Week 3 – The Effects of Sound

This lesson, we researched the effects that sound (in games) have on the player. We researched if sound had an effect on the experience and to see if the game was harder. We also found out if it affected the mood and feel of the game. The games we carried out the research on were Guitar Hero, Five Nights at Freddy’s and an Horizon Chase.

Horizon Chase:

As you can see from the table, playing with sound generally increases performance. With the exception of Joe, having no sound resulted in more collisions than with sound. From participating in this test I can confidently say that the presence of sound makes the game easier as you can hear where other cars are, the music and engine sounds also immerse me more so I think less about my surroundings and concentrate more on the game.

Five Nights at Freddy’s:

When playing the horror game FNaF with sound, players were more immersed in the game which added to the games mood and setting greatly. From the table, you can see that players were clicking more frequently when there was no sound because they could not hear important feedback such as footsteps, Joe is the exception again because he died on his second night before the end so he had less tome to click in. We only had two players’ results as playing the game took a long time. This game did not require as much skill as the others as if was more of a luck-based game.

Guitar Hero:

The 2 tests we did in guitar hero had different findings. Bradley performed better without sound as it was easier for him to concentrate without the music. Brandon had a steady increase over time regardless of sound, although the best score was achieved with the presence of sound. We had few results to compare on this test as we didn’t have enough time on this game either. Guitar Hero and Horizon chase had required skill to play so the results may be different from person to person.

In conclusion, sound can make a difference on a game’s experience and the players performance but lots of the effects depend on the player and their skill level. Sound in Horizon Chase would improve the player performance 80% of the time but all players reported that they preferred sound for their entertainment and their experience. Sound in Five Nights at Freddy’s would allow the players to get more information from the game as sound is an important component. Players reported that the game was more boring without sound as you could not hear voices on the phone. Both Guitar Hero players said that it was easier to concentrate on hitting the notes without sound but that the game was much more interesting and fun with sound.