How to Make Things "POP" with Audio and Color

[Music] all right hello everyone and Welcome to our talk about how to make things pop uh this talk is going to be about how audio and visuals can be used to enhance the experience of a video game it's a dive into our thinking and methods when working towards the common goal she is Ina Hanson and this is Martin kalala and together we have worked on these four games together we are also currently both ending up working on a new super secret project that we are in talks about and can't share but however today we are here to talk about mixing up the disciplines together with you almost a year ago we did talks back to back at Nordic game Jam strangely the points we were making were the same ones my talk was about psychology and Martin's was on

how to choose the right sound style so we decided to get to start a journey where we could talk about the same things from the respective points of our views together here here it's also kind of funny as a sound designer because I sometimes quite often get the whole thing of like could you make this sound more green or could you make this this rain sound more yellow so I've was always been curious about maybe in has these secrets to be explaining to me so that's my very motive so we are the bread in the sandwich uh we come from two completely different disciplines with tools that don't overlap at all uh we are in many ways a metaphorical bread in the metaphorical sandwich you start and finish uh you start with art and you finish with sound and we all hold it together with carbs delicious carbs in the stock um we will talk about these things so why should you care about great audio

and art which is a bit about the benefits of prioritizing this for your game how to make it stand out how to cut through the noise how do we work and we'll go through our processes in how we address the same Concepts and goals um how to make the pop stick making memorable experiences by playing of Vibes associations and making patterns and shared language this is a little bit of how and why why you should talk to each other at the end of this talk you will be able to identify how to bring out the best in your project we'll get into the way we think when creating visuals in audio and we hope that you sincerely can take something away from this audio person talk to your artists artists involve an audio person early on and solo Dev go talk to the artists and audio people talk to each other we hope you want to uh making video games is a collaborative project for the most part and we think we gain more from uh

connecting all the dots early on we also have to say that mostly we come from an indie background uh none of us have really done much work on triaa which means that uh we don't know much about them but judging from their output their power does seem to lie in a CRA impressive craftsmanship and demands big budgets whoever is in this uh we mostly feel that the cool thing that we can do is foring to try the big weird spiky and cranky ideas which we also want to argue is our strength in this talk okay indulge just in a little experiment here would like some uh participation from you guys um so before we start our uh going into our points let's try to do a yellow clap that's a tiny slow clap like this yes careful and then an Applause that's an orange clap it's like this but but in the

how what comes in between of these two can try let let's try it yeah tiny clap [Applause] again [Applause] yes okay perfect that's really good thank you so why should you care about uh having good audio and art for your game let's get into the problems that we all have to deal with because every day especially like for instance on something like steam there's about 50 games being released and it's very hard to break through this noise and even when you capture someone's attention how do you Le them with a good impression sad sad clip so how do you make an impression in

the world of so many Impressions we consume so many things every single day it's not just games it's also series uh apps uh social media Etc yeah and we're all trying to make our project as best as we can we want to make the case uh for how graphic and sound can capture and hold people's attention through this all so how to make your game stand out we also have many opinions about this part and there are many ways to thinking about this topic so listen to our take coming now first of all make a good game uh um we don't really have a lot of say in this normally um and you can definitely make a great game without caring about audio or art but if this is you you're free to leave now sh we'll be waiting for two minutes while everyone leaves the room yeah but in any case the games they usually come from some sort of idea right and game design script Etc uh sometimes hopefully there's a strong vision from the developer Studio but you know sometimes there isn't in any case it's very

beneficial to try to find exactly what makes this game special identity the essence of the game is communicated and formulated through its identity uh finding the dire direction of it all uh is establishing pallets and that means both for sound and for color a screenshot should look like uh every screenshot in your game should look like your game so although this is this is not a marketing talk this can be a super handy tool for marketing as well you can clearly see that this is The Simpsons uh this is even not even a screenshot but you can still recognize them from a few Lego blocks and this is South Park characters uh and the IPS are using character design for the most part to like have their identity uh be Associated to them really strongly this is a game example limbo is very striking with its filmatic grayscale look and EA atmosphere and the the eyes of the uh

