Behind the Sound Design of Age Of Salvation

A fast paced, game of tactics and resource management, that allows real time unit deployment and live battles between multiple opens. Advanced network integration allows players to join their friends in daring raids, or rush to their aid as reinforcements during live battles. The future of war is here. Build the ultimate military base, upgrade your defenses, train an army, discover new technologies and battle for global domination.

• Developer: Rechavia Elias
• Sound Designer: Collin Scudder
• Composer: David Levy
• Type of Game: Real Time Strategy
• Platform: Mac/PC
• Inspirations: Star Craft and Clash of Clans
• Audio Post Production Duration: 3 months - Part Time
• Sound Effect Licensing Budget: $300
• Amount of Sounds Needed: 100+ files
• Types of Sounds Needed: Sci-fi themed Vehicles, Building Ambiences, UI, Weapons, Tech.
• Field Gear: Zoom H4N, Rode NTG2, Audio-Technica AT897
• DAW: Logic Pro XComputer: iMac 2013 with 32Gb of Ram

I met Rechavia doing internet Elancing. He’s a young talented, developer from Israel who’s been developing Age Of Salvation for 1.5 years full time. The full alpha version is almost finished! So I figured I would write about some of my experiences during the production and add in a few take aways

Challenge #1 - We lived on opposite time zones. I live in Tennessee, David (the composer) lives in Texas and Rechavia (the Developer) lives in Israel. So Right off the bat we had about an 8 hour difference with Rechavia to work around. To close this gap, We worked in shifts, One of us would be going to bed and the other waking up and during the points of our day where we met in the middle, we would communicate progress/updates.

Take Away - Find a project you believe in, Figure out a way work on it or make it work, stay up late (if need be) and get the job done.

Challenge #2 - Audio Implementation is tricky when you're dealing with big battles, explosions, gun fire, you know all that good stuff! At least it was for me. AOS was my first game to have full control over implementation. In the game there are a range of units that can engage in a fight at any given moment.. The problem for me was at first I ran into distortion issues when sounds would layer overtop one another playing at the same time, causing the sounds triggered to stack and peak. I tried experimenting with different EQ’s, tones, bass, textures as well as some hi-fi sounds to try to figure out how to make them work in conjunction. What I found that helped me was to make sounds that  fit well in the overall battlefield audio mix. First, I considered all the sound possibilities in the game environment (Such as amount of units firing at once, type units, triggered sounds, music, ambiences ect.). Once I began thinking along those lines my sounds started to fit right in all the murder and mayhem.

Take away - Create and implement sounds that sit well in the overall battle mix. Look at the bigger picture, then execute sound by sound. Consider what can happen in your games environment.

Challenge #3 - We had $300 budget to spend on licensing sound effects (If needed).  Before starting a project in my opinion it's always better to just go ahead and bolster your pre existing sound libraries. I’m a true believer in the more source sound effects you have to work with the better. More options you will have “Yoda Voice”. So looking over the spread sheet of sound details/requirements needed for the game, I noticed it required a lot of futuristic weapons and vehicle sounds such as tanks, hover crafts, space ships, cannons, lasers, machine guns, electrical discharges, sonic blasts, destroyed buildings, etc. At the time I had very little experience and knowledge creating such sounds from scratch. I didn't want that to hold me back from creating my own sounds though. So I did some googling, read blogs, tried to gain as much knowledge as possible then I jumped right into field recording big hits, slams on different materials, lots of household source material, and motors among other things.. During my recording sessions I would focus on listening for unique tones, frequencies, and envisioned how these sounds might be processed and edited together when it became time to sound design back in the ole shop. I wanted the game’s audio to be smooth, addictive, exciting, original and in general to give an indie game a AAA title sound (Try to at least). So After collecting source to the best of my ability and with what little gear I had, I proceeded to search online marketplaces for sound libraries to help boost production value for the specific areas I was lacking in.

Take Away - Purchase libraries if it will help production value. Field Record your own sound effects to collect source as much as possible, it's crazy how useful organic source is. When recording listen and focus on unique textures, tones, and frequencies. Visualize how your recordings will be edited in post.

PRO #1 - Full audio implementation control was a challenge in itself but by far the best experience I’ve had in game sound design. This is a web browser game, so we did not us Wwise or any game audio engine software. Rechavia actually had to create his own audio engine so we both could go into the code to implement sounds. I would create sounds with specific file names that would correlate to the sound list code Rechavia created. Then I would go into the code to adjust numbers for volume factors/ level to mix every audio assets in the whole game. The fact is being able to create, implement and go straight into the game to “test like a mad scientist” how your sounds work will literally save time, streamline quality control and instantly give you an idea if what you are doing is making sense. 

Personally knowing that I could test out the sounds before presenting them to get approved, gave me more creative freedom to go above and beyond, to experiment with abstract designs, try unusual ideas and to just have fun. It was great. I would go bananas by orchestrating staged giant battles inside the test version of the game with eccentric sounds implemented. In the past, when dealing with developers/games I would request a sound requirement list, which entailed to ask a client what type of sound is needed, description of sound needed, duration, and any examples or references.. Once we both were on the same page, I would create and send the client batches of files. Bad thing about this process is the client would have to test out the sounds on their side and get back to you if revisions were needed instead of you getting to test on your side. I would recommend trying to figure out ways to have the capability to implement your sounds on your side. It will save time, energy and allow you to have real time perspective.

Take Away - If you're making sound effects for a game, acquire a test version of the game so you can implement and test sounds from your side. Experiment like a mad scientist would.

PRO #2 - Working with great clients and talent is essential to producing an amazing production. From talent, positive attitudes, teamwork, constructive criticism, all of it matters in this job. Rechavia (the Developer) and David (the Composer) to me are the epiphany of the players you want on your team. There the ones who will force you to level up, try new things instead of using your usual bag of tricks. From the start, it was understood that we were going to go all in, no excuses, no exceptions, and do whatever it took to make a flagship title. Working with these nerds, who set their egos aside for AOS made a whirl of a difference. No one cared about being nice, it was all constructive criticism and about creating the end result we wanted, an epic product .. All egos aside, another important thing we had going on was, the collaborative, supportive channels both team members kept open for each other. This positive action created an in sync mentality/line of communication to run ideas, feedback, and occasionally some dirty jokes.

Take Away - Drop ego. Build together. Face a project with an openmind/learning point of view. Keep Open ears. Give blunt honest feedback. Work with talented people to push you to new creative heights.

Just wanted to share! Check Out Age Of Salvation Out Now! For full interview visit our site blog!

Thanks guys, Hope everyone is having a great week!