Peter Kirn from CDM had an interesting interview with the creators of Brainpipe, a single-player arcade action game with a psychedelic twist from the masters of trippy computer gaming, Digital Eel.
I love that you talk about sound being integral with the design process. Even for a musician, though, thinking in more than one medium can be a challenge. How do you approach this in terms of design; how do you make it part of the process in practice?
When we make a game, music and sound are in right away. From the first couple of hours, the basic prototype is on the screen, so they began to shape the sonic style of the game immediately.
Because sound and music are growing up at the same time as the art and programming is, all these elements influence each other pretty equally, so you don’t get music and sound that sound “separate” or tacked-on. You get sound you can’t turn off, and you don’t want to, because it’s actually part of the game.
Sounds can also influence and inspire and change things. You might be after a certain sound effect, but then you stumble across something else that’s much cooler, so the animation of a visual effect is changed to match the sound.