A Pattern Language for Sound Design in Games

Authors

Abstract

Expertise in sound design for games is still a privilege of senior designers. The broad community of independent game developers remains mostly challenged by small budgets and lack of know-how, while trying to integrate sound in their games.
The empowerment of a broad community of developers, by making practical guidance available, could improve the quality of their productions and unleash a massive creative potential, with results in the form of innovative sound design ideas and further development of the body of knowledge.
Here we present the argument that there are favorable conditions for a collective authoring of a pattern language in sound design, to be achieved with the inventory, translation or resynthesis of current practice and academic know-how, in a format that is addressable by experts and non-experts alike.
Learning from the effects such a methodology had in other domains where similar concerns were observed, we present a seminal pattern collection with the purpose of illustrating its feasibility and spark the interest of the broad community of sound design.

Keywords

Design patterns, game design, pattern language, sound design

Subject

Human-Computer Interaction

Conference

5th Audio Mostly Conference: A Conference on Interaction with Sound, September 2010