Game Demo Looks Great, Sound Mix Needs Work
I loved the demo. It looks like you guys have managed to capture some of the excitement and charm of the animated shorts and I am really looking forward to seeing it all in the context of the overall story for the episode. The look of the game is also really good. This feels like Wallace & Gromit.
Where I think the game fails is in the sound mixing. There are a few problems, but the biggest is that the sound effects and music drown out the dialogue and make it really hard to discern what the characters are saying. I am a fan of sound mixes that bring the music to the forefront, but it is always a balance. The music either has to drop down in volume during the dialogue, be written to be quieter or less busy during the dialogue, or written so that it doesn't trample on the same frequencies as the dialogue occupies so that the dialogue is still clear while the music is louder.
The sound effects at times were also too loud or too prominent in the same frequencies as the dialogue, especially during the scene with the truck where the wind sound made the Wallace's voice seem very distant and hard to discern.
Finally, while the music was great and had the right style to it, it is too busy. The music in the demo tends to have a lot of movement to it and a bit of an urgency or excitement, but during scenes of dialogue like out on the street it doesn't fit well. The music for the end scene in the demo was great as that was an exciting scene that benefited from the music that was used. The music out on the street when talking to the old soldier (can't remember his name) by comparison was very out of place. The style of the music and the themes in it made some sense given what he had to say, but not having heard it yet when you first approach him it seemed far to busy for the scene that you were presented with. Even after you hear what he has to say the music sounds as if the action should be taking place right then and there. The music could hint at the action to come, even picking up a little when he starts to get excited, but overall it needs to be a lot more laid back and in the background.
The way the music is now, and the way it has always been in Sam & Max, it doesn't really foreshadow anything or really take part in the storytelling, it is just background music that paints very broad strokes of mood – and not always the right kind of mood. I love the music in both of these series so far but in the game it would be nice if they were more a part of telling the story.
In Sam & Max the music often gets in the way of the dialogue and has many of the same problems that I have outlined here but it allows you to adjust the mix between effects, voice, and music so the voice track can be brought out and the music track dropped down to compensate. At the very least it would be nice to see these options added to Wallace & Gromit so that, all things remaining the same, the voice track can be brought out to compensate for the lack of clarity in parts.
Obviously I understand that these games are being done on a much smaller budget than big titles or hollywood film mixes. Still, I think there is a huge amount of potential for what Telltale can do with the sound in their games to make the experience and storytelling better.
Where I think the game fails is in the sound mixing. There are a few problems, but the biggest is that the sound effects and music drown out the dialogue and make it really hard to discern what the characters are saying. I am a fan of sound mixes that bring the music to the forefront, but it is always a balance. The music either has to drop down in volume during the dialogue, be written to be quieter or less busy during the dialogue, or written so that it doesn't trample on the same frequencies as the dialogue occupies so that the dialogue is still clear while the music is louder.
The sound effects at times were also too loud or too prominent in the same frequencies as the dialogue, especially during the scene with the truck where the wind sound made the Wallace's voice seem very distant and hard to discern.
Finally, while the music was great and had the right style to it, it is too busy. The music in the demo tends to have a lot of movement to it and a bit of an urgency or excitement, but during scenes of dialogue like out on the street it doesn't fit well. The music for the end scene in the demo was great as that was an exciting scene that benefited from the music that was used. The music out on the street when talking to the old soldier (can't remember his name) by comparison was very out of place. The style of the music and the themes in it made some sense given what he had to say, but not having heard it yet when you first approach him it seemed far to busy for the scene that you were presented with. Even after you hear what he has to say the music sounds as if the action should be taking place right then and there. The music could hint at the action to come, even picking up a little when he starts to get excited, but overall it needs to be a lot more laid back and in the background.
The way the music is now, and the way it has always been in Sam & Max, it doesn't really foreshadow anything or really take part in the storytelling, it is just background music that paints very broad strokes of mood – and not always the right kind of mood. I love the music in both of these series so far but in the game it would be nice if they were more a part of telling the story.
In Sam & Max the music often gets in the way of the dialogue and has many of the same problems that I have outlined here but it allows you to adjust the mix between effects, voice, and music so the voice track can be brought out and the music track dropped down to compensate. At the very least it would be nice to see these options added to Wallace & Gromit so that, all things remaining the same, the voice track can be brought out to compensate for the lack of clarity in parts.
Obviously I understand that these games are being done on a much smaller budget than big titles or hollywood film mixes. Still, I think there is a huge amount of potential for what Telltale can do with the sound in their games to make the experience and storytelling better.
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Comments
I did enjoy the music, but I had to put on subtitles to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
1. Like fleet said, the music is currently too loud, and it is very hard to hear what the characters have to say.
2. I also felt the music was of much lower quality than in Sam & Max. Actually, it just sounded so bad, I still think it may have been a bug in the way the music sounds on my PC. I don't mean the music itself is not good (I liked it) but it just sounds like it's coming from a midi track..
Actually, the first thing I did in the game is turn the graphics down to about 5 . Maybe I need to turn it down more?
I thought of turning down the resolution, but there's only one widescreen resolution supported.
That's really sad. Sam&Max (both seasons) ran very smooth on my computer on highest settings. I guess it's really time to get a new computer...
The new controll system was a bit strange at first, but easy to get into. Looking forward to trying it in the full game.
I agree with turning the music volume down a little bit.
My laptop work excellent with Sam & Max, and is not that old either. But the graphic card is not the best out there, I must admit (Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family), still it's a fairly common card for laptops.
What disturbs me more, though, is the loss of granular control over the elements that make up that sound mix. Setting the music and FX levels below the voice track was one of the things I did whenever I fired up a Sam & Max or Strong Bad episode for the first time. I suspect that eliminating this option is a combination of technical limitations and a sop to "simplicity" in the game's controls.
Hopefully all of this is moot and I won't have any complaints come release day.
Voice syncs were fine, really. Just lower down your graphic settings a little.
It's always a good idea to give the player total control over what he wants to hear loudest - SFX, music or dialogue. Hopefully we'll be able to this in the full game, or at least in a patch of some sort.
Great work on the game all in all, I'm very impressed.
Its your graphic settings... try going into your game settings and turning down the graphic quality a bit
But it is much too loud. I am not a native englisch speaker but I had no problems understanding the spoken words except for the "Flight-sequence" in the demo. The Music was just too loud to make out what Wallace (?) was saying.
I think I need to clarify my previous complaint. The music isn't bad. But my hearing is, and on top of that I'm not a native speaker of English. I turn off music in all games that I play. (Conversely, I don't play games where I can't turn it off.)
My wife and I bought and played through both Season 1 and 2 of S&M, and always had the same issue with too-loud music in those games. But that wasn't a big deal since there was a separate music volume slider. Now that option isn't available in W&G and the demo is frankly unplayable, we didn't even finish it because trying to make out what the characters were saying was driving us mad.
Very well done and much better than the demo as far as sound goes.