Inside Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, edited by Bernard Perron is a collection of essays whose title accurately describes itself. Within that is a chapter that deals largely with emotional response to game visuals and sounds: Inger Ekman and Petri Lankoski's Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure in Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame. I really enjoyed this as a fairly easy read and think it makes a perfect possible reading for my Game Music Class. It's the kind of reading where having played either of these games will make it easy to connect with. Although I haven't played either (I do have Silent Hill 2 checked out from UM to get a taste of this weekend), having played games like Diablo and BioShock made it easy for me to imagine gaming in this genre.
I like how the article connects the audio and visual functions in the game with our emotional responses. The authors often present one or two different emotional responses to a gaming situation, and I found myself often wondering-- is my emotional response really that simplistic? Of course, emotional responses, just like the reasons that sounds appear in game, are way too complex to be defined as simply as they are here at times, but there's nothing lost in highlighting a couple of possible responses to a gaming moment. I think considering more deeply about how your emotions are sculpted by the sound of the game is a very useful thought process for players. The audio team has undoubtedly already done this in reverse, so an activity like this helps you to understand their perspective even better.
Most interesting quotes and reactions:
"The way sound is portrayed can signal shifts between subjective and objective view. For example, accompanying a shot of a conversation with a muffled dialogue creates a sense that the scene is being viewed by someone excluded from the conversation, for instance a secret observer."
Notes: This is exactly the kind of thing that we know without thinking about, but there's plenty of use in thinking about it! Sound design choices-- whether a sound should be obscured, how loud it should be, when it should happen, where it should come from, etc... These are the kind of choices that can really create the perfect atmosphere and draw the player in more deeply when done well!
"Moreover, whereas visual information in games is limited to the screen, sounds (changes in air pressure) extend into space, even interacting with it. Sounds create continuity and presence, and as a result, confuse the borders of fiction. This is partly what makes sound such an effective shortcut to emotions."
Notes: I keep coming upon the debate about the relationship between visual and sound in gameplay. "Who will reign supreme?!" My response: WHO CARES? I, for one, wouldn't choose to give up any of my senses during gameplay! Only visual or only audio doesn't give you the full experience of a game. The two were made to work in tandem with even more features like gameplay interactivity (using the controls) and tactile reactions (your controller vibrating). Games aren't just about any one method of connection. I do like how the authors point out that the sound actually creates changes in air pressure in your room. Of course, the visuals create changes in lighting in your room... Ultimately, aren't we imagining them to become more like they are on Star Trek, where you go into the Holodeck and are completely immersed in your gaming world? In that case, even a sense of smell and taste would be possible with gaming-- and once we've had those, who'd want to give them up either?
"Synchronicity between sounds and visuals is used to create further contrast between human-like movement and sounds that go against the human; some of the monsters sound almost mechanical. At times, creatures change suddenly from bipedal walking to insectal scurrying. These abnormalities introduce a threat of contamination because they are blurring the categorical borders between what is considered human versus non-human. This is enough to trigger both disgust and fear."
Notes: Really interesting. I hadn't considered how or why monsters were given certain sounds, but all of this seems very true. If scary is non-human (although at times, scary can be innocent child/ very human!), then this sheds light on why some of the audio choices are made and the effect they have on the player. This made me think about some work I was doing with The Game Audio Tutorial and how the authors there explain that having a room with no ambient sound is strange, and thus-- you want to create a soundscape for every location.
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