Sonic Design / FINAL PROJECT: Game Audio

 

   

Week 11 - Week 15 (2 December 2025 - 30 December 2025)

Muhammad Zaky Aulia [0367842]
Bachelor of Computer Science
Final Project: Game Audio
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FINAL PROJECT: GAME AUDIO

WEEK 11 / FINAL PROJECT: Game Audio

This will be our Final Project for Sonic Design.

We are given the task to create our own sound effects and implementing them into the clip of one of the video games of our choice that were given to us through the Google Drive. We will need to make sure that the audio clips and sound effects we make would fit the video game's style of atmosphere and the actions that are happening in the video clips.

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CHOSEN GAMEPLAY VIDEO

Mr. Razif provided the class with 4 gameplay videos in total, all of them only stretching up to 1-minute long. Below are the gameplay videos that are given;

 
Figure 1.1 Selections of Gameplay Videos
 

Truth to be told, it was quite difficult choosing which gameplay video I wanted to do. It was a tie between "BattleBlock Theater" and "Hollow Knight". "BattleBlock Theater" was appealing to me as the art-style and overall direction design of the game seems to be very comical, explosive, and over-the-top, I thought it would be fun to design sounds for such a game. However, "Hollow Knight's" melancholic atmosphere and ambience-heaviness intrigues me even more as I wish to try to pursuing towards more atmospheric sound editing first as it would also benefit me in editing movies and such.

So, in the end, I chose "Hollow Knight" as my gameplay video, as again, it would be interesting to try mimicking the hollow atmosphere of the game in it's sound effect.

  
Figure 1.2 Hollow Knight Gameplay.

 

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RESEARCHING and OBSERVATION 

Since I want to be faithful to how the sound design in "Hollow Knight" sounds like, I decided to watch some gameplay videos of it. Below is one of the videos I watched to understand the overall original sound direction of Hollow Knight;

  
Figure 2.1 Hollow Knight Gameplay by Gamer's Little Playground

 

I have came to multiple conclusions on the original sound direction of "Hollow Knight", but one conclusion I've found is very important for this, Hollow Knight has a very ORGANIC, WET and MUSHY sound design. Of course this is because the game Hollow Knight takes place in an underground bug tunnel system filled with abandoned bug cities and what not. In conclusion, although not for all the sound effects, but most of the sounds I have to produce must have some Mushy texture in the sound layering.

 

The Art of Foley

Foley is the technique of replicating and producing sound effects for any type of media that uses audio by using everyday objects to complete the production. Since, the Final Project for Sonic Design involves such technique, I decided to do some researching and such to further understand what it means to be a Foley, and what techniques these Foley artists use to achieve different types of sound effects. Although not really needed to document, I found the art of Foley to be interesting enough that I willingly research on Foley-ing by myself.

Below would be the videos I've watched to further deepen my understanding on "Foley";

 How This Woman Creates God of War's Sound Effects | Obsessed | WIRED

 
Figure 2.2 YouTube Video: How This Woman Creates God of War's Sound Effects

 

 How Sound Effects For Horror Movies Are Made | Movies Insider 

Figure 2.3 YouTube Video: How Sound Effects for Horror Movies Are Made

 

 How The Sounds From Your Favourite Movies Are Made | WIRED

Figure 2.4 YouTube Video: How The Sounds From Your Favourite Movies Are Made

 

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AUDIO LIST

The first thing I have to do in the project is to create an audio list of the actions that potentially needs a sound effect with it that happens in the gameplay video. 

Below is the Google Docs filled with the list of actions that needs to be coincided by a sound effect and the description of the sound that it would make. 

 
Figure 3.1 Google Docs of Audio List

 

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AUDIO STORYBOARD 

After listing all the Audios that I will be recording, I made an audio "storyboard"/"timeline" that would help me assist in which audio plays at which time, similar to how a multitrack in Adobe Audition would be. Below is the Audio Storyboard of the Project;

Figure 4.1 Google Docs of Audio Storyboard

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SOUND RECORDING

Video Evidence

 Below is a footage of me trying to get the ambiance noise for the project;

 

 

 Figure 5.1 Ambience Video Evidence

Below is a footage of how I produced the sound effects I used for the project;

 Link:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qfJduwKnGldAJuyXnYElom165CCreiAC/view?usp=sharing

 Figure 5.2 Foley Recreation Video Evidence

 

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FINAL GAMEPLAY AUDIO + AUDIO JOURNAL

 Figure 6.1 Gameplay Video with Audio 

 Figure 6.2 Audio Journal

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REFLECTION

This final project was the most stressful for me as I had my final year project for Computer Science alongside it. However, in the end, I did truly found joy throughout the process of this project. This final project truly felt like it was the last test I had to get through before I finally can call myself as someone who knows how to actually do sound mixing. This project took my entirety to do, all of the knowledge I've garnered throughout this whole semester of learning Sound Design, from being skeptical of the subject to end up being grateful for the knowledge and skills that passed down to me. This module is really one of the best I've learned throughout my University Life at Taylor's.

The workflow of the project itself would have been much better if it weren't for the final year project and external projects I had alongside it, however, I found enough time to somehow finish this final project. What is surprising about this is that this project made me realize how truly I can focus on a single task if I'm truly left alone to my being for a day or two. The limitation of the time I had due to my external projects brought and heighten certain aspects of my creativity regarding the audio recording session and how I approached in doing this task.

If I were to had more free time to do this final project, I would have definitely played more with the atmospheric sound and the spatial aspect of it more. There would also have been less compromises with the props that I would have used for the foley. However, all things went out as well as it could.

In conclusion, this module really taught me a lot and gave me a great foundation and look into the window of sound designing. A skill that would tremendously help someone like me who is superbly interested in visual and auditory media.