Re: The Spider Simulator - Communication thread
As we now have a wonderful person as sound designer here I also will put down some ideas I had about that:
1. Spider steps:
As said before those are the most important part in sound design. If they don't signpost well enough the controls get mushy and if they are to penetrant they will get annoying way to fast. As I feel it for the moment they will probably happen at least two times per second when you're playing well... This one will be hard I think.
So first they have to have a very distinct attack and as little decay as possible without sounding artificial. Then they have to have a more or less distinct pitch to them because I want the players to recognize which leg has moved.
I was thinking we would use an actual instrument for the steps. Xylophone or another wooden percussion instrument could work. Again something with very few decay would be best. Another idea I had was pizzicato violin. That could be great because it is very subtle, could get drowned out to fast if we implement environment sounds though.
What pitches we would use depends. Chromatic would make sense as a reference to the spider etude fretted instrument players know. Sounds a little jarring after a while though. A variation of the pentatonic with one tone missing? A whole tone scale to simulate the awkward movement? Or just a classic 1 2 3 4 in major? Just to give a couple ideas. Would need to test all of them for a bit to find out what feels best.
What would best drive home the super awkward "your legs don't feel like your own legs" feeling I am aiming for would be a distinct instrument for every leg or leg pair. That could be really funny at first but maybe super annoying after a couple minutes in. So I'm liking the idea but I'm not sure if it works.
So all this is a little difficult to work on before we have a somewhat solid control prototype. To give you something to work on though I can also provide you with directions for the finish line cut scene.
Shouldn't be to long, because it mustn't annoy the player even after the 100th attempt. So I'm thinking 3 to 6 seconds.
Close up to the buzzing fly, so sound dead center and no audible room (there has to be a word for that but I am no sound engineer). A high pitched, cartoonish "Aaaaah" scream quickly interrupted by a cartoon poke sound and the sound of drinking through a straw.
The first bar of Itsy Bitsy Spider, simple instrumental on a Xylophone is playing with a flourish at the end. I was thinking like this:
An Itsy Bitsy Spi - da da da da
In C major: G C B C D E - E F# G# A
Or transpose where ever you need it
The flourish ends on the 1 of the second bar. Silence, then a high pitched burp right on top of the 4 - end of cut scene.
Ok, is that something you can work with? Is that to rigid? Is that to complicated? Even if you can't or don't want to make it work exactly like this I hope you get an idea for the feel I'm aiming for. Light-hearted, funny and very non-offensive.
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