The world of sound design is an exciting one to those who work in the field – but to the uninitiated, it’s also shrouded in mystery. Or, in other words, people have no real clue what a sound designer actually does. That’s what Norwegian sound designer-turned game developer Leif Hopmoen wants to change. He’s assembled some of Norway’s brightest minds to develop a game that could open up this specialized craft to a much larger audience. His secret weapon? Sound Designer – The Game. 2016 UPDATE: Leif has just emailed me the very latest about the project. If you’ve already read this exciting story last year, you can skip straight down to the latest info here. Otherwise I recommend you simply continue reading below, so you’re fully in the loop.

Hi Leif, what inspired you to create Sound Designer – The Game?

Well, you know the feeling. You’re standing in, say, a bar and someone asks you what you do. Tell them you’re a film director – people instantly know what you do. Say you’re a musician – bingo, people know what that means, no problem. Now say you’re a sound designer. People just give you that blank, dead stare. It’s frustrating, and I want to change that.



So what’s your plan?

My idea is essentially to show the journey of a sound designer – from the humble beginnings, to the holy grail of sound design: The Paying Gig. We’ll obviously sex things up quite a bit to give it that mass appeal.





What’s the plot in Sound Designer – The Game?

The game is divided into two stages. The first stage is a tutorial of sorts – it portrays the beginning of this wonderful journey.

The player starts out as an aspiring sound designer, looking for that big break AKA The Paying Gig. At this stage, the player is presented with a random series of projects that need some sound – we call these Opportunities. It could be a student film, a wedding video or similar.

At this stage, the player is presented with a random series of projects that need some sound – we call these Opportunities.

We want to keep the realism high here, so to get the job done, the player will only be equipped with a selection of sounds from Freesound. The player is then given a fictional project with a pre-rendered video, in a layout that closely mirrors the one you know from ProTools, Cubase, Reaper and similar DAWs.

It’s set up with markers, and the challenge is then to add the appropriate sounds to each marker in the project. We call it the DAW View.

So what would be an appropriate sound? Well, say the bride slips during that wedding video. A slide whistle or similar comical sound effect would be a great choice here. Maybe even add some canned laughter to really take this one to 11 and set the YouTube crowds on fire.

After successfully completing an Opportunity, the player is rewarded with a selection of achievements. These range from the promise of free exposure, a thank-you in the credits list, a link on a website, a project reference for the resume, and/or potential payment if the project ever evolves beyond the hobby stage.

While these are brilliant offers when you’re just starting out, they do make it somewhat hard to sustain even a basic living – so this is where the secondary element comes in. The Funding: The player has the opportunity to use various resources, such as bank loans, taking on a 2nd job – and we also have a bit of a wildcard entitled Call Mom, for when food is running critically low. The player must carefully balance these resources to stay in the game.

Then, at a certain point – again, chosen completely at random – the player moves on to the next stage: The Paying Gig.



Ok, to be totally honest, that first stage sounds pretty challenging?

You could say that – but you could also focus on the fact that it’ll only get better from there. And that it’s a learning experience. It all depends on your outlook on life.



Fair enough. So I guess things really pick up in that second stage?

You bet! You’ve still got that cool DAW View from the first stage – only this time, we’re mixing it up a bit: To reflect the pressure of looming deadlines, the pre-rendered video will be played back in real-time. Your challenge is to then find and fling appropriate sounds onto the timeline before the clock runs out. To make things even harder, we’ll change the timing of the video at critical points throughout the project – especially towards the end, to really get the pulse racing.

Internally, we refer to this stage as Guitar Hero for sound design.

If you fail, the project will sound terrible and you’re off the project – and if that happens too many times, tough luck, it’s back to the tutorial stage again. Internally, we refer to this stage as Guitar Hero for sound design. I know it sounds fun, and believe me, it’s even more fun in real life.

Now, as a sound designer, those SFX libraries won’t always cut it, and you’ll need to head out to do some field recording to get the sounds you need. This is where the game gets REALLY interesting: The whole perspective changes from that DAW view, to a 1st person view similar to what you see in the Battlefield or Call Of Duty series. We call this mode FPS, or First-Person Sound recordist mode.

In FPS mode, the player is sent on field recording missions around the world, equipped with microphones, recorders, a boom pole etc – the whole package, basically. Once there, the player’s task is to then activate the in-game sound recording mode and stand still for extended periods of time. We’ll be monitoring via the Xbox Kinect to ensure people really don’t move – move just one muscle, bam, your recording is unusable.

