Unit 73 - Assignment 2

Unit 73 - Assignment 2: Creating and applying sounds to a specific game
Be able to create sound assets for a computer game following practice

Disclaimer: Some of the sounds that I have used for the game, I have not created myself, but I have used a Royalty Free sound website and I have made changes to the sounds so they don't sound like the original sound. I also have used my electric guitar to record some sounds for the game and I have also edited them too. 

I got my sound effects from: https://freesound.org
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Brief information about the game:
The game I have chosen to make for this assignment is Space Invaders. In any way, shape or form, I do not attempt to recreate the game and take credit for it.

I have decided to give the game my own style that is suitable for all people. The game has the same concept as the original game; move left and right with the arrow keys and fire the weapon with the space bar to destroy the enemies. 

The sounds for the game:

• Player bullet
• Alien bullet
• Barrier destroyed
• Life lost
• Enemy destroyed
• Bonus enemy
• Game over
• Menu back
• Menu select

Software that will be used to edit:

• Audacity (Windows)

The editing:

Player bullet:
This is a screenshot of the sound effect before it was edited. This sound effect is quite long and also has a lot of wasted time as the beginning and end remain blank:

In this screenshot, you can see that I have trimmed the excess wasted space from the audio:

After trimming the excess wasted space from the audio, I decided to increase the tempo of the audio to make it sound like a gun firing, rather than having a slow delay of firing the weapon:

After many attempts of trying to get the audio perfect for the game I have been making, this is the final outcome. I have tested this in the game and it works the way it should:

Alien bullet:
This sound effect symbolises that the player is in danger because these bullets have been fired at the player.

This is a screenshot of the sound effect before it has been edited. This sound effect is quite long and it has a lot of wasted space:

In this screenshot, you can see that I have trimmed the excess wasted space off the audio so it looks a lot tidier than it did before:

After playing around with the settings, I found the right value for the tempo settings:

After all of the editing, this is the final outcome. I have tried this sound in the game and it works the way it should and it's not out of sync either:

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Barrier destroyed:
This sound effect symbolises that the player is in danger, because one of their barriers have been destroyed. This sound effect will play when the barrier has been destroyed. 

This is a screenshot of the sound effect for the barrier when it gets destroyed. As you can see this sound effect is quite short:

In this screenshot, I am slowing the tempo down on the audio to create an explosion effect. This setting works well with the game:

After decreasing the tempo, this is the final outcome and it has also made a noticeable difference to the sound and it also works well with the game. 

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Life lost:
This sound effect symbolises that the player is running out of lives slowly. When the player has been hit by the bullet from the alien, this sound effect plays and then takes away one of their lives. This will urge the player to play better. 

This is the sound effect for when the player loses a life in the game. This will be played for when that happens. As you can see, this sound effect is quite lengthy: 

After examining the audio track, there wasn't that much trim but where I trimmed it was at the start of the track:

After trimming the audio track, I decided to lower the pitch which in my opinion, sounded better than the original audio track to begin with:

After pitching the audio track, this is the result I got:

As you can see in this screenshot, I have increased the tempo of the audio track to make the player aware that they have lost a life in the game:

In this screenshot, it shows the final outcome of all the editing that has gone into this sound. After placing this in the game, it works flawlessly without any issues or delays:

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Enemy destroyed:
This sound effect symbolises success in the game because this will play when the player has destroyed one or multiple enemies. 

This is a screenshot of the sound before I made the alterations to it:

After importing the sound into Audacity, I changed the tempo of the sound because I wanted it to be a quick sound that played, rather than a sound that was too long for the event:

After changing the tempo of the audio, I then trimmed the excess from the audio to reduce file size and wasted time and this is what it looks like after being trimmed:

This is the final outcome of the sound after making the alterations to it. After testing the sound with the game I have made, this fits perfectly:

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Bonus enemy:
This sound effect symbolises that the bonus enemy has appeared at the top of the game and you have to destroy it to score 100 points. 

This is a screenshot of the sound before it was untouched:

This is a screenshot of after playing around with the settings in Audacity, I trimmed the sound down, ready to loop as this sound doesn't play long enough for the bonus enemy in my game.

After countless attempts of looping, this is the first part of the looping:

After the previous looping attempt, it didn't go so well, so I decided to change the audio into a stereo track and then remove the bottom layer. After I did this, I looped the remaining contents and this is the final result I got:

In this screenshot, I am increase the tempo so that this audio plays in sync with the bonus object in the game.

After when I changed the tempo of the audio to my desire length, I had to loop the audio more which was a slight problem with Audacity. I had to manually copy and paste the segments I needed to be looped and placed them in the correct position. After doing this, I added the effect called "Fade Out" and you can tell that this has been added by the look of the last wavelength.

Game over:
This sound effect symbolises that the player has lost the game, and that they will have to start the game again or quit. 

This is a screenshot of the sound before it was untouched:

In this screenshot, you can see that I have trimmed the excess wasted space from the audio:

After trimming the excess wasted space from the audio, I decided to use the effect called "Fade Out" and you can tell this has been added at the end of the track:

Menu back:
This is a screenshot of the sound before it was untouched:

In this screenshot, you can see that I have trimmed the excess wasted space from the audio:

After trimming the excess wasted space from the audio, I decided to increase the tempo of the audio, because when the button has been clicked on, I don't want a long delay after it has been clicked, just a short sound to alert the player that the button has been clicked:

After all of the editing, this is the final outcome of the sound: 

Menu select:
This is a screenshot of the sound before it was untouched:

In this screenshot, you can see that I have trimmed the excess wasted space from the audio:

After trimming the excess wasted space from the audio, I decided to increase the tempo of the audio, because when the button has been clicked on, I don't want a long delay after it has been clicked, just a short sound to alert the player that the button has been clicked:






















After all of the editing, this is the final outcome of the sound: 






















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My evaluation:

After spending a mass amount of time creating and editing the sounds for my game, Space Invaders, I am happy with the final outcome. The process of creating the sounds and editing them didn’t take that long to make but when it came to documenting the editing process, this took the longest. The documentation shows the trimming and effects that I have used on the sound effects. 

Before I made a video that shows the process of me adding the sounds to my game and showing that they work, I decided to “test fit” them beforehand to make sure that they worked the way I planned it. 

I have made a YouTube video showing the process of adding the sounds to my game and then a short demonstration of the game being played with the sounds working. The video is roughly 20 minutes long which includes the process of adding the sounds and 10 minutes of me playing the game demonstrating that they function correctly. 

To make this process not so lengthy, I could have done numerous things to cut down the amount of time I have spent on this. Instead of using Royalty Free sound effects, I could have made the sounds by myself and they would have been easily created using either a real instrument or a MIDI keyboard with software such as GarageBand, Logic Pro X or Steinberg Cubase.

I am 100% satisfied with the sounds that I have added to my game and I am also satisfied on how well they turned out for the game. 

The YouTube video is unlisted and can be found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj3Qa_A7fNY – In the description of the video, I have added the time scale of each sound effect, so it makes it easy to filter through the video to either find a sound effect or the game play.