Sound Intensity and the FNaF Series

A fair warning: This video regards a horror game,  and it will feature some creepy sounds. It will   not contain any jumpscares, though. I promise.  This is best experienced through headphones.   {What I Love!} >>Announcer: Hello! And welcome! This educational video  is designed to show you how a horror game   and its soundscape can intensify each other. Any  other effects this video imparts are beyond the   liability of Fazbear Entertainment. Now you  may be wondering: what is sound intensity?   How does it work? How can it keep me safe  from any malfunctioning equipment in my   business establishment? Rest assured, the Five  Nights at Freddy’s series can answer the first   two questions. Due to budgetary considerations  and certainly not due to supernatural threats,   this video will only be covering FNaF 2, 3,  4, Sister Location, and Pizzeria Simulator.   But it should be noted that sound intensity  occurs in all horror games, in fact it occurs   everywhere. There is no escape from—   —experience. And without further ado, let’s hand it off to our guide, Scruffy, who needs  to deliver a concise review of sound intensity in   the aforementioned games, if they wish to ward  off the animatronics approaching the studio.   >>Scruffy: Wait, what? That wasn’t in rehears— >>Announcer: Remember to keep your eyes and   ears peeled, and from all of us at  Fazbear Entertainment, good luck.   >>Scruffy: Wha… a-approaching the studio!? [distant animatronic sounds]   Ohhhkay! [thumps from air vent]   Uhh.. I-I’m Scruffy, and today, we gotta get  right into it: “sound intensity.” It’s a very   subjective concept about how much tension a sound  raises. It’s not as quantifiable as sound volume,   nor even as agreed upon as sound velocity, which  is the rough amount of force with which something   is activated to create a sound. Though, generally  speaking, louder, more forceful sounds are   more likely to be intense. But there are also  cases where softer sounds can be intense,   for instance, someone yelling into a pillow. It’s  also intense perhaps because the sound raises   questions. Where’s that yelling coming from?  Who is yelling? Why is it muffled? Or, sounds   can become intense by association, which means  each person can find different sounds intense.   But there are sometimes popular sounds like— [jack-in-the-box jingle repeats]   Y-yeah, like that. That a great deal of people  have come to associate with rising tension for   a sudden... jump... And it’s precisely this  sort of stress that can be exploited in a   horror game to make the player even more uneasy.  So, let me share some examples that this handful of   FNAF games do well. These aren’t exclusive  examples, they’re done well in other   horror games that I’ll want to talk about  later, and there’s no story spoilers here,   but it’d be good to know the jist of the  gameplay experience as we go through each game.   So, let’s begin with: FNaF 2: Unknown Drones   Sounds are easily intense when we don’t know  what their source is. Whether we can’t locate   the sound, or we haven’t heard that kind of sound  before. FNaF2 gets pretty intense already just   through pure gameplay, but in the slower moments  of the game where you have little to no control,   a slew of untraceable sounds intensify the  experience. If any animatronics are in your   office, primed to attack you, you get this TV  static in your ears, where is that coming from?  If the Puppet’s music box isn’t kept wound, and  it escapes and is set to attack you, you literally  hear the jack-in-the-box jingle anywhere you look,  how is it doing that? You can even confirm the   location of one animatronic, Mangle, by the radio  static it’s constantly emitting. Sure, but why   does it have to make such a garbled, incongruous  sound? And then, personally the creepiest for   me are these interactive cutscenes between the  nights of gameplay, where you are inexplicably   given the perspective of Freddy Fazbear, on  stage with Bonnie and Chica. Visually, not   much is going on, but once we add the audio… [unsettling noises from FNaF2's cutscenes]   I don’t know what’s making that collection of  sounds, I don’t know where they’re coming from,   I don’t know if they’re real or hallucinatory.  While I’m playing, my guess is as good as yours.   That is effective sound intensity. Now, a related case of unknown sound is when we do   recognize the sound, but it’s indicating something  that we haven’t or can’t immediately confirm.   This is why alarms are intense. When we hear an  alarm before confirming that time has passed,   when we hear an alarm before we know that there’s  smoke in a room, or that a car has been jacked,   or that a message is so important that all  televisions need to broadcast it simultaneously.   Alarms earn their intensity by  association, which is why this— [FNaF hallway alarm plays] this alarm becomes intense in FNaF2, initially. It  indicates that an animatronic is in the vents,   and you’d probably hear it before you confirm  it... yep, there they are! We need to move on. FNaF 3: Context is Everything So, this sequel generally scales   things back from FNaF2. You’re now only  dealing with one real animatronic instead of…   at least ten. And though the sound design follows  in the footsteps of FNaF2, I’d argue the intensity   is a bit scaled back as well. You have some alarm  sounds that definitely raise questions the first   time you hear them. And, there’s another cool  between-night interactive cutscene where you   explore an Atari-esque rendering of a pizzeria,  once again playing as Freddy and the gang,   but with more incongruous audio of  thunder and… strange, quiet rustling.   