A phrase often used when writing about the human ability to become immersed in fantasy is “the willing suspension of disbelief” which Samuel Taylor Coleridge first coined in the early 19th Century as an argument for the fantastical in prosody and poetry. What is a computer game? At base, it is nothing more than a cheap plastic disc encased within a cheaper plastic tray. And the system it is destined for? A box of electronics, lifeless in a corner. Put the two together, though, throw in the player's imagination and interaction and he or she is delivered of experiences that, to use Diderot's phrase, are “the strongest magic of art”. Disbelief is suspended willingly, sense and rationality recede, and the player becomes engaged with, engrossed in, and, given the appropriate game, immersed in a virtual world of flickering light and alluring sound where the fantastical becomes the norm and the mythic reality.

For the reader interested in that flickering light, there is a plethora of books and scholarly articles on the subject. For the reader interested in the ins and outs of music and sound software, how to rig a microphone to record sound, and how to transfer that sound to a game environment, there likewise is a wealth of handy resources. For the reader truly interested in understanding or harnessing the power of sound in that virtual world, in emulating reality or the creation of other realities, in engaging, engrossing and immersing the player through sound and emotion, there is this book.

This is a book that deals with computer game sound in a variety of forms and from a variety of viewpoints. Sound FX, rather than game music is the topic, other than where the music is interactive or otherwise intimately bound up with the playing of the game. Such sound FX may be used to emulate acoustic environments of the real world while others deliberately set out to create alternate realities, some are based upon the use of audio samples whilst others are starting to make use of procedural synthesis and audio processing, some sound works hand-in-hand with image and game action to immerse the game player in the gameworld while interactive music in other cases is the sole raison d’être of the game. From the simplest of puzzle games to the most detailed and convoluted of gameworlds, sound is the indicator par excellence of player engagement and interaction with the structures of the game and the rules of play.