Sonic Design - Project 4: Game Audio Design

2.12.2025 - 4.1.2026 (Week 1 - Week 14)
Vanessa Kei Kurniadi / 0360525
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Sonic Design - Project 4: Game Audio Design

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PROJECT 3 - Game Audio Design

In this task, we must select a clip of gameplay from the several options provided by Mr Razif, and then create the game audio using our own sound editing. All the audio needs to be ones recorded ourselves, which then will be tuned and edited to fit the game.

The one that I chose was a clip from "Hollow Nights". I proceeded to watch the clip and list out all the sounds that I think I will need to fill the game.

Audio Asset List

Fig. 1.1 Audio Asset List

When I already had an idea of what I could try, I proceeded to record the audio. It was a messy process of me kneeling beside my bed and covering my head with my blanket to reduce reverb and white noise as much as possible, with only my arms and head holding the blanket to create some room to move the stuff. This means everything that I had, whether it was my phone, a glass filled with water, or anything else, is done on top of my bed with the tiny room under the blanket.

Fig 1.2 How I look when recording (kinda)

For higher efficiency and to save time (at least for me), I didn't just create one audio, cut it, and make a new one. I am making several different noises,   each with my materials to see if there is anything that will "accidentally" be suitable for the needed sound.

Here's the raw audio that I made during my "blanket session":

Fig 1.3 Raw Audio

I imported the audio to Adobe Audition and cleaned up the white noise as much as I could

Fig 1.4 Cleaning white noise

Through all these audio, I am lucky to find all the ones I need here. And mostly all I need is to change the duration or the speech, and sometimes add reverb or a parametric equaliser. But here are some examples of what I did:

1. Wind Background Noise

Since the wind noise is basically me blowing air through my mouth to create clearer noise, it is much harder to clear the white noise. But after capturing noise print and using it to clean the audio several times, I managed to have a decent audio to work with. Not to mention the audio length aligns almost perfectly with the video, so I don't have to add or reduce much.

Fig 2.1 Cleaning White Noise

For the wind noise, I just added some reverb to give a more spatial sound, as well as to make the comb sound more like dripping water in a cave.

Fig 2.2 Adding slight reverb

Fig 2.3 Final output

2. Collecting Nuts

After some trials and errors, I decided that the nuts would have like a light, empty, but sturdy sound, something like a light metallic sound, so I decided to use my glass mug.

Fig 3.1 Collecting nuts raw audio

I cleaned the white noise and added a pitch shifter and chorus. I chose the chorus because I can double the sound to give more abstractness to the collection sound, and also to camouflage the glass noise. Lastly, I used a little bit of a parametric equaliser to lessen the crispiness just a bit.

Fig 3.2 Adding Effects

Fig 3.3 Final output

3. Electricity

Electricity is the one that I had the most challenge with. I created it by playing with clear plastic.

Fig 4.1 Clear plastic for electricity sound

After looking at the video, I saw that the electricity consists of 2 parts: the low crackling noise and the explosion. And from my raw audio, I decided to use these 2 clips.

Fig 4.2 Choosing snippets of audio to work on

I distorted the audio with the Flanger Effect and Pitch Shifter several times, but I was just experimenting with it before accidentally making the version that I have now, so I forgot and didn't know how to even remake it if I have to.

Fig 4.3 Using Flanger and Pitch Shifter to distort the sound (not really accurate but close enough)

Lastly, in the audio mixer, I merged the 2 cuts into one audio and adjust the timings according to the video. I roughly needed to speed up the audio by 120%

Fig 4.4 Audio mixer preview

Fig 4.5 Final Output

4. Step

Making the "step" sound is actually one of the easiest ones I've had. I originally planned to use bottle caps to create it, but then I realised I could get a deeper noise from tapping against my umbrella.

Fig 5.1 Step raw audio

All I had to do to refine it was to use a parametric equaliser to adjust the crispiness of the sound, and it's done.

Fig 5.2 Adjusting the step with a parametric equaliser

Fig 5.3 Final Output

5. Bug

The bug sound was one of my unexpected finds. I had a wild idea of using crawly gutty noise for the bu by "strumming" the edge of my comb. One of my combs has a different kind of plastic material, and it makes an almost half-metallic sound.

Fig 5.1 Raw audio

To edit it a bit, I added put shifter to make the voice a bit deeper, and I also added slight reverb just to make the sound more natural, and it goes well with the game's place settings as well.

 

Fig 5.2 Adding a slight flanger and pitch shifter to the bug sound

Fig 5.3 Final Output

Compiling the sounds 

I know this is just my own random, messy method, but I used an audio mixer file to test out, combine, and keep variations of my sounds. It might be confusing to other people who check it out, but it is neat enough for me, and I also named the tracks to help me a little bit.

Sometimes if needed, I'll add the effects here instead on the original sound to make it easier for me to test instead of going back and forth.

Fig 6.1 Audio Mixer for testing

Adding the sounds to the video

Now that the sound effects are ready, I proceeded to export them one by one into a separate folder for final sounds to make sure I won't confuse them with my work files from the mixdown.

Fig 6.2 My Final Sound Effects

Then I proceeded to carefully add the audios to their respective functions. I had to meticulously match it with the actions to keep it satisfyingly in sync, and I tried to use my tracks as effectively as possible. In this phase, I didn't really care to keep it tidy. I just used as least tracks as needed so I won't have to bother adding more and more tracks, which might actually make it even more confusing for me.

I also had to adjust some volumes, like decreasing the background noise and boosting some noise during peak times when a lot is happening to make it more balanced.

Fig 6.3 Adding the sounds to the video

FINAL OUTPUT

Fig 7.1 Final output video