But again, I’d argue it’s not as immediately  intense, this game’s a little more reserved   about creating auditory stress. And,  there’s an interesting shared sound   effect between it and FNaF2. This is actually  an example of de-intensifying a sound.   So, back in FNaF2 we have one animatronic, Balloon  Boy, who will eventually try to get into your   office to sap your flashlight power. Pretty sure  we’re safe for right now, but when he does move,   it comes with little utterances like these: [Balloon Boy voice]   And that’s really off-putting initially,  this human voice is suddenly coming from   somewhere. That’s intense enough. Yet go over  to FNaF3, and now these Balloon Boy sounds are   actually in your toolset to help you. You  can play these sounds in a specific room,   and the animatronic you’re warding off,  Springtrap, will be coaxed to go there,   thinking there’s someone in there. It’s one way to  keep Springtrap away from your office. And by all   means, this was just a gamedev decision: it’s  easier to reuse sounds from a previous title.   But, by recontextualizing them, these sounds are  now no longer intense, they are positive feedback   for your actions, and we now know exactly where  this sound is coming from and why. Now it would be   more intense not to hear them when you press this  button, isn’t it funny how it works like that.   [sound of button failing] Ohh dear,   uhh, while I reboot this, let’s move on to: FNaF 4: Food Tastes Stronger When You’re Hungry Strange subtitle, I know, but in the  same way that taste is intensified   when we perceive a lack of food, hearing gets  intensified when we perceive a lack of sound.   FNaF4 takes place in a child’s bedroom at  night, and while it’s never silent in there,   it is remarkably quieter than the previous  games in the series. There’s a fan in this room,   but unlike the previous games, it isn’t running.  You just have some low, ominous droning,   some grandfather clock chimes in the distance, and  the sound you’re told to listen for: breathing. Yes, if you hear breathing when you check a door,  you are to close it to stop the animatronic from   attacking you right there. But breathing  is quiet. The breathing that indicates an   animatronic is inches away rises only a little  above the ambient noise of your room. And so,   in a playthrough of FNaF4, you have to parse  sounds very granularly. Your ear is searching   for small differences in volume, which makes  any difference in volume become more intense.   And, might I add, that’s only when you’re checking  the doors: in other parts of the room there are   different, non-audial mechanisms for warding off  animatronics. Not to mention this setting has   some of the lowest light so far in the series,  so you clamor for visual information as well.   In my previous video about Five Nights  at Freddy’s, I referred to this as   absence of information, when the player knows  that something’s being withheld from them.   But it’s not exactly withheld information, it’s  just faint information that takes focus to absorb   and corroborate into a plan. And with so many  tasks to juggle, focusing on miniscule sounds   and details is intense, stressful even. [slight noise in the background]   Ooh, I heard that! We should move along, to: FNaF: Sister Location: Narrative Dissonance First of all, this game is a smorgasbord  of everything we’ve talked about so far.   You have weird unknown sounds all over the  place, you have some sounds that would be intense   except that they’re given into your control, and  thus you miss them when they aren’t present; and   you have one environment, the Ballora Gallery, in  which you must traverse a pitch-black room while   listening out for a quiet ballerina music box,  indicating that the animatronic Ballora is nearby.   So, with all that present, I wanted to touch on  something a little different in this game since   it’s so focused on narrators. FNaF 4 was the first  in the series with no vocal narrator, before that   Scott Cawthon himself was reading voice clips over  the phone in every game. But in Sister Location,   you have two new AI narrators who guide you  through the game, telling you your next tasks   and how to perform them. And perhaps their literal  narration sound experiences some glitches here and   there. But a more postmodern way to intensify  this narration is to add narrative dissonance,   where what is being narrated does not match  what is happening in the story. There’s some   great exchanges where the HandUnit narrator will  have you check for the animatronic Circus Baby   using a light. And even though she isn’t  on her stage, the narrator believes she is,   and events continue. Rather than a specific  sound, it’s language this time that makes you   aware that things aren’t as they seem, and thus  the general arc of the game gets more intense.   