The thing I really like about sound design is when it adds to that storytelling. When it naturally brings the experience to something bigger or greater or funnier or more scary. One of the most common misconceptions when it comes to audio for games is that it’s only about music. Obviously there is other things like voiceovers and dialogue that people think about as well, but I think the sound design itself, and just the general like mix of the whole game plays a huge role in the whole experience. I think the sound design from Minecraft Dungeons is built on a base of vanilla Minecraft sound design and music design, but on top of that we have darker dungeons that we go into, so it’s like darker, heavier, meatier sounds. But there is also an arcade element to the game, which is like you pick up the emeralds and it’s almost like, you know, a satisfying arcade-y sounds to them, which is completely new in the Minecraft universe. So sometimes the work that we do isn’t just what makes a sound, or what music there is in the game, but also how we balance them with each other. So it could be as simple as just removing the music from the game altogether at a specific Point and that could be very effectful for example. Creating music for Minecraft Dungeons has been an ongoing process as well. It is not like we decided something from Day 1, this is how the music’s gonna sound, but As the game development went on, the game got more and more arcade-y, so we had to put in sort of some rhythm in the music as well, something that you know keeps you going foward. The first sub-dungeon that I made music for was the crypt in Creeper Woods, and it was Inspired by the fact that you are entering a lower space in a dungeon and it gets darker, so I figured let’s add something that’s conventionally musically darker, ‘cos there’s like a light and dark scale to how scales work in music. So I chose the double harmonic minor for that, and added descending arpeggios for that, so it felt like it was descending into the dungeon. We came together in Aspudden in Stockholm, in Uppenbarelsekyrkan, which is a church that I have sung in for ten years. We were talking about making a theme for the game, and then we were talking about what instrument we would use to make this theme, and we were first talking about piano, because it’s recognised from vanilla Minecraft, but then we sort of unlocked the idea, because We use choirs here and there in the game but you know darker choirs that fit the dark dungeons, that we should record a choir that is inspired by the way villagers talk in Minecraft, to create sort of this – I really like that sort of “spoopy” – it’s both dark and eerie and Beautiful but at the same time a bit funny, that’s Minecraft for me, it is both ways. We agreed on having some sort of villager-ish sound to it, so it connected to the Minecraft franchise, which I haven’t done before, I don’t think anyone has done that before, so That’s fun, them singing without words and more like the “hrrm hoh hoh” style of the villagers. So, me being an avid choir singer, I know a lot of choirs here in Stockholm and just called the ones I thought would fit the best, and yeah basically had them sing the songs like villagers. What’s cool about having a live choir is it gives, I think, the performance a greater presence, I think that’s noticeable really on an emotional level. Dungeons might look like a really simple game, because it’s pixel art, but there is actually A whole lot of depth to it, and there is a lot of musical and sound content there. So just getting that and getting it to work on all of the different platforms that we’re gonna release on, that has been a challenge for us, and something that we’re really proud Of being able to deliver to the players. Video Information
This video, titled ‘Minecraft Dungeons Diaries: Sound’, was uploaded by Minecraft on 2020-01-24 16:00:06. It has garnered 303419 views and 12604 likes. The duration of the video is 00:05:47 or 347 seconds.
Minecraft Dungeons is a new action-adventure game set in the Minecraft Universe. In this episode you can eavesdrop on a choir of villagers and find out if we opted for an original soundtrack or a dubstep remix of Vanilla. https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/about-dungeons