Audio design in mid-core mobile games

Abstract

This thesis explores practical aspects of audio design in mid-core games – a massive segment of the modern mobile game market. Despite there is no shortage of professional literature about game audio in general, most of it describes either purely technical or very general matters, taking video games as undivided whole. Games, however, can be broken up into distinct categories, based on genres, platforms, audiences and other criteria. This is the direction I take with my research, focusing on a specific type of games, developed for mobile devices and targeted towards a well-defined audience.

The goal of my thesis was to find out if mid-core mobile games require special approach to audio design and what this approach would be. The first two chapters focus on critical aspects of mobile game audio and audio design principles of mid-core games. Two latter chapters describe practical matters of audio design for an actual video game, starting with design principles and ending with project-specific challenges and creative choices.

The results show that audio design for mid-core mobile games has a few special aspects on top of existing principles of mobile game audio. These aspects result from the design patterns shared by majority of mid-core games developed for mobile platforms.