I’m continuing my research into games and chose Minecraft as the last one. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in this game and find the use of music and sound effects have been executed very well. The music comes on and off without ques. As well as the sound effects being really unique and fitting for the game world.
The music as shown above has many differences in it, from tracks that have heavy reverb to showcasing themes of wonder and exploration. To more sad and horrible music in the netherworld (Minecraft hell). I want to explore more into how they thought to use the music like this. As well as potentially what synths they used? Or instruments?
As well as the sound effects too, they have great variation as shown in this video. They are not high quality but distinctive. I think the music and sounds could fit into our game so I’m curious how they made them. Are they samples like other games, or synthesis? Or a combination.
So after watching the above video I understand the concepts of sound design in Minecraft a lot more.
Music should come in randomly, adding music to a film as they say is easier. You know exactly when the audio is going to play and what is happening. But in a game, it is more difficult to predict what’s happening. The score plays randomly, with lots of silence in between each song to build anticipation.
Minecraft is very laidback with its music as you are usually doing something very relaxing. In the specific biome warped forest in the nether, music doesn’t even play. Just the ambience of glitchy electronic sounds distorting. Some of the nether sounds were made using balloons to create these stretching sounds of horrible tension.
Minecraft at night shifts into monsters trying to kill you instead of a peaceful building game. Dark tunnels field with monsters is also a common occurrence. They make the enemies loud so in dark environments you can hear the enemies approaching even before you see them. This gives the player cues, they also play scary music when you are close to darkness this is to just scare you.
They also speak about not creating any dialogue for the character you play, as they want you to feel like it’s you playing not a character they’ve created. Villagers don’t speak either as they don’t want to make people feel offended.
Overall I think it’s interesting the anticipation thing they speak about. As well as the no music for anticipation. I did discuss with Ingrid that an idea I had was about music not being on a constant loop but using FMOD to have multiple tracks stacked up on the randomiser function so it chooses a random song based on the selection with a few silent tracks as well to have a pause sometimes between songs. Something I definitely want to implement if possible.