![]() ![]() I put the reverb to zero to use it as a hardware filter, which made the bottom disappear so it sounded narrow and thin. So I ended up running them through an old spring reverb. “When I put my own bespoke-recorded physics sounds in the game, they sounded too real the surface of the sound didn’t fit the image. Running all of my sounds through an old tape recorder made them sit very well together in the mix. I discovered that using old machines created a homogenised sound. In linear media you can make your mix from moment to moment, whereas in a game the sounds might be mixed differently every time you play. ![]() “I ventured into using antique audio devices wire recorders, spring reverbs and tape recorders. I distorted sounds, then afterwards I expanded them again to really spatialise them almost anti-phase. I saw Limbo as such a tiny world, so I was trying to reduce all the sounds to something very simple and thin sounding. Trying to make Limbo sound like an old film, I put everything into mono but discovered I couldn’t engage with that sound. But Playdead left him free to explore this notion of nothingness, and he found the iterative experimentation/decision-making process both engaging and inspiring.Īndersen explains: “I learned some interesting things. Which is perhaps not what a typical videogame developer wants to hear. Even Limbo’s music is so ambient and blends so intricately with the sound and graphics that some reviewers claimed there was none.Īndersen’s original brief was simple: ‘not like a videogame’. And for Limbo, which follows the journey of an unnamed boy in search of his younger sister in an eerie Noir-ish, grayscale environment, it only works if players get sucked in. Andersen feels that in third person games - where the player must identify with a game character - players feel disconnected if the character starts to make noises. The end result is that footsteps are pretty much the only sounds the main character makes. That is, he put the kibosh on all the usual tropes videogame composers and sound designers rely on like a crutch. Andersen decreed that there was to be no ‘spooky’ stylised interactive orchestral score, no character emotes and no narrative dialogue to pollute the ‘nothingness’. Martin Stig Andersen’s background in acousmatic music, sound installations, electro-acoustic performance and video art informed his brave holistic audio vision for Limbo. It’s a strikingly original take on game audio, especially for a 2D side-scrolling platformer a style of game that’s more synonymous with Super Mario’s 8-bit bleeps and light-hearted theme music. They’re perfectly accompanied by Limbo’s bleak yet enigmatic, multi-award winning soundscape. The visuals are only one half of the story though. Playdead’s debut release rocked the games industry, heralded as a poster child for ‘videogames as art’ thanks to its mysterious and compelling monochromatic visuals. Game audio people are still talking about Limbo, and may be for some time yet. ![]()
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