protagonist is little creepy glowy eyes um firewatch uh is not very stylized in its Graphics but it keeps repeating this uh gradient throughout the game uh by utilizing light and color grading to make it look like fire or a sunset then we have Matrix Matrix is very green and uh all of the movies are super green and you can always see it from any screenshots and that used to be the color of tech it's not anymore but it used to be and they used the green and black in their digital rain which I would argue is still iconic to this day yeah crafting through this philosophy it makes you know what the BS benefit this direction and wish to not to making decisions the making decisions basically uh we have a framework further down the line in the same way we could kind of say like every clip should sound like a game if you hear something like half a second from a trailer somewhere it's really nice if you can go like that is that game I do

know it uh and of course since audio takes time to show uh we're just going to show three Quick Clips I hope you all have heard [Music] before so games are pretty much often fully imagined worlds completely created by a team of quite competent creators the sound should also be every bit as tailor made and unique as anything else in this we're going to talk a little bit about how we make the decisions and what kind of decisions that we make for instance with sound with recognizable sound uh personally I like to work out of two different constraints first of all knowing the intentions behind the thing what is it supposed to be doing both in the game in the figural sense of like what you're actually doing but also what he trying to convey but I'm also finding it really nice to have uh assess of rules and limitations and this is a good example of a limitation that I like

so hidden folks is a hidden object game with only mouth sounds which is very practical me basically if you're having a mouth if you have a microphone it's quite simple that most uh teams could even kind of mostly get a decent result by just using this rule without even having a sound design on a team it's just a very good kind of uh limitation for for its kind then we have something like this uh which is somewhere conceptual immitation and Among the Sleep is a narrative driven horror Adventure game in which it plays a two-year-old child uh here the audio needs to get the player to feel really small and scared so like for instance sound need to enhance this emotion to to the player dragging a chair needs to feel like you're dragging uh an even bigger chair like you're seeing this chair is 3 m tall for you but it needs to feel like you're dragging something which is like 10 m long it's huge uh seeing your mother lash out while drunk is need to feel incomprehensible and

frightening uh as a limitation this is a more open in a practical sense uh more things are allowed in that sense but it does need to provide this way more importantly to drive home the narrative elements of it so how do you pick the color and how do you pick the sound as we found uh out that our ways of working shared a lot of similarities than not while we did the Nordic game Jam talks we started delving further into our processes how the how do I uh pick my colors how does Martin pick his sounds and there we have a little demonstration of an [Music] example uh this is gner 2 a game we both worked on uh and we focused on maintaining a little bit and elaborating the existing identity of the first game

pushing further the candy-like quality of the color palette and the dark backgrounds makes everything glow in a on the screen glow in a green like a vivid and uh it has a Trippy and retro vibe to it yes and alongside with the candy we want to give player something Savery to listen to so I like to think of the audio as popcorn it's kind of like you bring a scoop of a hand down in a bucket and you take a big Swig of it or you know a bite I guess and uh you just want to get continue and have more because it's salty it's delightful it's many many small things and maybe it doesn't really have to make sense but it's all part of the kind of whole of it [Music] relax [Music] here together you and me

so in the game sunlight uh we created the forest as a metaphor for Humanity the harmony of the trees are speaking in unison so each threee is a part of the story yet distinct its own together they represent a narrative to you the player in a calm Serene Pace as you walk around the serenity of the forest is underlined through its uh earthy greens and greens um creating a relaxing Harmony in the colors the sunlights uh of course being at the center of attention bringing it some warmth we have another example exploring the world with the wind in your [Music] whiskers discovering new ingredients and flavors to make the best dishes [Music] ever customizing your truck to your heart's desire

so in the game fruit bus um it's a bright and Whimsical game and the fruit fruits and the foods are at its core we explored how to make everything look delicious and that bright color palette came out of that and from these visual choices uh we went for the blend of tasty blend of realism and Abstract sounds and the reason for this is the game is quite a tangible game everything in there has a purpose like for instance if you drive a car you better remember your hand bre right so to give the player this idea that this world is tangible um we used to real realistic sounds to ground that and we use after sound to keep it feeling really good to interact with oh thank you thank you so much you we're not done though we're not done so how do you find the essence um you just find your themes and this can be really abstract and sometimes it can be really concrete as we just talked about and then you just run with it yeah

and keep reinforcing your own rules essentially if you keep repeating a concept of the rules is set throughout the process you're doing it right remember the vision and as everyone who's ever played everything knows consistency trums quality uh consistency is quality essentially iterates iterate iterates this is probably the only slide we haven't changed which is kind of funny but it is spot on so personal style in essence it is um it is very important to know your taste also from when choosing who to work with so when you're hiring or partnering up with somebody it's much easier to work with them if they understand where the thing you're trying to make it is really really cool than not uh here are some examples for my own uh style I don't really have a personal style per se but I do have a taste and a color philosophy so you can see that you will get some sort of version of the bisexual color palette