Remember I mentioned earlier that we’ll be sexing things up a bit to reach a new audience. So how do we do it? I have one word for you: Combat.

During the periods of trying to stand extremely still at various locations, you’ll encounter a series of enemies, ranging from noisy crowds, annoying birds, sudden bagpipe players – and the toughest of all: Rival field recordists.

You’ll use the gear at your disposal to take them all down: Rycote windshields for projectiles, Zoom H4’s as relatively inexpensive grenades – and boom poles for jousting with other field recordists. You can also set up booby traps and snares using various types of cabling, and for protection, you’ll be using the new Sound Devices 688 as a kind of shield – those things are built like a tank, supposedly by actual tank engineers.



Need specific sound effects? Try a search below:



How about multiplayer – will that be supported?

Yes, we’re planning an add-on called the In-house Position, which sees the player as an in-house game sound designer. Here you’ll compete against other team members in challenges like Middleware – who can learn a new middleware solution the fastest? Every time you get the grips on one of them, a new industry standard comes out.

Compete against other team members in challenges like Middleware – who can learn a new middleware solution the fastest?

Another challenge is that DAW View again, only this time, up to 16 players are working on the same project at once. The final one is asset management, where we simply randomize filenames and metadata whenever we feel like it. Pretty challenging stuff.



Do you think this gives a realistic picture of what life is like for a sound designer?

Not really, but since we’re having a blast developing the game, does it really matter? Haha, no it doesn’t.



So how far along in the development process are you?

We’ve got the initial stage fleshed out, and the second one is coming along well. However, we really need sounds for the missions – so here’s an invitation to all the sound designers out there: Drop everything you’re doing, come to Norway and help us create sounds for the game. Our funds are pretty tight, so there won’t be any pay, as such. But you’ll get to work with a killer team, there’ll be daily pats on the back for motivation, and oh, quick tip for you: It’ll look stunning on your resume.







Where things stand in April 2016: It’s been exactly a year since Leif Hopmoen broke the news about the exciting new project – and for those of you who are wondering how the project is going, here’s an update I just received from him this very morning: “Hello everyone, this is Leif, the creative force behind ‘Sound Designer – The Game’. I’ve had many people ask me how things are going with the project, and I’m happy to share the latest details. I’ve got two letters for you: V. R. Yes, ‘Sound Designer – The Game’ is now 100% virtual reality-based, as this is seemingly all the rage these days. If you read our initial ideas for the game, I’m sure you’ll agree they’re pretty much a perfect match for VR. Just imagine how much fun it’ll be to play the Asset Management mode in full 360 degree 3D. That’s some immersive metadata editing, let me tell you. Or that combat mode, where you’re taking out other sound designers with boom poles, etc. Remember how we also made a unique simulation of life as an aspiring sound designer? That bit is just incredible in VR. Not knowing when you might catch your big break is incredibly intense and rewarding in 3D The whole aspect of having to work for pats on the back, a mention in the credits list, paying the bills with goodwill, and not knowing when you might catch your big break is incredibly intense and rewarding in 3D. In fact, for a lot of people, it’s simply too overwhelming and nerve-wrecking, or – as we like to call it internally – immersive. Oh, and another thing: Have you noticed the controllers for the HTC Vive? Notice how there’s a peculiar little hole in the middle of those controllers?

Notice the holes in the HTC Vive controllers – they’re there for a very special reason… Here’s a fun fact: ‘Sound Designer – The Game’ was one of the very first titles used for testing the Vive alpha-hardware, and needless to say, the teams at both Valve and HTC were blown away by the whole boom element of our game (where you have to stand completely still to ‘record’ for hours and hours). It was a downright giggle-fest. They liked it so much, in fact, that they designed the controllers around it! So I’m excited to break the news that those holes in the controllers are there.. so you can mount a boom pole for extra realism. There’s really nothing like waving a large boom pole around in your living room while you’re lost in a 3D-world The Boom Accessory is coming later this year, and let me tell you: There’s really nothing like waving a large boom pole around in your living room while you’re lost in a 3D-world – the hectic waving really engages any bystanders and surrounding pets too. From what I’m hearing, HTC and Valve are also planning a ‘Sound Designers’ edition of the Vive, with much better headphones and all sounds up-sampled to 192kHz as it makes a huge difference.” So that’s where things stand today – I for one can’t wait to see how the project evolves. Good luck, Leif!

Please share this:

FOLLOW OR SUBSCRIBE FOR THE LATEST IN FANTASTIC SOUND: