Music and Sound Design in 

Gaming

In this blog I will be talking about the effects of sound on games, how it can set an atmosphere, mood and alert the player of a threat. I will be listing a number of games with awesome sound design and soundtracks.

The first game I will be talking about is Portal. Portal uses sound in a number of ways and most of the sounds are very memorable, for example, the portal gun, jump pads and the turrets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIKR1p6YvsE
https://youtu.be/YFekhE70vEw?t=2

The music that plays while you're flying through the air after going on a jump pad makes you feel like your life is in serious danger, it does this because it has such a high tempo.
After you have completed the game, it teats you to one of the best songs in all of the gaming, Still Alive. https://youtu.be/RthZgszykLs?t=55
This song is such a good send off after the final boss and is one of the most memorable songs in all of gaming.

Now moving on to Metro. Metro is an fps survival horror game, this game has phenomenal sound design as it has to build tension to make the game scary. It does this by slowly building up the tempo before you're about to enter a fight and give a very quiet and airy atmosphere.





Another great use for sound is to make grindie games feel really good by levelling up. for example borderland 2 is a very fun and addictive game that is very action-packed and funny, but it can be long-winded. There are hundreds of guns in this game to collect. The game makes levelling up feel really good by using sounds and visuals, this can get addictive and I can say that because I've probably put around 500 hours into the game.



To conclude there are many to use sound to make a game better by building atmosphere, mood or making the player feel good.