Guess That Sound: Video Game Edition

Twenty Thousand Hertz

In a special video game edition of the Guess That Sound competition, producers Grace and Casey host three professional game audio experts—Joanna Fang, Mark Kilborn, and Jeffrey

Key takeaways

• Joanna Fang, Mark Kilborn, and Jeffrey Brice compete across 18 sounds for a possible 54 points using a two-hint system that reduces point value per clue.
• Stardew Valley's ghost sound was created by solo developer Eric Barone (Concerned Ape), who handled programming, composition, and sound design himself.

Main topics

• Video game audio trivia and guessing competition
• Foley recording and real-world sound manipulation

Notable quotes

"You can actually buy cartridges. You can connect to some of these old systems and then play the internal chip using MIDI as if it was a synthesizer."

Conclusion

The episode delivers an entertaining blend of nostalgia and audio engi

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor. Speaker 1 (0:09) Every year on 20,000 Hertz, we do a game show episode called Guess That Sound, where various people compete to guess various mystery sounds. It's always hilarious, and it's so much fun for our team. Today, we have something a little different, a special video game edition of Guess That Sound. These mystery sounds all come from video games, and the guests are three experts who work in game audio. Unfortunately, the stars didn't align, and I wasn't available to join this recording. But our producers Grace and Casey did a fantastic job, and the whole thing is a riot. So get ready to travel down the warp pipe and see how many of these video games sound you can guess. Speaker 5 (0:59) That's not sound. Speaker 2 (1:09) Hello, everyone. We are thrilled and honestly like a little starstruck to have you all with us today. I'm Grace, the producer at our sound agency, DeFacto Sound. I will be your host and also general cheerleader for the game. But just so you all know who each other is, I figured I would just read a brief bio of each of you. First, we have Joanna Fang, who is an Emmy-winning Foley artist and sound editor at Sony. A few of her game credits include Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Forbidden West. Hi. Then we have Mark Kilburn, who is the senior interactive sound designer at Skywalker Sound. Mark has worked on multiple Call of Duty games, Forza, Motorsport, Singularity, and many others. Speaker 3 (1:56) Hello. Speaker 2 (1:57) And finally, we have sound designer and composer Jeffrey Bryce. He's worked on Disney Wish, Uncharted Adventure, Medal of Honor, Above and Beyond, and Blade Runner 2049 Memory Lab. Hello. Speaker 6 (2:08) And Speaker 2 (2:08) with that, I will pass it over to our wonderful supervising producer, Casey, to say hello and explain the rules. Thank Speaker 5 (2:16) you, Grace. And hello, everyone. We're very happy to have you here. All right, so the game is fairly simple. Each sound will have a possible score of three points, and we have two hints prepared for each sound that you can ask us to read at any time. So hint one will be the game's release year and the original platform it was released on. Now, many of these games have subsequently come out on many other platforms, but it'll just be what it first came out on. And then hint two is the context in which you hear the sound in the game. So for every hint that we give, the point value for that answer goes down by one. So if the sound plays and you just immediately know what it is, go ahead and shout it out and guess it. If you get it right, you get all three points. If we give one hint, you'll get two points. And if we give two hints, you'll get one point. We have 18 total sounds for a possible total of 54 points. At the end, we'll just add up everyone's scores and declare the winner. So are there any questions about the rules or how it's going to work? Speaker 4 (3:18) Yeah, I have Speaker 5 (3:19) a Speaker 4 (3:19) question. So besides guessing the title of the game, do we have to be very specific about what action it is or what descriptive of the sound and how it's used in the game? Speaker 5 (3:28) That is a good question. I mean, I think it would be great if you do know where in the game it happens. But if someone guesses the game right, but no one knows the exact, you know... mechanism in the game that causes that sound, we'll still definitely award points. Or if one person knows the game and then another person knows the specific sound, maybe we could do some negotiating and do some partial points or something. So we're certainly open to negotiation. Speaker 2 (3:55) Yeah, as listeners might remember from previous episodes, I'm very suggestible. And so if pitched properly, I will happily award. So Speaker 3 (4:05) you're Speaker 2 (4:05) saying Speaker 3 (4:05) there's a chance. Exactly. Speaker 2 (4:07) Great question, though. Speaker 6 (4:10) I am fully expecting Mark to just blow Joanna and me out of the water. Speaker 4 (4:13) I'm Speaker 2 (4:14) fully expecting Speaker 4 (4:14) you to blow me and Mark out of the water. Speaker 3 (4:17) I'm fully expecting to get fired for my lack of game sound knowledge. Speaker 4 (4:23) That's a very real fear. Very real fear. Oh Speaker 3 (4:25) no. My boss is going to listen to this and be like, you didn't know that sound? Come on, man. I made that sound. Oh, gee, even worse. Speaker 5 (4:34) Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:34) right. Exactly. There will be no negative real-life consequences to this episode. Speaker 5 (4:40) Sound one. Speaker 6 (4:45) Mario Kart 64. Speaker 2 (4:48) That's Speaker 6 (4:48) correct. Speaker 2 (4:49) Incredible. Can I ask if you know which context you would hear the sound in? Speaker 6 (4:54) Yeah. So that's when you roll through an item block. That's the roulette sound. It's deciding what you get. Wow. You Speaker 2 (5:00) got it. Speaker 6 (5:00) I'm still learning everyone's voices. Speaker 5 (5:02) Was that Mark or Jeff? That was Jeff. Speaker 3 (5:04) But I'll take the points. I mean. Speaker 2 (5:09) Well done. Well done. So that indeed was for Mario Kart 64. That is the item box sound. And variations of the sound can be heard in every Mario Kart game. And here is the first item box sound from the original Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo. Speaker 4 (5:34) For a second there, I thought it was like a Nokia cell phone ringtone. I'm not going to lie. Speaker 2 (5:39) Usually Speaker 4 (5:40) when I'm playing Mario Kart, it's while screaming at my partner. You don't hear much else. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 2 (5:48) I'm blinded by my own fury. I can't hear anything. Speaker 5 (5:53) Sound two. Speaker 6 (5:56) Whoa Speaker 4 (6:00) Okay, what is that? Speaker 6 (6:01) I'm feeling arcade, but I'm not sure. That could be an undertale sound, but it's not. It kind of has that vibe, yeah. Speaker 4 (6:09) Yeah, because the quality of the sound effect itself, I mean, I was trying to figure out what year it is. Yeah. No, Speaker 6 (6:15) I Speaker 4 (6:15) mean, it sounds so clean, right? Because if it's from a more retro game, if it's the original sound from the original release of it, then you'd expect to hear a little bit more like artifacting or just some more indicators that it's like an 8-bit sound. Can we play it back one more time? Yeah. Speaker 3 (6:32) Unless they recorded it out of an emulator, which would make it sound a lot cleaner than it should be. I'm probably overthinking it. Speaker 4 (6:39) Yeah, Speaker 3 (6:40) yeah. Speaker 4 (6:40) Mark, let's focus on this part of the sound quiz. Speaker 3 (6:44) What Speaker 2 (6:44) was your signal path? This is great. And don't forget, too, you're more than welcome to ask for hints. Speaker 4 (6:52) Mark, Jeff, are we ready for us to take a lifeline on this? Speaker 3 (6:56) Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm not going to get this without a hint. Speaker 2 (6:59) All right. So this was first released on Steam for PC in 2016. So Speaker 6 (7:05) it's not Undertale because that was 2015. Speaker 2 (7:07) Wow. I'm so impressed. Speaker 4 (7:09) Wow. Speaker 2 (7:10) The details. Speaker 6 (7:13) I wonder if it's an RPG of some kind. Speaker 4 (7:17) Oh, let's think. What came out in 2016? It almost sounds like a Speaker 3 (7:21) ghost sound. Like a... Yeah. Speaker 4 (7:24) I Speaker 3 (7:24) don't know if... I don't know if I'm on the right track at all, but it kind of has that vibe. Speaker 2 (7:27) I think, okay, we are so there. We're so close. Can we think of the name of the game? Speaker 6 (7:36) Ghost 2016. It's not Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, is it? Speaker 2 (7:41) It is not, Speaker 4 (7:42) but I really want to Speaker 2 (7:43) know what that game is. Speaker 4 (7:44) Your superior knowledge of indie games is now of detriment. I'm mired in references here. There are so many games with ghosts. Speaker 4 (7:57) It wouldn't be Among Us. No, that came out much later. Speaker 2 (8:02) I'll say the game isn't about ghosts explicitly. They're just a feature, if that helps. Speaker 4 (8:08) And I Speaker 2 (8:10) can give hint two, if that would help too. Speaker 6 (8:13) I'll take it. Speaker 3 (8:14) Yeah, let's Speaker 2 (8:15) do it. You might encounter this sound while mining. Speaker 3 (8:19) Minecraft. Speaker 6 (8:20) No. No, it's not Minecraft. That's too late. Terraria? You're right in the right realm. It's farming, farming, farming, farming. It's