Mélia Roger is a sound designer for film and art installations. She has a classical music background and owns a Master Degree in sound engineering (ENS Louis-Lumière, Paris, France). She spent the last year of Master in the Transdisciplinary Studies Program at ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland), where she developed an artistic approach of sound, working with voice and field recordings. She is now living between Paris and Zurich, working for post-production films and her own artistic works.

I listened to her work Humeurs and this one struck a deeper sense in me. This work explores the intimacy that water can have. Melia says that from underwater recordings of hydrophones hitting rocks to noisy soundscapes of construction sites, she tries to bring the surroundings into the intimacy of the handwriting. The sound of the paper is then embedded in the current, as is her body and breath.

After listening to this piece, I reflected on the fact that water is one of the most indispensable parts of our lives, but we tend to ignore it. Usually when I walk along the river, I tend to be attracted by the sound of some birds chirping, or some noise. The sound of water is one of the things that I ignore.

The role of sound in horror games

With the gaming industry flourishing, an increasing number of people are able to purchase and enjoy games. The Nintendo Switch has sold 114.33 million copies of hardware, according to Nintendo’s official website. The aesthetics, plot, and complexity are often the first things that people notice about games. But there is one aspect of gaming that is frequently overlooked: sound. And, when compared to other genres, the role of sound in horror games is as close as a fish can not be without water, because a horror game without sound might become incredibly uninteresting. According to Roberts, music is rarely employed as an incidental soundtrack in horror games and is unnecessary in other types of games.

Horror games have been around for almost 40 years, and I believe that most horror games will always feature some sort of monster. As I’ve reflected on some of the older games I’ve played, I’ve noticed that many of the IP images have been inspired by monsters and have been adapted from films like Jaws and Alien.

Do you know anything about horror games adapted from supernatural events?

I recall a supernatural but kind of man-made occurrence that occurred on the Something Awful forum, which hosted a Photoshop contest. One of the users shared two photographs of a large group of children in the shadows with a tall figure dressed in a black suit. The Slenderman was a tremendous hit at the time and became an urban legend. Parsec Productions released Slender: The Eight Pages, a free first-person survival horror game, in 2012.

Early gaming sound effects, I believe, evolved from physical game equipment such as pinball machines. They used numerous bell and buzzer sounds. Collins stated in 2008 that these early machines were similar to gambling machines, attracting the player’s interest with coins and machine sounds. This also demonstrates that sound has a strong connection with the player.

The first horror game sound effects may be found in the 1982 game Haunted House, which blended aspects of ghosts and monsters with an electronic music and visuals, as well as a little sound effect, to create a frightening environment that helped to pioneer the horror game.

In the last three decades, horror games have become more realistic because to advancements in sound effects as computers have become more widely used. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game released in 2010, made use of a stereo sound field to give players a more horrifying experience as they had to turn the camera to obtain a genuine sense of the enemy’s direction. Additionally, this game lay the groundwork for immersive gaming and introduced a brand-new concept for many subsequent games.

The main bridging function of sound is to deepen audience involvement and heighten the players’ emotional effect.

Laurie Taylor in 2003 introduced the concept of “telepresence”, where the subject is simultaneously present in different areas based on different spatial domains, but not necessarily different geographical areas”, which is related to the sense of immersion. The player is immersed in a virtual world, but also in a physical universe. This is the definition of immersion fully involved in the game.

Excellent sound effects in a horror game can heighten the ominous feeling. In a horror game, the noises of creatures roaring, zombies moaning, and metal scraping all heighten the player’s anxiety.

Do you have any good examples of immersion?

In the 1999 horror game Silent Hill, the noises of the game were quite dissonant when I was attacked since the sound effects were very direct, such as the hissing of the monsters and the main character’s screams, which made me more uneasy and made me try to flee instinctively. However, as I got closer to the building, the sounds got closer together and tighter, which made it difficult for me to think clearly. This had a direct impact on my emotions since I was afraid of what was going to happen.

Roberts said in 2014 that the most formidable enemy is an invisible one, the result of a conception that relies on fear in the player’s mind.

