ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a range of perspectives on the function of game sound in gameworld soundscape design and innovative approaches to composing, listening to, connecting with, and playing digital sonic environments in games. It outlines some of the genre conventions of soundscape design of game sound as it pertains to worldbuilding, how sonic environments shape players’ perceptions and engagement, and the ways players listen to sonic environments and sense the gameworlds they are immersed in through gameplay. Players listen to a range of sounds and musics, often simultaneously, that comprise the game sound of a game. When the player listens in games, they are not only listening to the extradiegetic soundtrack that plays in the background of a level, location, or region of a game. The underwater level waltz in Super Mario Bros is more than just a musical trope that establishes location; it is also a representation of Mario’s movements in water made audible.