I think similar to Ina I I also have more of a process maybe than a style uh I do like to work quickly destructively and exploratory which means I seldom know what I'm doing but I like doing it um it also kind of ends up sometimes being some something that is a bit um sometimes ends up standing a little bit beside the game not necessarily in it uh but kind of fits with the game in a way in again in a spike way right so even though I might have a disregard of some somewhat overall direction I might have my own idea of a direction that I keep and maintain and this keeps things feeling quite consistent in the end so find the right match to match your vision if you feel that Martin's attitude is a little bit too spiky maybe he's not for you and that's good to know but if it somehow relates to the vision that you're uh going after that's a better fit than

not so making the popstick so if you're working with the within the found Essence uh while for using the identity to guide your decisions how do we take this further the next few steps if you make a memorable experience applying with Vibes Association and patterns we think you're on a good course of something right careful with the use of the pop the big eye catching aspects of your game in other words uh it works better when it's based out throughout the game rather than all of the experience just being highs uh in art this would be considered a focal point in audio as well maybe uh however I don't really quite know however with audio which I quite like is I kind of often quite see it as sort of player Whisperer it tells the player a lot of things that they don't really necessarily think about and even though I think quite a lot of people understand how music treats them and influen them uh for instance with audio uh I think that if you have

something like a gun in a game uh you can have a lot of information to the player by making the gun feel more or less powerful than the enemies around you if you're basically having a more powerful gun you will maybe have a little bit of a gun power fantasy and maybe that will act uh enforce how you behave in the game the other way if you're doing it a more European realistic or like darker way you're probably going to feel more weak and the gun is going to be like feel like a peashooter uh and that kind of influences you may be crawling around to creeping a little bit more maybe you're a bit more aware of your ammunition in essence it's a lot of these kind of things that that I really geek out about when it comes to audio which I I hope most people don't notice because that also means I'm doing my job just right uh you can do similar things with colors uh you can use colors to uh enhance the feelings of your game uh you can easily underline a Feeling by the saturating or intensifying a collor like low key while the player doesn't need to pay attention to it they still feel it so you're guiding the player into their

emotions um so when designing uh fruit bus we wanted to push the associations uh of delicious foods uh while the agenda became making the game really comfortable and cozy and the game also has a little bit of surreal nature to it it's reflected in the colors and stuff but it's also reflected in the environments yes and the delicious food styling it also is served with a hot plate of sounds they complement the visuals by juicing up the interaction of cutting slicing cooking gooing and fluing I'd like to explain a little bit about what's going on with the uh with the psychology of it all um You probably heard of bottom up and top down processing so uh when and you're doing

top uh bottom up uh processing you're seeing a bunch of things that are laid up in front of you and you're trying to make uh everything makes sense you're trying to make patterns within your brain and if it's top- down processing you already have an idea about what's going on and you are projecting that on whatever is in front of you and these of course play back and forth so top down processing can be um playing of perceived expectations like shorthand communication uh color coding is a good example of this color coding of Rarity items although there are some slight variations of these systems it's very obvious for a player who plays within a genre to understand what is going on in the screen and you get a lot for free another example is how to convey that a do a door is locked uh it's quite simple with sound a good little doorn rattle makes it go and work 100% of the time coning con be about having the need to do much

more and you can also set up Expectations by making a pattern making the player rely on information that is being presented to them making the in uh the stuff in game pop a little bit and uh this is an interplay between sound and vision here comes a little example of a thing from gar again I really like that snake um the snake is the exit and entrance to each level um so you can easily spot it it's Vivid body it it stands out quite a lot and the color uh it's coded to be like everything that is good and helpful within the game and uh it also serves as a little pause

in between levels yeah and the same thing the sound is kind of helping out here is being that it goes from chaotic it goes from like quite a multitude of things into like a very calm thing everything stops nothing plays anymore and the music gets muted you can kind of hear uh oh yeah never mind our next point is that patterns of recogn repetition Works quite a lot so [Applause] and we know that because repetition Works repetition where this is Martin's joke you don't have to uh but it leads us into a really fun topic uh which is um subverting expectations so uh another uh little example from Gunner 2 is the uh blue tone turquoise toned Grandma death and I

