Mix Analysis 10 - Psychonauts

Psychonauts gameplay

Made by Double Fine Studios

Video used:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axw8rTXoKUo

Scene 1- Razputin (aka Raz; the main character) enters Sasha Nein’s (the instructor) lab

0:00-1:00

Time SFX 1 SFX 2 Music Ambiance Dialogue

0:00 Button insertion Whirls Light, bouncy Forest

0:03 Mechanical clicks door unlocked

0:05 small rotor to open hatch

0:07 Raz laughs

0:09 foley for footsteps

0:14 no music. Computers/lab equipment/inside Raz

0:17 Ambiance gets louder

0:19 Foley of foot on metal

0:21 Bounce sound for double jump

0:22 Grabbing ledge, shufflig on ledge

0:25 Landing on metal, getting card sparkle

0:26 Raz grunts while jumping, another jump bounce sfx

0:29 more foley on metal and bounces

0:33 bloop of text announcement Raz talking

0:35 another bloop, more foley of footsteps on metal

0:41 Scene with Raz and Sasha

0:54 machine lowering, whirring of gears and machinery

1:00 Light music kicks in Raz

Scene 2, Razputin enters his own brain in the brain tumbler experiment

2:17-3:13

Time SFX 1 SFX 2 Music Ambiance Dialogue

2:17 Ominous, mysterious

2:19 Raz and Sasha

2:45 blowing of bubbles, safe prancing around Low, atmospheric

2:48 Mysterious music resumes

2:50 quick chimes of grabbing collectible TV static, radio disruption

2:58 Raz and Sasha

3:04 Creature still sings Static stops

3:08 Foley of foot on soft ground

3:10 Small Raz and Sasha snippet

3:23 music gets louder when Raz breaks free

Supervising Sound Editor and sound rerecording engineer: Bay Area Sound

Also worked on: The Secret of Monkey Island, eSurance commercials

Psychonauts is an adventure game that came out in 2005 and follows the story of a young man who runs away from home to join a summer camp that trains young psychics to handle their powers and learn to become psychonauts, crime stopping psychic super heroes. It’s a very unique and interesting game where all of the levels are you entering the different minds of other characters and helping them solve their problems from within. In my Guild Wars 2 post and presentation, I touched on the challenges and freedoms that come with working in a fictional setting that incorporated fantasy, in that there are some things that demand realism, such as foley, voices, and ambiance; but there is room for unique and completley made up sounds to have their place, especially when working in the depths of a human brain. The sounds need to sound fictional, since one of the collectibles is a figment of imagination, and what that sounds like to grab is anyone’s guess. Level wise, everything the main character does, from running to talking to hitting and jumping takes the forefront of the audio, everything else around him fades with space. The level for ambiance stays the same for areas you go to. This is also an adventure game, and for the most part isn’t too hectic, so the music is pretty light and atmospheric. When you’re outside in the camp it’s gentle and relaxing, but when you go into a brain it becomes more ominous depending on what’s happening. There are some noticeable level changes which can be distracting from a purist perspective; but overall I think the sound conveys both the mystery of entering a human’s psyche and the saturday morning cartoon quirkiness of the game very well.