Hey everyone!
Another week of work passed quickly here at Twin Wolves, and we tought to share some of our work with you.
This week we'd like to talk about the sound design of LIZ: Before the Plague.
Technology
The decision about the technology to use has not been obvious. Liz is being developed using Unity game engine, which has a pretty much interesting built-in sound engine, in fact the first implementation relied on it, and it was really good.
After some time, though, we started to feel the need of some features that other sound engines give "out-of-the-box" so we looked around and spotted FMOD. We already worked with that engine so we knew its capabilities and we replaced the existing sound management with it. This allowed us to integrated parameter-based sounds, spatialization and more.
For instance, this is a simple beat sound used in multiple situations, with different impact force and on different materials.
This, instead, is one of the first drafts of Liz' motorbike engine sound.
Concept
As we discussed in a previous dev-blog, all the Liz experience is studied to be as immersive as possible. Every element in the game has a strong bind with the game world.
As the GUI is located on the main character's PDA, so that the player sees what the character sees, the same is for the sound.
Most of the sound effects were designed ad-hoc by Davide Pensato, very familiar with FMOD studio. In fact, the greatest part of them is parameter-based and takes advantage of FMOD's spatial audio and scattering, so they are realistically placed in the game world and give such a variety when repeated.
In order to keep immersivity, we couldn't just put some background music and play it during gameplay. Liz' PDA is paired to a headset and that's where the music comes from. Liz has the habit to turn on the music during the most lively moments in fact, before every survival game phase she turns on her music player.
Music
The voices that make up the music have been designed to increase the level of tension as danger increases. With a dark tone pad with percussions of industrial character, each layer gives a specific emphasis. From an old organ to baritone electric guitars and industrial-style percussion, the emphasis is placed on the feeling of being crushed by an entity that has corrupted the deepest essence of the human being; dirty sounds and blows united with increasingly intense rhythms will accompany you to the end, without ever leaving you alone.
Music does not only fit the game mood but also the different gameplay phases! The way it was made makes it adaptive to the gameplay. If enemies are coming, it is at that moment that we want to intensify the tension but without using faders or sudden changes: the flow evolves according to the events in progress, silently accompanying the player. Each piece of music that you hear will be a sequence of loops of loopable modules, which overlap according to the current game state and will give a unique experience to the player. This compositional approach, experimented for the first time by our composer Alberto Martino for LIZ: Before the Plague, gives us, every 10 seconds, about 1.200 different combinations, considering even a 3 minutes game we have much more than a billion songs different possible! All these combinations are part of the composer's intention to avoid unwanted sequences by structuring the modules purposely and by constraining the overlap with very few simple rules.
All it's left now is to choose among all those combinations what are the most impressive to use them in-game!
Here are a few montage samples.
Let us have your feedback! Comment and rate!
The sound designers will appreciate! ːsteammockingː