farming. I can't Speaker 5 (8:33) think of the game. I'm seeing the Speaker 6 (8:34) picture Speaker 3 (8:34) in my mind and I can't think of the name. Stardew Valley. Speaker 2 (8:39) Yes. There we go. Speaker 3 (8:41) Wow. Amazing. Speaker 2 (8:43) Amazing. Amazing. All right. We got there. We got there. Fantastic work. So yes, this was indeed the sound of ghosts that you encounter in the minds of the game Stardew Valley. This cozy farm simulator was the solo passion project of creator Eric Barone, also known as Concerned Ape. He was the game's developer, programmer, composer, and sound designer. And we have a little clip of the charming Stardew Valley Overture for you that we'll play now. Speaker 2 (9:24) This makes me want to go sit in my garden. I Speaker 3 (9:27) feel calmed down now. It's very good. Yeah, I needed that. Speaker 4 (9:30) I needed that after fumbling the question. Speaker 6 (9:34) I had the name of that game locked behind a big door in my mind palace, and I got every part of the key put together except for the name. Speaker 5 (9:44) Sound three. Speaker 6 (9:49) Oh, Speaker 4 (9:49) it was Speaker 5 (9:50) a Speaker 4 (9:50) crash bandicoot. No Speaker 6 (9:51) donkey Speaker 4 (9:52) Kong. No, but good guesses. Well, we don't get marked off if we just start throwing out video games, right? Nope. There's no, Speaker 2 (9:59) sorry. There's no consequences. Speaker 3 (10:01) Banjo Kazooie. Speaker 2 (10:03) Nope. But good guess. Not Speaker 3 (10:05) a hat in time. Conker's bad fur day. Gosh, it feels like a rare software thing. Can you Speaker 4 (10:11) play it Speaker 3 (10:11) again? Speaker 4 (10:11) Yeah. Speaker 4 (10:14) It's got such a nice world music sound to it. That's why I went for Donkey Kong first. Yeah. One of the N64 ones. But no, it sounds really clean. It's newer than that, yeah. Speaker 6 (10:24) Yeah. Because the other thing, this could also just be a RuneScape sound effect. Speaker 4 (10:29) I mean, it sounds really clean. Yeah. And it sounds like, I feel like this is some sort of... like a UI element or something. I'm trying to think of how you'd use this sound. Speaker 3 (10:37) Like a quest complete. You've collected something. Or that. Speaker 4 (10:40) Quest complete, yeah. This is definitely a Speaker 6 (10:42) collection sound in my mind. Collection seems like a good way to go. Speaker 2 (10:47) Do we want hint one or do we want to puzzle through a little more? I think we could puzzle through a little more because Speaker 4 (10:53) there's so many things it can be, right? Because like the world music part of it lends itself to like almost like an exoticism to it, right? I don't know, part of me is almost like, is it like Uncharted? Is it like a game that's riffing off of like platformers from that era? Or is it actually just from a platformer? But I could just be wholly wrong. Donkey Kong Bonanza. Speaker 2 (11:12) No, but I love where your head is at. Oh Speaker 4 (11:15) yeah, also, that's another important question. So if we get the franchise right, then we have to kind of whittle down to which one, right? Is that part of the game as well? Speaker 2 (11:23) Yeah, yeah. Well, we can at least let you know that you're on the right track. Tropical Freeze? Just to help guide. But yeah, exactly. Speaker 3 (11:30) Returns HD. I'm just going to start naming Dr. Tanya. I would say if you say the correct Speaker 5 (11:36) franchise, we will identify that it is the correct franchise. So far, the franchise has not been said so far. Yes, exactly. Speaker 2 (11:43) But Speaker 5 (11:44) it is a Speaker 6 (11:44) franchise. Yes. Speaker 2 (11:48) Is this Speaker 6 (11:49) Breath of the Wild? Speaker 2 (11:51) Yes. Okay. Can you tell us where you would hear this sound in Breath of the Wild? Speaker 6 (11:57) I'm not remembering exactly. I think this is when you get a Korok seed. Speaker 2 (12:00) Oh, my God. You got it. That's Speaker 6 (12:03) it. Wow. Nicely done. Let's go. Speaker 2 (12:06) I Speaker 6 (12:06) would not have got there had he not said it wasn't a franchise. Speaker 3 (12:09) I just want to be clear. My wife is going to yell at me when she listens to this podcast because. Speaker 2 (12:14) A lot of people will. Speaker 3 (12:15) We both spent so many hours in that game and she's going to be like, you doofus. How did you not guess that? The whole Speaker 2 (12:21) PlayStation sound Speaker 3 (12:22) team Speaker 6 (12:22) is going to be shouting at me at the end of this episode. Speaker 4 (12:24) I swear Speaker 6 (12:24) to goodness. You know what it is about that sound? It's got that like almost marimba-like quality that you hear in like Animal Crossing and stuff like that. Yeah. It's very musical, but it's actually an action happening. Speaker