes in atmosphere in terms of the biome, but rather in terms of plot progression.
Thank you guys!
We can't wait to see your reactions when you will finally have a chance to feel the Lovecraftian madness trip to Alaska. Stay tuned, follow us for more updates, and join our Discord community to be a part of the journey into madness:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897110/Edge_of_Sanity/
Talk to you soon!