Posted by Jeurja on July 17, 2008 at 17:15:27 EST in reply to Is it odd to sit in your house with all the lights off and headphones on playing the DS? Because that's all I want to do anymore. Soul Bubbles, baby. It has the most incredible sound. The audio in games very rarely grabs me--in fact, I often turn the sound off and just listen to my stereo instead--but Soul Bubbles is just so wonderful. The sound effects are very real, with all kinds of great natural tones and timbre. The clacking of stones and rustle of leaves and gurgle of water...mmmm. They all match each other and the visuals in a way that seems very rare in video games. And then the music...the music is even more amazing. It's really just sort of ambient musicality, but it fits the game's theme and sound effects so perfectly. Each world within the game is based on a shamanistic tradition from somewhere in the world and the music is built around those same themes, with drumming and chanting in the Pacific Northwest world or bells and great vibrating horns in the Tibetan one, etc. What's really cool, though, is that the music not just a simple waveform audio track that starts playing when the level begins and continues playing in a predictable way through the level. Instead, it changes in rather complex ways as you move through the level. Different themes and instrumentation begin and end as you move into and out of different parts of the level, but it always flows smoothly so that you wouldn't even notice. But if you leave a section and come back, you'll see that the music changes accordingly, or if you stay in the same place for a long time, the music won't change at all. This can give certain parts of a level a superb sense of mysticism or importance and really multiplies the sense of otherworldliness in the game. A wonderful touch that I've encountered in other games, too, but never done as well as this. (n/t) from Sweater Fish Deluxe.
Sounds like a cool game.
n/t
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