Game Design Overview: Sound Design

Sound Design:

[Last Updated: 13th January 2016 by Brendan Drain]

The following is a list of sound effects required for the game and where they should be used:

  • UI effects: Every button push in the game must have an accompanying click sound effect.
  • Weapons: Every ship weapon must have a firing sound effect, such as a beam weapon sound or missile launch.
  • Modules: Every activated module must have an activation sound effect. This does not apply to passive modules.
  • Shield Hit: A shield hit sound effect must play when a ship’s shields take damage but are not depleted.
  • Shield Depleted: A second sound effect must play when a ship’s shields are depleted.
  • Explosions: Separate explosion sound effects are required for missiles, ships, and bombs.

Music Design:

Predestination features background music that is intended to provide immersion by thematically matching what type of gameplay you are engaging in. There are themes for each of the main areas of the game, being Galaxy/Planet gameplay, the 3D Ship Designer, Fleet Combat, and the end credits. Each race has its own theme that will play when it’s contacted through the diplomacy system and thematically matches that race’s personality and visuals. There are also various short jingles, which play over the music at key points in the game to highlight an important event occurring:

[Complete] Galaxy Theme:  This plays in the background on the main Galaxy Screen and Planet Screen and is intended to be inobtrustive background music to give a sense of immersion. It is designed to seamlessly loop as it will be playing throughout the game.

[Complete] Ship Designer: This theme will play on the 3D ship designer screen. It is designed to loop as players may spend a considerable amount of time on this screen.

[Complete] Fleet Combat: This theme will be playing at all times during Fleet Combat. It’s faster paced and more action-oriented than the game’s other music to reflect the nature of fleet combat.

[Complete] End Credits Theme: This plays on the end credits and is designed to be a long and slow piece that plays while the credits scroll past. The duration must be long enough to accommodate acknowledgements from all of our Kickstarter backers and other supporters, and it must loop in case we need to add more acknowledgements.

[Complete] Jingle – First Contact: This short musical jingle will play when any race makes a technological era breakthrough, such as advancing to the Space Exploration or First Contact era. This happens only 3-4 times in an entire game.

[Complete] Jingle – Research Complete: This short musical jingle will play when your race researches any new technology. This happens frequently throughout a game, and serves as an audio reminder to select a new research project and put your new technology into use.  It must be inobtrusive and sound very scientific.

[Complete] Jingle – War Declared: This short musical jingle will play any time war is declared against the player in Diplomacy. This happens very infrequently but is a big negative event, and the jingle should be reflect this by being short, aggressive in tone and abrupt.

[Complete] Jingle – Attacked: This short musical jingle will play any time enemies attack one of your planets or fleets, and will coincide with an unskippable popup informing the player that Fleet Combat will now begin. This happens more frequently as the game goes on but is also big negative event, so the jingle should be short and aggressive in tone but not as abrupt and intrusive as War Declared.

[Complete] Jingle – Big Discovery: This short musical jingle will play at various points throughout the game when the player makes a big discovery or a random event or planetary disaster happens. It will coincide with an unskippable popup informing the player of what happened and sometimes asking the player to select a response. This can be for positive or negative events, so the tone must be neutral and the snippet can be several seconds long.

[Complete 12/12] Race music: Each race will have its own music theme, which will be put onto the Race Design document when completed.