What Is Sound Design?
Jokes aside, sound design is art (yes, it is an art) of manipulating and bringing together sound and music. Everything you hear in tv, movies, and video games had to go through the hands of a sound designer who brings together the work of the composer, the Foley artists, and the filming crew to get the final product we see. Here's an example (word of warning, it is graphic):
You probably don't even have to actually watch what's happening on screen because of the way the sound and music come together. The dramatic music, the sound of some power being channeled, the explosion of gore and the pained scream of the victim...when done well, good sound design can tell as much about what's going on as much as any wall of text.
Now, you may be asking....
What Does This Have To Do With Me?
Truth be told, a lot of games here show little care for audio aside from maybe wanting their own OST. To many, you put a sad piano track here, play a cool sound there, and the job gets done. But that's where you're wrong! Ignoring good sound design can actively cripple your work, since you lose impact you could have. Just imagine one of those epic final battles you've seen....but all the impact sound effects have been replaced with squeaky toy sounds because the person in charge waited to the last moment to find a decent sound effect. Or a funeral scene where, out of nowhere, heroic music starts playing before anything even starts, spoiling the plot twist that the person in the coffin wasn't dead all because they forgot to queue the music right due to rushing to get it done. In both these instances, had they taken the time and actually focused on the sound design, the disasters would have been avoided. So this is a lesson worth learning.
Part 1: Showing, Not Telling
You writers are probably sick of hearing this by now, but this is where that rule can do you a lot of good. And reduce your work load to boot! Here's an example:
If you were writing a plain text novel, this would be OK. But most of you here are working on a visual novel. Large walls of text detailing every noise isn't very good and will make your game feel eerily quiet aside from whatever music you may be playing. If you instead added all those sounds to the background, you can then write something like this:The sounds of gunfire, explosions, and quaking were heard inside the shelter, which smelled of dust. Every so often, you could hear the generators give way for a moment, making the lights flicker.
"Good lord, it's a madhouse out there!"
"Yeah, thank god we managed to get out when we did."
You have less text now, but on the flipside your scene now has more impact since we can actually hear the disturbance and can hear the generators struggling. Add some screen shaking and light flickering and your scene is pretty much done now.Dust filled the darkened air as the bunker shook from the commotion above.
"Good lord, it's a madhouse out there!"
"Yeah, thank god we managed to get out when we did."
Part 2: Emphasis with Sound
You can use sound a lot more than as just noise. You can use it to emphasis certain words, phrases, or actions. A good example is 07th Expansion's Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
Just in the first few seconds of this video you can see that certain parts of the text had impact because they were immediately followed with sound. Even though there's no voicing, we can still "hear" the emotion behind the text.
While useful for drama and horror, this same emphasis can be used in something like comedy. Say we have a guy trying to to keep a bunch of boxes balanced, then his friend comes and places something on top which makes the whole thing topple over. While amusing to watch, we can emphasis this scene by adding a sound to both his struggling and the familiar whistling and crash accompanying a fall to give the scene more life. Honestly, the best thing to do is to experiment and see what gives your text and your art more oomph.
Part 3: Queuing Music, Silence, and Ambience
Despite what you may think, playing music all throughout your game isn't a very good thing, and neither is relying on a lot of silence or ambience either. Playing with all three is the key to success. For instance, say we have a scene where a couple is walking down the street and one of them has some good news for the other. Your instinct would be to play romantic music for them, but here's how it could go with a bit of creativity:
See? Had we just had the happy music playing from the very beginning, the 'news' wouldn't have the same impact.*street BG with a bunch of busy street sound effects*
Despite telling herself that she would wait until they got home to tell him, she couldn't hide her excitement very well.
"Hey, you seem to be really happy. What did the doctor tell you?"
"Umm, well...You see, they tested me for something."
"Oh. And what's the result?"
*sounds fade away*
"You're going to be a father."
"W-What?"
*happy music starts to play*
Tears of joy began to well up in his eyes, a smile quickly spreading on his face.
"Oh my god, I-I can't...really?"
Another useful tool is interruptions as these can provide the perfect tonal shift. Imagine the climax of a horror movie. Hopeful music is playing as the survivors rush towards the light...then the way out is suddenly shut with a bang as the monster's theme overtakes the hopeful music and our heroes are now up against a shut door as we hear the monster close in. The interruption gave us the dramatic shift we needed in order to do a perfect 180 for the ending.
Part 4: An Ace Up Your Sleeve
I know what you're thinking. "I have this cool track and I want everyone to hear it a lot!" Well you best set it down for now and find the right time to use it. While no one will complain about most music being reused in VNs, it's the tracks that hardly get used that tend to provide the most impactful moments. Typically, its these moment where we hear a game's opening theme once again, or even a heavy rock remix of said theme (Warning: TV Tropes, enter at your own risk) but you can also use another track for these scenes. The only important thing about this "ace track" is that it's unique enough that you only hear it in one or two situations. I mean, say you have a dating game where you give the LI's a theme. You could play that theme every time they're on screen...OR you could hold it and play it during their final event, when they're solidifying their relationship with you, thus giving it more impact.
More To Learn
Truth be told, there's a lot more to sound design than what I went through up above. This is more of a brief crash course.
Sound Design is an art and just like any art, it's a lot of work and a lot of study. But once you figure it out (or at least know enough not to look silly), you'll find your works will be a lot better and your audience will definitely appreciate the work, even if they don't actively know it.