- Dec 14, 2020
- 466
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I would advise extreme caution when considering the use of audio!Audio is a significant undertaking and I'm undecided about how to go with that. Maybe just incidental music and the odd sound effect, I don't know so maybe people can let me know what they think.
First, because you'd have to be sure you would be using truly free tracks and sounds to avoid some messy situation.
Second, because, even if you could guarantee the first condition, you should know the use of audio would change drastically users experience of The Roommate.
Music is a funny thing. It varies according to different ears, places and time. So, If you were to add music to The Roommate, I would really think about the following:
- IF you decide to add music and sounds, select a distinctive style to illustrate the whole game. The last thing you want is your work to be lessened by the same overused free tracks that pester the internet and particularly AVNs;
- Once you have selected your style, choose characters and moments to illustrate with music. Being at home, arriving at work, travelling, thinking or having coffee can have their distinctive music. But, more important, each relevant character must have their own song, within the style you have chosen;
- IF you decide to do that, make the names of said tracks and sounds, as well of the directory structure available to players, so that it is possible for users to change the existing files and replace them with their own;
- You should also consider coding the use of music and sounds in a way that allows users to "dump" tracks in selected folders and the game would just use those folders' existing content when illustrating the moments previously defined. Master of Puppets addressed this issue recently in the WVM thread and I agree with most of what he said, the only issue being users or players knowing in advance the moment music and sounds are used in. As usual, I'm sure he can give useful help;
- Finally, and more important than it seems, be sure to normalize all audio. Tracks and sounds from different origins have distinct equalization and other sound engineering characteristics. Tracks can be easily normalized with a quality free software like Audacity that also allows batch processing. Non normalized tracks are one of the easiest ways to ruin a game experience. Again, there's no shortage of that here and it another reason many players just mute the game.
One more thing. IF you decide to use audio, please be sure to configure the sliders to 20% or 30% as RenPy is well known to shatter eardrums. I'm sure there are other issues I'm forgetting now, but this should give you something to think about.
And don't forget that this will also take some considerable time to do the proper way.