How Sound Design Can Create Better Images Then Art

November 3, 2024

Hey Game Afternooners, this week I’m excited to have done a tiny bit of research into a franchise of games that I will absolutely never play: SILENT HILL

INTRO:

Silent Hill is a survival horror game developed by Team Silent of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and published by Konami in 1999. If you consider yourself a fan of the horror game type then you’ve absolutely heard of this game and most likely played it too. In it you play from a 3rd person view the character Harry Mason as he searches for his missing adopted daughter in the town of Silent Hill. in it he comes across a cult attempting to revive their deity. I watched gameplay of this game in the very beginning to give you the following information. I will not play it ever or continue watching. I have enough information to get out the points that I wanted to make and the truth of the matter is no other genre uses sound the way that horror games do so I made the sacrifice so you guys could learn YOU’RE WELCOME! I will mention before we get in there are a million things they did to make this game scary but I'm only talking about audio so just know that sound is not the only factor its just a MASSIVE one.

THE MEAT:

It's interesting watching the beginning of this game. The voice acting is about what you would expect from a game made in the 90’s, and the music truly makes you feel like you’re in some kind of dream by sounding almost whimsical, or at least when you get music that's how it sounds. For the most part you simply have the audio of wind blowing past you along with your footsteps, it makes for some unnerving moments in creepy alleyways but the most compelling noise is the radio which begins to fuzz anytime you get close to monsters.

What's happening here is that Audio is giving presence to the game. Here’s what I mean: take the environment of Silent Hill, there is something clearly wrong in this town just by the fact that the noises don’t match what you expect from a normal town. There is no noise of equipment, vehicles, chatter, or even raccoons in a dumpster. This is wildly off putting because this is what we are accustomed to. By creating a game where those things are not present the natural response is unease, and that's really the point. It’s giving a mysterious presence to the game. Let me give you another example except in the positive: as a monster approaches or as you approach a monster the radio in your pocket begins to hum a high frequency squeal the only relief to which is eliminating or running from the monsters. It teaches us as the player what to expect!

Now that we have taught the player an expectation we can break the rules and make what truly is a horror game. Lets jump forward to the second game to an incredible use of presence.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZHIKP_gLeY
In the video James (the main character of the second game) is walking down the longest hallway in existence. The whole time what sounds like a fog horn plays in the distance, only every step makes the fog horn just a little bit louder until the very end where it's blowing out your ear drums and at that point… nothing happens. You continue into the next room and read some documents.

Here is another moment written by Chloe Prince at IGN “One area in the game sees James exit to this outside area (again, is it actually outside?) which is all but pitch black. At the center of the area stands an abandoned gallows, its nooses hanging empty. Very inviting!
Soon you hear a cacophony of horse-like hooves hitting the grass-covered ground. It's quiet at first, but it quickly grows real loud as whatever those hooves belong to gets right up close to you. Except, nothing pops out at you. In fact, nothing ever does, no matter where you stand or for how long you do so. The "hooves" move away from you as swiftly as they arrive.”
Can you see the effect that audio can have on a user? In this the most extreme case we can lead them into a false sense of perception. I hear the hoofbeats so I know something is there, but when I look I'm scared and confused because the thing isn’t where I expected it to be. After all, the only thing worse than hearing footsteps in your home is hearing them and not finding where or what they came from.

OUTRO:

In truth, by today's standards watching the gameplay for Silent Hill 1 is not bad on the scary spectrum, I’d recommend playing Silent Hill 2 but the first game is just a little past its due date if I’m being completely honest. The game is old by almost every standard but they do a great job of leveraging some of those hindrances for a better gameplay. Audio is one of those peaks. It's creepy and off putting but it puts you in the moment better than most of the visuals do at this point. It leverages that audio to paint a picture of the world beyond your field of view helping the player to imagine what atrocities have occurred in this forsaken town. After that the audio does an incredible job of manipulating you as the player to believe things that may or may not be true.
Yes audio is an incredible way to provide feedback to our users but lets think a little more outside of the box. Ask yourself “how can I use audio to teach the user what to expect?” or even “how can the audio be used to manipulate their emotions to how we want them to feel at this moment?” That's how we make a truly interesting audio experience.