Snowboard Hero is live on the AppStore now and you can see for yourself how it plays. Accordingly, we want to disregard visuals for now and dedicate this chapter to audio design for the 2011 double winner at the IMGAwards. For a start - imagine you are deaf. Try again. It’s really hard to do, isn’t it? We being devs we want to give you some background on a very important aspect of smartphone gaming and entertainment in general. We can close our eyes, but we can never close our ears. Which is probably why we don’t really notice the sounds in our environment too much. They are there all the time, yet hardly ever come to our attention, unless there is something noisy or disturbing. Sounds create moods, they are the vibes we feel. Like the sound in a Hollywood Blockbuster, the soundtrack and sound effects in Snowboard Hero have been elaborately designed, produced and implemented to make the overall experience sensually immersive. As long as Apple doesn’t feature smells emanating from iPhones and iPads the audio layers will remain one of the most important aspects in gaming. Listen up for a short background story. [full]

When the decision was made to bring Snowboard Hero to iOS our one and only Audio Director Gero Goerlich took on the challenge. That challenge basically consisted of understanding the vision of the Creative Director, translating it into sound and implementing it into the game’s programming. When Gero gets his briefing he will talk to as many people involved as possible in order to get a clear vision of what style the game will have and what actions will take place that require sound. For Snowboard Hero there are four basic audio categories – menu sounds, sound effects and character-specific themes and voice overs. All these sound layers are intended to give the player feedback about what he is doing and what is happening. For example, the actual height from which you fall to the ground will influence what it sounds like when you land on your buttocks. The programming will register the event “crash” as low, middle or high and play the sound that was put into place for that event beforehand. Each event is registered with five sounds, so it doesn’t get boring. Can you hear the difference when Kitty is falling from different heights?

“Powder for the people”, that’s our slogan for this game. Yet how does it sound when your board is cutting through the snowy white? Even the slightest change of angle is reflected in the sounds you hear. Gero pays detailed attention to any ‘physical’ changes in the game and makes sure you can hear what is happening. Passing by an icy wall? Suddenly there is an echo where the snow had absorbed all sounds before.
What makes Snowboard Hero special among iPhone games with regards to sound development are the music themes for each character. That means on top of the voice acting each character has its very own score for boarding downhill. To get that right Gero worked together with composer Marc Rosenberger. The two stuck their heads together discussing what each character is about and how his stlye and personality might best be underscored with music.

Monica with her default boards and clothing. She is a 27 year old Italian crazy for snowboarding and, as Gero puts it, "a fashion beast with a very funky style on- and off the piste." She is now live to play along with 3 other playable characters in Fishlabs' Snowboard Hero iPhone game.

How would a style like her’s translate into a theme? Listen to the fine piece of music that Monica enjoys on her fast-paced rides down the mountains. Can you get a feeling of her already? Now that Snowboard Hero has gone live we’ll stop the teasing already and keep this entry short. If you have any specific questions regarding the sound design in this game leave a comment and I’ll make sure you get your answer!