Sound research for collaboration

Blog post on research for collaboration 

Reading the script in its current state, I can find four separate scenes with four different atmospheres and sounds. To help understand what these sonic environments would sound like, I researched prior games with similar atmospheres.

Deep-Sea 

Here the main character has fallen into the ocean. For sound inspirations, I have chosen:

Subnautica is a famous underwater game with intriguing and diverse sound design matching the broad alien environments. I chose this because of its sound design in its ambience, matching exactly what a vibrant ocean sounds like, along with the barren depths atmos. Subnautica is a great game to base the sound design off.

Barotrauma is a horror survival game where you pilot a submarine through a harsh and dangerous alien ocean. While the atmosphere reflects a submarine perfectly, the faint music in the background does not scream danger but unsettles the player. For this scene of being plunged into an ocean, confused about where you are and what is happening, a simple soundtrack conveying the unknown and the dread around it is perfect. Barotrauma does this perfectly and this is why I’m taking inspiration from it. 

Abzu is an exploration game and unlike the other games chosen, is not horror focused but a relaxing atmospheric game to take in the beauty of the ocean. This game gives a perfect earthly sonic atmosphere at all depths of the ocean.

Sarah and Bryces home = no description for what it would sound like as of now

Empty lawn-night = This scene has a homeless man playing guitar songs at a campfire. For this, a campfire song will have to be made for the scene to sound correct

Outer wilds has quite a nice ambience where sitting by a campfire long enough will play some guitar music (starting around 3:00 on the video below). I enjoy the use of the acoustic along with electric and some pads, not taking away from the acoustic but adding layers and texture to the piece.

Abilene’s bedroom = no description for what it would sound like as of now