mean she's death so she's a little bit intimidating but all in all she is related to everything that is good in the world because she's uh turquoise and blue and um like Amo flowers or the the the tree where you get the skulls from which is a good thing in the game um Grandma death is associated with the safe Hub space and the enemies are generally coated with warm Reds so at the end and this is a huge spoiler I'm sorry um she appears as the last boss in the game and it should feel a little bit like fighting your own granny uh same thing with the game uh usually upgrades are fun you get fun heads you get fun guns however we have a little joke which is the poop head which some players like but it's essentially it's a game that gives you almost no Health it makes you shoot weaker bullets and it kind of sounds a bit crummy when you do it which makes that each sound is a little bit of a punch

line this uh this is another game that I worked on called Dead BS Unleashed and uh in the world uh both the world and the protagonist are coded in um purple and pink colors so this becomes a a pattern throughout the game when you go into this environment you can feel how out of place the character is without uh anybody saying anything because well this is this is very devoid of color uh except for the little uplifting notes which are pink very subversive suby sorry about that uh shared language uh start talking early yes because game direction is audio and art Direction uh in theory

there is one person on team that ensures that audio and visual uh support each other and support the overall direction but in reality it's sometimes not that's not the case at least in small in teams where we're all wearing about a bunch of different hats each day but it is up to us to talk together and figure this out and this is how we suggest approaching this uh we came up with the stock from discovering how often we talk about the same stuff from two different angles and this Talk itself is a result of communication figure out what people on the team have strong opinions and wishes uh about for the project how do they differ or uh concur from yours yes in any case we wish we talk together earlier in all cases pretty much so please please please reach out to each other and we're all working towards a common goal so in summary on this talk remember to find your essence yes the thing that makes your game special practice making rules and

limitations remember to stick with it repeat stick with it repeat stick with it repeat and enhance make it pop it popped be yourself remember your tastes they're what you want they're also what other people want from you make patterns happen it can be powerful to know when to subvert them get talking early on yes talk it's very nice and involve art and audio me and Ina Mak them communicate make them WR to talk together it's is pretty funny and also I guess this is also how we make something sound yellow it's also how you trick people into giving you an Applause I hope we made a good impression and more than anything we hope we stood out to you in memorable

way all right I believe we have four minutes maybe for Q&A y so if anyone has a question please come up to the microphone now or be forever quiet unless you see us in the park outside at some points um what are some tools for the sound um creation side that you recommend for people that like don't have the resources or could it's like a luxury to have like a sound designer on their team so like wearing many hats kind of thing like what tools do you recommend oh yeah uh I think this is the question we often get uh question okay yeah no they he it oh they hear yeah um in in essentially like for for small teams you mean that doesn't really have a sound design or how to do be able do it I I think uh trying to figure out interesting limitations uh sticking to like single piece of G years uh there's for instance chap synthesizers that are

free uh there's online tools that runs on Chrome for instance that you can like spam coins sound and it will create you like 15 variations of that that you can download in each your game um I always I always um say that of course if you find something fun uh that you can do it's kind of the best especially if it's a little bit that if it's something you do yourself for instance running around like crazy with a with a mobile phone um in in general that that's you can end up with a lot of fun sounds and you can find some free Hardware uh s sorry software to cut it up you can put it into your game and and it's going to be fine I think the main thing is just mostly about balance then if you really really really like take the audio volume down low when you test things you can hear if it's really sticking out too loud or too low and the rest is just going to be make sure you have fun with it make sure you spend enough time with it it really is about time thank you thank you hello test okay good uh I have a question about like communicating in General um I'm a programmer by trade so

I often like to talk to my of my like artists and sound designers and we often like try to communicate from different ends just like we often end up these metaphorical question like I want this like the scene to feel more like dark and gloomy and Atmospheric but I don't know exactly describe it at times what do you think is like very helpful in terms like when describing more concretely uh I always recommend using reference refences uh so if you have something very specific in mind try to find that reference don't be afraid to like uh riff of something that already exists you will make it you like it doesn't really matter uh do you have something on the sound side exactly what in is saying uh for audio it helps quite often to just go to YouTube find a video find a reference saying like this this is kind of what I want if you give them three different things they will kind of triangulate that that's their job basically also please let us know when this last question uh I think we have time for at least one more

okay okay yep thank you thanks so much okay we'll be in the wrap up area thank you so much again and see you in the park [Music]