Check Part I of Sidd's Skylanders: Swap Force.
We met with one of the sound designers who took us inside his studio where the walls are covered with soundproofing foam and a really cool audio board, full of computers and dials.
The designer revealed that the sound offered a challenge when you add the "swapability" elements to the characters, since the two characters might have different personalities. As a rule of thumb the developers would play up the more aggressive side of a character, but they would also have to strike a fine balance between something that is cool and not scary to kids.
One of the characters we were shown was Wash Buckler who features tentacles. The audio team wasn't really sure how to make an octopus sound when walking on land. The team came up with an idea like using a bath tub, bath mat and laundry detergent to create Wash Buckler's sound. It seems like inspiration can come from the strangest places.
The audio team even found inspiration from the Guitar Hero franchise they once worked on. All of the music used in Guitar Hero was from audio stems which featured separated guitar, bass, drums and vocal tracks. Using these separated tracks you can change the mix of music and make one instrument more prevalent than the other. This allowed the developers to come up with dynamic music. Dynamic music reacts to what what your player is doing on screen. If your character is standing still, you'll have a basic beat, but when you start moving some percussion will start playing and the music will get a lot more intense . Even doing something as simple as running into a cave can change the music from a fast beat to something that is slower and calming.
While some voice actors are still unannounced in the game, the audio team did reveal that a lot of the voice acting is actually done in California and sent to the studio in Albany. In fact on any one project, the Albany studio is usually working with studios in multiple locations.
Part 5: Character Creation and Toy Development
The first part of the process always begins with getting all the concept artists in a room for a brainstorming session. The artists work closely with Toys for Bob to ensure that they are not just cool characters, but that they are cool toys. The process usually begins with the artists coming up with a rough concept of what the character will look like along with his/her abilities. At the same time, Toys for Bob will be coming up with rough concepts of what the Skylander toy would look like. This process is iterative and also includes Activision who has their say in the characters in the game as well.
We were taken into a room full of Skylander prototypes with two of the game's artists. Some of the early prototypes that were shown off were improperly scaled, had connectors facing in the wrong direction or other deficiencies.
The toys had to be thoroughly tested at the manufacturing plant to ensure they wouldn't fall apart easily when a kid would play with it. One of the most interesting tidbits revealed was that none of the characters created for Swap Force were leftovers from previous titles. The artists also revealed that the development team almost gave up on one of the game's characters because the manufacturing plant couldn't get the colours right.
Skylanders Swap Force is set for release in October for the PlayStation 3, Wii U, Wii, and Xbox 360, with the Xbox One and Playstation 4 version to follow in November.
- Sidd Masand
Follow @jokeman23
