https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kavxsXhzD48The video above is aimed mostly at Film Production, but both games and movies rely on audio to really sell the story.
When youre in the audience, you really dont pay that much attention to sounds in movies or games. When you are making a game, or movie (which Ive done work on several), sound is the first thing that is overlooked. Its not just about the sound being there or birds making noise, its about where the audience feels like they are at. You can use sound to completely control the emotion of everything the audience feels. Take out those frog sounds or water drips and you can create a state of unease where the audience can experience a sense of being disconnected from the character they are intended to project themselves on to. Just as much as you can use audio to create a sense of unease, you can also use sound to help the audience project on to a character by letting them hear what the main character hears. You can use Sounds to tell the audience what to focus on. A door opens or closes, footsteps, a busy town, the ticking of a bomb, roar of a train, everything.
This is one of my frustrations in building anything with RPG Maker. The sound library is OK at best, it has music and combat effects, but thats really about it. A lot of other times, other engines dont really come with any audio assets. However, I think my #1 issue with audio has to be with RPG Makers limitations in the audio department. A lot of things should have been in the default engine that simply are not there. Namely having only one BGS channel, no sound emitters, and just a general lack of tools to implement the underlying ambience of any environment. Way back in the day when Doom 3 first came out over a decade ago, people payed heavy attention to the realtime shadows, and they critiqued the graphics, but sound is nearly always forgotten by those except the pros. Thats why they are the pros. The place that Doom 3 really shined was in its Audio department. Yes, the game play is exceptionally dated by todays standards, its very "monster in a closet" and "it moves, shoot it" isnt fun any more. What Doom 3 does have is great sound design, using all those ambient sounds and ticks and footsteps and audio effects that can really draw a player in, even today. If you have a copy, fire it up, turn out the lights, ignore the graphics and turn up the volume. LISTEN as you start exploring the world. Pay close attention to the sounds. That is what is missing in so many games AND movies.
Ryex and ForeverZer0 are really the only two scripters I know of that have done anything to address the limitations of RPG Maker in the audio department. But it isnt just about RPG Maker, but gaming in general. What do you think could be done to make the Sound Design of games better from a Developers Perspective? If you've focused on sounds in your game, more so than just "put it there to make it seem normal", what are your tricks? How do you implement sound design? What advice can you offer to everyone else out there?