MY SOUND DESIGN PORTFOLIO
BY DARIEN SMITH
WISPERS
Type
Game
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Role
Music and SFX
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Software
Reaper
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Date
September 2019 to April 2020
About
'Wispers' is a game currently In development by a games student called Mitchel Turner, studying at Staffordshire University. Mitch is a close friend of mine who needed some sound design work for his most recent project 'Wispers'. I asked him about the game and he sent me this description:
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“Wispers is an RPG, fantasy puzzle game, stylised through the eyes of Autism. The player controls a unique “Wisp” character. This character is different from all other wisps and is shunned by all other “races” of Wisps. Your character’s Wisp must adapt to situations, learning how to change its colours and adapt to the other wisps so it isn’t attacked by them, and can learn from them. The player’s Wisp will have an ability that other Wisps aren’t capable of, showing the idea of Autism as a gift instead of a disability. The entire world will be shown differently to symbolise the outlook of a life with autism and the interesting and beautiful journey that it leads. To make this an entertaining game, there will be a combat system in place, as a figurative mental battle with certain situations, in which the character’s Wisp must be of the same colour archetype to inflict any damage. This colour significance will also be used to accept quests, go through certain areas/ doors and complete puzzles. Sometimes, the player will have to use their colourless form, as it’s a problem only they can solve as they are unique and special.”
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After reading this I was immediately interested and knew it was something I wanted to work on. I loved the concept and the theme of the game, so I started working on it straight away.
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Mitch gave me some references for how he wants the games sounds and music to roughly be like; The main reference being 'Ori and the Blind forest', a fantasy platform-adventure, set in a dreamy world with mystical sounds and beautiful orchestral music.
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The sounds I created
Fireball
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In 'Wispers' you play as a fire wisp, one of your attacks is to throw a fireball at your enemies; using a recording of myself blowing into a stereo microphone, a recording of water droplets hitting a hot pan, and a recording of a denim jacket violently shaken, combined with some effects on adobe audition, I was able to create a few convincing fireball sounds without burning down the recording studio. This is what it I came up with:
Whistling
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After seeing the 3D modal as the character you play as, me and mitch thought it would be a good idea for it to have a voice of some kind. we came up with the idea of an ethereal whistling sound. To create this sound I recorded myself whistling, added some heavy reverb, and automated the pitch in different ways to give the flat whistling some life and expression. I made a load of these sounds so mitch had a lot to work with when implementing them in the game. Theses are the sounds:
Stone Door Opening:
I created this sound by dragging a brick against another . I then layered two of these recordings together, lowered the pitch of one, added on some sounds of dropping stones and the bricks clanging together, and added an initial impact sound to the beginning. I then added reverb to give the sound some more size.
Rune:
this is a sound for when you collect a rune item. it was made by hitting the top of a glass with the bottom of another, layering on w whoosh sound, adding chimes for a magic feel, adding reverb, a flanger
Ambience
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Stress:
On of the games mechanic is a stress meter. It is directly linked to your characters health; as your health goes down your stress goes up. When this happens your view of the surrounding world darkens and draws in closer and closer until you can see nothing but a small radius around you character.
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I decided that this needed a sound attached, something to put the player on edge. While doing research for my Dissertation, I found that dissonant, non-linear sounds can induce a feeling of fear and unease. Also adding an organic element to my sounds like animal sounds or even a human voice can add character to my sounds. With this in mind I created a sound using a high frequency synth sound played with dissonant chords. I also layered on some low frequency rumble, white noise sharply and randomly to create a glitching type sound, and finally I recorded myself breathing like a zombie into a stereo microphone, which I pitched down, stretched, and paned from left to right, making it hard for the listener to track where its coming from. The combination of these sounds layered together creates an unsettling, eerie sound that will surely stress the player out.
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Cave Ambience:
I created a cave ambeince using VCV Rack, a modular synthesizer software. I wanted to create something eerie but not too extreme or distracting. I made a Modular synthesizer that subtly changes over time, creating a random but somewhat controlled ambience. Patch & Tweak by Suzanne Ciani
Fantasy Ambience:
As this was a light hearted fantasy game, I created some music and ambience to reflect that. I made the melody's almost random with no repeating chord progressions; This is so that when the track plays on a loop during gameplay, it wont get annoying or tiresome after a while. For this first piece of ambience I used violins, pianos and a recording of the forest for a simplistic and peaceful soundtrack
Music
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The Lonely Wisp:
This is the main theme music I have made for 'Wispers'. I created this track to fit in with the lonely theme of the game; I did this by only a minimal amount of instruments and a slow tempo. I referenced Friederich Marpurg's table on 'Acoustic expression of emotional states'. This table helped craft this piece of music with the emotions I intended it to be associated with (more on this in my dissertation). I also add a choir with a chord progression that instils a slight feeling of hope into the track, as a way of saying that the loneliness the wisp lives through may change for the better.
I hope you enjoy!
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