There’s later a moment where Circus Baby will  start talking to you, and she will say things   in direct conflict with the previous narrator’s  instructions. Again, when the game raises more   and more unconfirmable questions this way,  the whole experience becomes more intense.   This game was also significant in the series for  having an original soundtrack, rather than using   stock music. And the game’s composer, Leon Riskin,  worked some narrative dissonance into the music.   Most of the time you spend playing has no music,  and some of the most dramatic or plot-heavy   moments will play some deep, moody themes. But  the endpoints of each night are announced by   contrastingly comedic little jingles, with  cheery elevator music at the beginning,   and a theme at the end of a night that  sounds straight out of an 80’s VHS.   This game certainly flares its sense of humor  when there’s room for a break from intensity,   but I find it fascinating that even this humor  can raise more concerns than it satisfies.   There’s one great moment in the game where  the literal sound of this dark comedy suddenly   spikes the moment’s intensity. You’re quietly  making your way through the Ballora Gallery,   your ears are primed to the low noise floor,  attentive for any distant music, when suddenly:   Announcer: "The HandUnit narrator chimes in  at full volume, telling you to hurry up."   Scruffy: It’s not a jumpscare in the traditional  sense, but it is a type of sound intensity that   gets highlighted in the next FNaF title: FNaF Pizzeria Simulator: Player Noise Whew, we can do this. So, after you design your  own pizzeria in this game, you have to survive in   it, performing some menial maintenance tasks like  ordering pizzeria supplies and printing posters,   while any malicious animatronics inside track  you down from the vents on either side of you.   A lot of variables affect your ability to make  it through this, but one thing’s for sure:   you are loud, when you’re trying to be  quiet. It’s kind of flipping the script of FNaF4:   now in addition to listening out for the once  again miniscule sounds and voice clips that alert   you to nearby animatronics, you have to do tasks  like printing, on the world’s noisiest printer,   and keep your office cool using a droning  fan. Or, maybe you had your pizzeria   sponsored by a third-party company, and their  ad blares on your computer all of a sudden.   Those sounds attract animatronics, and make  it more difficult to hear the sounds you’re   really wary for. And even worse, there isn’t  a clock-out time: you can only leave when all   these boisterous tasks are complete. So, this  game especially feels like flirting with death:   it’s further exploiting how we perceive  things when we’re instructed to stay quiet.   Every noise against that quiet state is  intensified, especially the noises that are   our fault, that we can trace to ourselves. So even  a sound that might not usually be that intense,   like appliances humming, starts to  become a stressor in this context.   That’s the thing about sound intensity, it  depends heavily on context, on how our minds   were previously attuned or instructed to perceive  sounds, and how much we know about the source and   the meaning of the sound. But these were some  ways the FNaF series flavored its gameplay   to make less complex scenarios still stressful,  and perhaps to make jumpscares feel like they   top off a tense buildup, rather than come out  of nowhere. And I have no doubt the FNaF devs   and growing community are not done with  cooking up these intense experiences.   But, one last thing to note. There was a point  starting at FNaF4 where the games approached   relying on those quiet sound cues to progress.  It’s plausible to make it through the base games   without listening to sound cues, but some of  the late-game challenges, especially the custom   night in FNaF: Sister Location, become essentially  impossible, or at least, left very well up to luck,   without attentive listening. And that’s a problem  if you don’t have access to sound, such as people   who are deaf or hard of hearing, or even just  people without a speaker or headphone setup.   It’s just worth noting that, when working on a  horror game, with an achievable win condition,   it behooves us to make sure it can be accomplished  without the sound, just as FNaF4 can be   completed without the visuals. And… I think that’s everything,   yeah that’s it, that’s all I have to say, done,  closing time! I’m safe! Whew... I hope this video   gave you some ideas about ways that sound  intensity can work to your advantage if you   make games, or to your horror if you’re placed  in the middle of them. I’d like to thank my   friend Wolfgang and DerEineSchwarzeRabe  for helping out with this script.   I’d also like to thank my patrons on Patreon, who  help make my videos a more sustainable process.   If you’d like to support my work directly  and get perks like your credit here,   seeing videos early, a vote on what music I  arrange, and more behind-the-scenes content,   you can visit my Patreon link in this video’s  description. And with that, I’m Scruffy,   and thank you very much for watching.

Channel: Scruffy

Views: 3,040,497

Keywords: five nights at freddy's, FNAF, what i love

Id: rMkkE0AIuMo

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ColaPepsiMan]

Cool vid bro

[u/memelord5876]

Nice video