Polishing and fitting game music and sound effects to improve player immersion

Abstract

This thesis offers a practical approach of audio design for a video game development and provides insights of the relationship among music, immersion and players. Sound effects and background music have been widely used in video game development. It has been mostly indicated that music can influence people's emotion and behavior. Sound effects and background music that matches the background of the game and game objects can improve players' experience and immersion to the game. With appropriate soundtracks applied on the video game, players can be easier to be immersed into the game world and get some positive feedback that can guide them to play the game. With this perspective, the aim of this research project was to design and develop a Chinese culture heritage computer game and improve the immersion by polishing the music and sound effects in the game based on the feedback from the first playtest. Two formal playtests were held to collect the feedback from the participants. The result shows the players were satisfied with the improved music, but there was no statistical difference of the immersion between two groups. The results also show the players who had more experience in playing video games were more immersed into the game.--Author's abstract