The Sound of Music: Social Gaming's Audio Challenge
Music is often considered secondary in game design, but it's crucial to setting the mood of any environment. Who can forget the gobble-gobble sound of Pacman or the lush orchestral tracks in Final Fantasy?
With GameSoundCon approaching next week in San Francisco, it's a good time to think about how sound enhances one's enjoyment of games—and perhaps even contributes to a game's addictive nature.
"Melody is the thing that gets stuck in your head," says musician Aaron Walz, who recently formed The Casual Game Audio Alliance with four other composers. The group's mission is to raise the value and quality of audio in social games.
Walz cites many challenges in composing for casual games. The melody has to be shorter online, yet just as compelling. "You have to balance aesthetic with file size and avoid being boring in the shorter format," he says.
There's also the dreaded mute button factor. With many online games being played at the office, many users turn off the sound as they sneak in a few minutes of play. But even people playing at home hit the mute button, because the music is often repetitive and gets on their nerves.
So which games get the music right? Here's my personal review of the sound in several social games:
- Farm Town (SlashKey): This game opens with a promising, symphonic sound, but it’s very short and repetitive, cycling in 10-second loops. Eek!
- Yoville (Zynga): When your avatar appears in another person’s house, you hear a synthesized sound reminiscent of the Star Trek transporter. More sounds are produced when you blow a kiss, throw a water balloon or send a gift. There's also the welcome trill of money piling up. But strangely, there's no sound for dancing or joking, two other prominent actions in the game. As a result, the soundtrack in this game feels unfinished.
- Pet Society (Playfish): I may be biased because I am a Pet Societyholic, but I have always found the music in this game charming. Unlike many other social games, Pet Society hits all the right notes and offers a rich variety of sound. You hear different tunes as your pet visits friends, goes shopping and fishes at the pond. Even the Pet Society Cafe is imbued with downbeat, lounge-y music. Still, according to one poll, 67% of users turn off the sound, which shows how challenging it is for even good music to be heard.
- Mobsters2 and Sorority Life (Playdom): Neither game has any sound. Where's the fun in that?
- Bejeweled (PopCap): Ah, the granddaddy of all casual games, Bejeweled has sharp, distinct sound effects as gems fall and click together. There's a rapid fusillade of gunshot-like noises when you hit a bonus. Bejeweled 2 on MSN.com and Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook took it up several notches by incorporating a deep male voice and sci-fi effects. When a level is complete, it looks and sounds as if the earth is cracking apart. When time is running out, you hear loud buzzes like emergency alerts on a spaceship. Sometimes, it feels a bit much. After all, this game is about putting same-colored balls and blocks together, not about conquering a galaxy. Still, it's undeniably more exciting to play with the sound on.
Here's a final thought: It would be nice to offer different music themes and allow the user to choose, much like selecting a skin on a website. If that's possible within the limitations of the online arena, I think many more social gamers will turn up the volume.
