Does playing crickets and similar sounds layered improve Sonic??

[expansivelovestories]

That is to say, some of the stillness and artfulness present in all of the games but certainly the ones you consider to be most artful, with an echoing nearly endless grove of crickets nearby!!  That seems to be something that could work!  the Sonic 2022 seems to be very natural in focus but we don't know yet if there will be crickets!! 

 

 

[expansivelovestories]

So far I have especially been impressed with playing Marble Zone and Emerald Hill Zone because they do have so many areas where essentially there could be crickets filling the pine trees and vast meadows!! 

[charmsb]

Well, this is extremely specific. But I mean, sure! Ambience is always welcome. I'm just not sure how well ambience functions when Sonic stages always have loud, boisterous music and sound effects. In Sonic 2022, I assume the music will chill out at times, so you can have all the crickets you want if they're willing to put in that detail.

[Kazhnuz]

It's specific. I won't say if they'll have crickets or not specifically, but Sonic have a good ambient sound design (Forces is pretty good in that, which is strange as most is kinda drowned in the music) so I think that there is no reason that 2022 won't have one too.

[Cube]

I think it could help, but the music design would also have to change, as otherwise you wouldn't hear the ambient noise at all.

I'd love to see Sonic create music in the same way as the Ashtray Maze in Control: the music is made up of smaller repeating parts, and moves on to the next section when you reach a certain point. It all feel incredibly natural and feels like the song perfectly matched your paly of the level.

If they do something like that, they could have the song building towards something until the finale of the level, with some quiet moments to let the ambient noise be heard.

 

I also think that something like this would be a great start for a Sonic level if you're using ambient sound

Where the ambient noise morphs into the music.

[Wraith]

They would have to prioritize ambient noise over the music to make a significant impact and that's a tool I would use sparingly for Sonic. Sonic's more of a playful, exciting action game than an experiential one. The player isn't really meant to be smelling the roses that much even in slower entries. 

 

Of course, this doesn't mean there's no place at all for it. Breather levels, hubs, results screens and extra time wasters like the chao garden or gallery screens can benefit from extra touches like this. 

[KnuxDLX]

I’ve noticed now that pretty much every game is striving to have lots of bugs.

 

Of course, Sonic games have always had plenty of those.

[charmsb]

9 hours ago, Cube said:

I think it could help, but the music design would also have to change, as otherwise you wouldn't hear the ambient noise at all.

I'd love to see Sonic create music in the same way as the Ashtray Maze in Control: the music is made up of smaller repeating parts, and moves on to the next section when you reach a certain point. It all feel incredibly natural and feels like the song perfectly matched your play of the level.

 

 

 

Might be worth checking this amazing stuff out if you haven't already.

[Indigo Rush]

Ambient sound is actually fairly present in the Adventure games; I know this because while modding them (SA2 specifically), I came across some issues, and a lot of ambient hums, enemy noises and other environmental sounds weren't working; it was incredibly unsettling and broke the immersion. 

That is to say, yes, there's a benefit to having those sorts of noises in games. 

[expansivelovestories]

Maybe it does sense then to find and archive different recordings in this topic that feel like they are coming from the background of each of the zones in the earlier games and also any others that didn't have them, not for patching into the games themselves but to have playing at the same time as the game audio (and for a more reflective experience, simply the ambience although i have found turning down the game audio substantially so that the crickets are a bit louder is best so far!)

A full ambience soundtrack for Sonic 3 & Knuckles sounds like an actually very feasible project over a period of months and years: whether it is finding the long loops on youtube that fit, and there is also a place called freesound.org that has many field recordings from different real locations, and of course using software to combine sounds to fit that otherwise aren't together yet!!