Playing with Sound

Playing with Sound

Author: Karen Collins

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2013-01-11

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0262312301

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An examination of the player's experience of sound in video games and the many ways that players interact with the sonic elements in games. In Playing with Sound, Karen Collins examines video game sound from the player's perspective. She explores the many ways that players interact with a game's sonic aspects—which include not only music but also sound effects, ambient sound, dialogue, and interface sounds—both within and outside of the game. She investigates the ways that meaning is found, embodied, created, evoked, hacked, remixed, negotiated, and renegotiated by players in the space of interactive sound in games. Drawing on disciplines that range from film studies and philosophy to psychology and computer science, Collins develops a theory of interactive sound experience that distinguishes between interacting with sound and simply listening without interacting. Her conceptual approach combines practice theory (which focuses on productive and consumptive practices around media) and embodied cognition (which holds that our understanding of the world is shaped by our physical interaction with it). Collins investigates the multimodal experience of sound, image, and touch in games; the role of interactive sound in creating an emotional experience through immersion and identification with the game character; the ways in which sound acts as a mediator for a variety of performative activities; and embodied interactions with sound beyond the game, including machinima, chip-tunes, circuit bending, and other practices that use elements from games in sonic performances.


The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound

The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound

Author: Miguel Mera

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-05-25

Total Pages: 658

ISBN-13: 131739898X

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The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of screen music and sound studies, addressing the ways in which music and sound interact with forms of narrative media such as television, videogames, and film. The inclusive framework of "screen music and sound" allows readers to explore the intersections and connections between various types of media and music and sound, reflecting the current state of scholarship and the future of the field. A diverse range of international scholars have contributed an impressive set of forty-six chapters that move from foundational knowledge to cutting edge topics that highlight new key areas. The companion is thematically organized into five cohesive areas of study: Issues in the Study of Screen Music and Sound—discusses the essential topics of the discipline Historical Approaches—examines periods of historical change or transition Production and Process—focuses on issues of collaboration, institutional politics, and the impact of technology and industrial practices Cultural and Aesthetic Perspectives—contextualizes an aesthetic approach within a wider framework of cultural knowledge Analyses and Methodologies—explores potential methodologies for interrogating screen music and sound Covering a wide range of topic areas drawn from musicology, sound studies, and media studies, The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound provides researchers and students with an effective overview of music’s role in narrative media, as well as new methodological and aesthetic insights.


Game Sound

Game Sound

Author: Karen Collins

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 026203378X

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A distinguishing feature of video games is their interactivity, and sound plays an important role in this: a player's actions can trigger dialogue, sound effects, ambient sound, and music. This book introduces readers to the various aspects of game audio, from its development in early games to theoretical discussions of immersion and realism.


The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound

The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound

Author: William Gibbons

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 977

ISBN-13: 0197556167

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Bringing together dozens of leading scholars from across the world to address topics from pinball to the latest in virtual reality, The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound is the most comprehensive and multifaceted single-volume source in the rapidly expanding field of game audio research.


Designing Sound

Designing Sound

Author: Andy Farnell

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2010-08-20

Total Pages: 689

ISBN-13: 0262014416

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A practitioner's guide to the basic principles of creating sound effects using easily accessed free software. Designing Sound teaches students and professional sound designers to understand and create sound effects starting from nothing. Its thesis is that any sound can be generated from first principles, guided by analysis and synthesis. The text takes a practitioner's perspective, exploring the basic principles of making ordinary, everyday sounds using an easily accessed free software. Readers use the Pure Data (Pd) language to construct sound objects, which are more flexible and useful than recordings. Sound is considered as a process, rather than as data—an approach sometimes known as “procedural audio.” Procedural sound is a living sound effect that can run as computer code and be changed in real time according to unpredictable events. Applications include video games, film, animation, and media in which sound is part of an interactive process. The book takes a practical, systematic approach to the subject, teaching by example and providing background information that offers a firm theoretical context for its pragmatic stance. [Many of the examples follow a pattern, beginning with a discussion of the nature and physics of a sound, proceeding through the development of models and the implementation of examples, to the final step of producing a Pure Data program for the desired sound. Different synthesis methods are discussed, analyzed, and refined throughout.] After mastering the techniques presented in Designing Sound, students will be able to build their own sound objects for use in interactive applications and other projects


The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies

The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies

Author: Mark J.P. Wolf

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-06-19

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 1000886026

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A definitive guide to contemporary video game studies, this second edition has been fully revised and updated to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies. Expertly compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, the Companion includes comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games, new perspectives on video games both as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games, and accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games. Brand new to this second edition are chapters examining topics such as preservation; augmented, mixed, and virtual reality; eSports; disability; diversity; and identity, as well as a new section that specifically examines the industrial aspects of video games including digital distribution, game labor, triple-A games, indie games, and globalization. Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. A comprehensive overview of the present state of video game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to students, scholars, and game designers alike.


The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music

The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music

Author: Melanie Fritsch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 1108473024

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A wide-ranging survey of video game music creation, practice, perception and analysis - clear, authoritative and up-to-date.


War Games

War Games

Author: Philip Hammond

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1501351168

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Many of today's most commercially successful videogames, from Call of Duty to Company of Heroes, are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by recent news headlines or drawn from history. While such games are marketed as authentic representations of war, they often provide a selective form of realism that eschews problematic, yet salient aspects of war. In addition, changes in the way Western states wage and frame actual wars makes contemporary conflicts increasingly resemble videogames when perceived from the vantage point of Western audiences. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from games studies, media and cultural studies, politics and international relations, and related fields to examine the complex relationships between military-themed videogames and real-world conflict, and to consider how videogames might deal with history, memory, and conflict in alternative ways. It asks: What is the role of videogames in the formation and negotiation of cultural memory of past wars? How do game narratives and designs position the gaming subject in relation to history, war and militarism? And how far do critical, anti-war/peace games offer an alternative or challenge to mainstream commercial titles?


The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio

The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio

Author: Karen Collins

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 0199797293

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As audiences are increasingly no longer solely listeners but also active producer-consumers, and as video games and other interactive systems increasingly permeate our daily lives, understanding interactivity and its impact on the audience has never been more important. A collection of newly commissioned chapters on interactivity in music and sound edited by preeminent scholars in the field, this book marks the beginning of a journey into understanding the ways in which we interact with sound, and offers a new set of analytical tools for the growing field of interactive audio. What does it mean to interact with sound? How does interactivity alter our experience as creators and listeners? What makes interactive audio different from non-interactive audio? Where does interacting with audio fit into our understanding of sound and music? What does the future hold for interactive media when it comes to our musical and sonic experiences? And how do we begin to approach interactive audio from a theoretical perspective? The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio answers these questions by exploring the full range of interactive audio in video games, performance, education, environmental design, toys, and artistic practice. Examining these questions from a range of approaches -- technological, emotional, psychological, and physical -- the book provides a thorough overview of the fascinating experience of interactive sound.