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Development Info Chaos Chronicles Developer Blog: Sound Design

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: Chaos Chronicles; Coreplay

There's another developer blog update on the Chaos Chronicles site, this time covering sound design.
But what are details? Let’s talk about one. If you look back at games like the Realms of Arkania series you’ll find a lot of details which nowadays aren’t used anymore, which is a shame. For example have look at the inventory. When you did put some new leather gloves to one of your characters a little sound appeared. Over the years the sound design in this case has changed: What happens these days when you put on some new clothes? Right. A little bling bling sound can be heard. In some cases it’s more atmospheric. But often it’s just a non-saying something. That isn’t bad at all, but it doesn’t create atmosphere. Back in the days you had different sounds. Not for each item, but for different item-classes. For swords, for leather gloves, for steel gloves, for helmets. You had little sounds which told you: Alright, you just put on a heavy armor. And you knew it just by the sound.

And that’s exactly what we want to achieve in Chaos Chronicles. Sure, not every item will have it’s own sound (if we did that we could ship the game on several Blu-Ray discs just because of the massive number of sounds), but there will be a lot of small sounds for several item-classes. If you change from a dagger to a heavy sword, you’ll hear a steel-sound, the leather gloves will lead to a different sound and so on and so on.
 
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HobGoblin42

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No, not yet. We are totally busy with the development. Even this blog post has been written by our producer because our devs don't have time for that ATM.
 

felipepepe

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Oh hell, I dind't have the codecs to play the audio files, had to download Vorbis codecs... Really, was it needed to use a non-standard codec to compress a 1 sec audio file? o_O

Regardless, great to see you guys paying such attention to details, you can feel the love behind this project. :)
 

felipepepe

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I dind't have the codecs to play the audio files
so i hear vlc is pretty great
Is not like I'm running a regular pc with only Media Player; I work as a video editor, got Avid, Premiere, Final Cut and a shit load of codec here, but I always used Media Player Classic and never had any trouble... funny that after all these years I get a "no codec" from a .wav preview of a inventory sound. :P
 
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HobGoblin42

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In fact, this was a mistake by us. The sound files are not in .WAV format, but we use this extension because of our assert management system.
 

catfood

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They make a good point about sound design and how even the shortest sound samples can amplify the mood when used in a certain situation. The infinity engines were also good about this. Each time items were shuffled around you could hear distinctive sfx.

Also when clicked the link I expected some audio samples. I am very disapoint.
 

felipepepe

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BTW, I just noted, is this a sneak peak at CC actual inventory?

CC_Inventory_WIP.png


Looking good. What's the slot beneath the boots?
 

Dorateen

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No, not yet. We are totally busy with the development. Even this blog post has been written by our producer because our devs don't have time for that ATM.

I really like this approach. Marketing is important, and of course it's fun to see the updates. But with this scale project, I feel confident you folks are making the best use of your resources.
 

Burning Bridges

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Is there anything to criticize with this game? I don't see right now.

I like the attention to detail here, because I'm myself a great inventory whore, and spend a large portion of play time in inventory screens.

I think by playing and studying the great games of the past one can learn what made them so special that they eventually became part of our lifes. The interfaces / inventories were extremely important! For such JA2 1.13 and Wizardry 8 are my top references. Ultima Underworld was also ok, as was Arcanum (with some restrictions). I also remember that I spent a great time in Ultima VII dressing my characters, like a little girl dressing dolls :lol: And while flawed in many areas, Morrowind had some nice ideas about the interface.

An important aspect of the games I listed (Ultima UW, JA2, Wizardry 8, .. ) is consistency. Look at separate parts of the interface, it always fits together.

Having a variety of sounds for different actions is of course a great thing. In fact all great games have done that since a long, long time ago ( in a 20 year old game like Ultima UW if you use an apple, you hear someone biting an apple, etc. ). So yeah if you already realize this, go with it!

When thinking about rpg's I get other crazy ideas, for example animated inventory items - or even inventory items that "live" and can be interacted with - think of something like a Djinn in a bottle that talks to you and turns into a quest giver / NPC.

The ideal game for me has a reactive interface where party members occasionally talk (Sirtech games, Wiz 8 and JA2), and inventories / items have a unique, interesting look. In a great game there's lots of small detail, and it's both a question of quantity AND quality, so simply recording hundreds of sound files may not do, they need to have some meaning and quality too. But if you succeed in all these areas you have a game that is loved for many years to come, at least by ppl like me.
 

Grunker

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Is there anything to criticize with this game? I don't see right now.

Bear in mind I'm extremely positive about this game, but there is always stuff to criticize:

1) Rotating 3D camera. It remains to be seen whether they can make this work as well as a fixed camera angle. If they do, it would be a first.

2) No multiclassing (though prestige classes are reportedly in).

Aaaaaand that's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

The ideal game for me has a reactive interface where party members occasionally talk

By the way, HobGoblin42, how are you handling this? You've said you have a "blocky" interface rather than NWN and ToEE's awful, awful "stringy", floating one. But do we have character portraits and stuff like that in the interface?

Would be cool if we had.
 
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HobGoblin42

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We haven't finally decided about the interface style yet (we use to do this very close before Beta), but there will be portraits of your character on the screen. There will be a combat/event log with details about attacks, spells, traps and story events.
The initiative list will be very similar to ToEE: small portraits at the top of the screen.
Our inventory is a classical drag&drop system, but limited the body slots to the absolute minimum (1 ring slot, necklave, ranged weapon, ammunition, primary weapon, secondary, boots, cape/cloak, gloves, helmet, body armor).
 

hoverdog

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Just don't make the character portraits like in JA: Fag in Action, please, please, PLEEEEAAAAASEEEE

You would make Shadow sad
r3bEV.jpg
 

Burning Bridges

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Or in other words, please don't fuck this up, what you have looks really good :lol:

Is there anything to criticize with this game? I don't see right now.

Bear in mind I'm extremely positive about this game, but there is always stuff to criticize:

1) Rotating 3D camera. It remains to be seen whether they can make this work as well as a fixed camera angle. If they do, it would be a first.

I agree but with a 3D engine this is the price you pay. A lot of good games are ruined by camera problems, think of Silent Storm. A 2D camera with fixed angles that always work is a million times better than rotating cameras, but I could learn to live with it.

The question is rather, can they provide us ancient folk with a fixed angle via program options?
 

JarlFrank

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but limited the body slots to the absolute minimum (1 ring slot, necklave, ranged weapon, ammunition, primary weapon, secondary, boots, cape/cloak, gloves, helmet, body armor).

Aww, I love huge amounts of slots like in Morrowind. Too bad no game is ever going to be like MW and Daggerfall in this respect ever again. :(
 
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HobGoblin42

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@Jarl: don't forget that you have to control up to 6 character inventories in Chaos Chronicles. So in total you have more slots to manage than in Morrowind or Daggerfall (which had only one single player character).
 

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