The second function of sound is to take on and contribute to the work of establishing the game’s integrity as well as the cohesion of the plot. The plot is a significant determining factor in determining how effective a horror game is, and it is frequently the medium of sound that is used for the player’s connection with the game. Additionally, the game is played in a two-way format, with the player’s choices affecting the outcome.

 Have you played any horror games recently?

I’ve been playing the horror game Outlast recently, in which I have to follow clues to explore and fulfil tasks in the village, and I’m frequently stunned by the unexpected opening of a door. To be honest, it was the unexpected opening of the door that piqued my interest. Because I can uncover clues in the house and finish the next mission, the game becomes more coherent.

Without sound in a horror game, the player may not be able to notice the opening of the door, which leads to the disruption of the coherence that the creators of the game were trying to provide to the player, which is a good example of how sound can be a very good link between two images in a horror game. Laflamme，who is composer of Outlast said that music is a very effective way to tell the player what to do

In comparison to the first generation of Outlast, the camera used by the characters in the second generation has a stereo recording function. This is the same stereo field as the previously described Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where the player must determine the location of monsters to complete the game. I believe that horror games undermine the concept of spatial structure and make it impossible for the player to identify the source of sound, resulting in a powerful sense of fear.

As the gaming business innovates and evolves, 3D gaming has become widespread in today’s globe. Upgrades in technology and hardware have enabled better and more imaginative game sound engineers to create more realistic games. I believe that the future of horror games is bright, and there is a lot of interest in VR-based horror games, which are computer simulations that offer the player with visual, tactile, and audio sensations in a virtual 3D space. This type of gaming is probably scarier than sitting in front of a console.

Bibliography 

Bycer, J. (2022) Game design deep dive: horror. Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press.

Collins, K. (2008) Game sound: an introduction to the history, theory, and practice of video game music and sound design. Cambridge, Mass. ; MIT Press.

Gasselseder, H. (2019) Foundations in Sound Design for Interactive Media : A Multidisciplinary Approach. Edited by M. FilimowiczNew. York ; Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.

Hawking, G. (2020) What, in your opinion, makes a horror game scary? [Quora] 31 October. Available at: https://www.quora.com/What-in-your-opinion-makes-a-horror-game-scary/answer/Glen-Hawkins-6 (Accessed: 31 October 2020).

Laflamme, S. (2018) ‘Music as a Subconscious Narrator in the Outlast Franchise’ [Speech]. 30 January. Available online at: https://www.audiokinetic.com/zh/learn/videos/-DcdpjfZVmA

Nintendo (2022) Dedicated Video Game Sales Units. Available at: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html (Accessed: 31 March 2022)

Perron, B. (2011) Silent Hill: the terror engine / Bernard Perron. Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press.

Perron, B. (2018) The world of scary video games: a study in videoludic horror. New York : Bloomsbury Academic, Approaches to digital game studies.

Post, W. (2014) Slender Man: How a myth was born. Available at: https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation/slender-man-how-a-myth-was-born/2182945/

Roberts, R. (2014) Music in video games. Edited by K. Donnelly, W. Gibbons and D. College. New York: 71| Third Avenue.

Rouse, R. (2005) Game Design Theory and practice, second edition. Plano, Texas: Wordware.

Roux-Girard, G. 2011. “Listening to fear: A study of sound in Horror Computer Games.” In Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concept and Development, edited by Mark Grimshaw, 192-212. Hershey: IGI Global.

Taylor, L. (2003) When Seams Fall Apart—Video Game Space and the Player, Game studies 3/2, available online at http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/taylor/

Yolande Harris is an artist and researcher who explores the idea of sound consciousness. Her projects consider navigation technologies, extending perception beyond the range of human senses, technological mediation of underwater environments and our relationship with other species. Walking is central to her practice, creating sound walks to evoke our perceptions in natural and urban environments. Her underwater sound projects aim to bring us closer to this off-the-beaten-track environment, encouraging connection, understanding and empathy with the ocean.

I listened to Yolande’s MELT ME INTO THE OCEAN LIGHTHOUSE WALK and the sound clips had the sound of sea creatures calling like I’ve never heard before. The fantastical sound with the synth sounds, as if I could see fish moving through the sparkling ocean. It gave me a new appreciation for the ocean, as it was one of the few times I had ever heard creatures calling in the ocean.