Week 7 (Game Atmosphere)

This is an interesting topic to me. I've been playing a lot of different games lately and one thing I've noticed is that they actually make me feel different. Metro: Last Light made me feel sad, Far Cry 4 made me feel oppressed, and Evolve made me feel gritty. As I switched between these games I got to thinking about how I felt. Why do I feel this way while playing these games?

One huge reason that games make me personally feel the way I do tends to be the music and audio in the game. For example, the music on Far Cry 4 gave me the feeling of being oppressed and being shackled. In a word, shackled. Here is a link to the music from Far Cry 4. The slow build up and intense singing is great for creating that kind of atmosphere. Another example is Evolve making me feel gritty. Here's one of the tracks from Evolve. You can perhaps see what I'm getting at.

I've been able to take this understanding and use it in my groups current game that we're working on to help give the game the feeling that we want it to have. I've learned that audio has a much larger impact on the atmosphere and feel of a game than any other part of the game and having that much control over our game is invigorating.