Surveying Literature: Game Development Essentials (Jeannie Novak)

Finished reading today through chapter 9 in Jeannie Novak's Game Development Essentials, the audio chapter.  I really enjoyed this chapter overall.  It makes a great introduction to the ideas of game audio and briefly traces the history and development of game audio as well as exploring the many facets of it: dialogue, sound effects, and music.  Within these, the chapter explores looping music versus adaptive music.  It's easy to read and I think I might assign this chapter as an early reading in my class.  The quick and direct, easy reading nature make the chapter ideal.  While the clutter of numerous interviews make the reading a bit disjointed, I like that this introduces the reader to some of the major players in the field, the lexicon, important websites, and points where the reader can find more information about topics.  

Here are some of the most interesting quotes with my reactions:

Talking about frequency modulation in early game audio, Novak writes that "the results were less than spectacular."  What's the point of that?  Yes, some of the early game audio sound very crude and grating... to me, many of the early Atari sounds are akin to the sound of dialup internet in the 90s.  However, plenty of people have hard core nostalgia with these sounds these days.  And frankly, at the time, these sounds were plenty convincing and perfectly suited and realistic to contemporary players.  I'll never forget talking to my grandfather about the old movies like Frankenstein.  When I asked him how he (or the audience) even thought they were realistic his reply was: "Well, you'd never seen anything like that before.  For those of us watching, it was a new effect that seemed lifelike.  Now, of course, you've seen much better and it looks unrealistic, but at the time, it was cutting edge and terrifying."  Same here.  Why dis the beginning of game audio?  Whatever one may think of the sounds, it was what it was-- the seeds that sowed where we are now-- why degrade it?  

Novak quotes Chad Mossholder": "I don't separate sound effects from music.  To me it is all music.  Go outside and listen to the traffic, the birds, the planes flying overhead, the people talking: It's an ever-changing sonic composition."   This makes me wonder: what is music?  Of course, I've been thinking about that for years, but definitely a great question to pose early on in my game music class.  While I want to spend a bit of time on each of these, I want to separate between sound effects, dialogue, and really focus in on game music, but really, where is the line between them?  

Novak separates sections in the chapter of "looping music" and "adaptive audio."  What I don't understand here in this distinction is that plenty of games have both!  Doesn't game audio typically loop until something gameplay makes it change (into adaptive audio)?  I'm not sure this distinction makes sense to me because at some level the audio for where you are in a game is looping until you do something in the game that changes it.  I mean, in a weird 21st century sort of way, I understand what she means, but also, I think I inherently disagree with this distinction.  Looping audio and adaptive audio aren't exclusive in my mind.  

Overall, a great read.  One I'm going to encourage (or require?) my students to encounter early in their studies.