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The Game Audio Tutorial: A Practical Guide to Sound and Music for Interactive Games

The game audio tutorial textbook encapsulates the outcome of research into the requirements of roles within the video game industry, the technical and creative practices within the industry, and proposes a new conceptual model for musical interactivity and game design. The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG), formed in 1994 under the auspices of the MIDI Manufacturers association, has been influential in the development of audio standards, features, and APIs for desktop and mobile platforms. In the role of Chairman of the Education working group Stevens coordinated and undertook research to meet the growing demands from industry for an appropriately qualified workforce. This research involved a quantitative analysis of job roles posted during the survey period, formal surveys of industry professionals, category rating exercises, a job role mapping exercise (using custom software built by Raybould), a review of existing literature in the field, and expert interview. The resulting document (“Game Audio Curriculum Guidelines” published by the MIDI Manufacturers association on 1st March 2011) articulates some of the research undertaken and this is further elaborated on, together with a reflection of the process in the journal paper “Designing and international curriculum for game audio”. Simultaneous research undertaken by Raybould into the creative and technical implementation practices of game audio is combined with the IASIG curriculum within the ‘The Game Audio Tutorial’ (Focal Press), the first textbook in the discipline. As well as synthesising and communicating existing practice in a new way, (the book is accompanied by a unique interactive game level for learning), the book also proposes a new conceptual model for the use of music in games. First presented in the book these are articulated in more detail in the Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio chapter “Designing a game for music : Integrated design approaches for Ludic Music and Interactivity.”