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Game Product Management

Sound Design for Game Designers: Growing into a Designer Who Leads Audio Quality

Working as a game designer, there are often moments when you feel lost, not knowing how to plan sound or how to collaborate with the audio team. In particular, questions like "What makes good sound?", "Why does my game lack impact?", and "Why don't scene transitions/UI/combat/ambient sounds connect into a cohesive experience?" are among the most challenging areas for designers with limited experience. This course is designed for designers with these concerns, explaining the principles of sound design in a designer's language and helping you understand step-by-step, aligned with actual workflow, what role sound plays in games and how it should be designed. Focusing on core concepts and real-world examples that make up game sound— such as sound direction, impact feel, feedback, layering, ducking, and trigger design— this course explains things concretely and practically so that even beginner designers without audio expertise can easily understand and immediately apply them to their work. After taking this course, you won't be a designer who relies on vague intuition saying "just do it like this," but rather one who understands various game sound techniques and can proactively lead audio quality.

12 learners are taking this course

Level Beginner

Course period Unlimited

  • machinetutor
Game Planning
Game Planning
Content Planning
Content Planning
game-development
game-development
sound
sound
game-introduction
game-introduction
Game Planning
Game Planning
Content Planning
Content Planning
game-development
game-development
sound
sound
game-introduction
game-introduction

What you will gain after the course

  • You can design a sound structure that integrates various sounds such as UI, combat, environment, and scene transitions into a single experience.

  • I can understand sound techniques used in actual games such as SFX layering, ducking, polyphony, and spatial audio, and can clearly express them in design documents.

  • You will understand the purpose and functions of audio middleware (Wwise/FMOD) and be able to conceptually explain how to design sound triggers and parameters.

  • You will be able to write a basic sound design document yourself to use during the prototype stage.

  • You will develop the ability to systematically communicate necessary requirements when collaborating with the audio team.

Are you just writing "Please make cool sounds" in your design documents?

Sound determines a game's impact and immersion, and the more specifically a planner designs it, the more the game's quality improves. But without audio knowledge, you've been at a loss for how to request it, right?

It's okay if you don't know anything about sound. This course is a process that explains the core principles of sound design in the language of planners. You can start from here.

From impact feel, UI response, and environmental sounds to slightly unfamiliar terms like ducking, layering, and trigger design.
We'll go through one by one the key elements that make up game sound, what role they play in actual games, and how they should be designed.

The sound design theory and real-world examples covered in this course will be knowledge you can immediately apply regardless of genre, whether it's action, RPG, soulslike, mobile games, or others.

Now become a game designer who communicates with the audio team using clear concepts and terminology, rather than vague expressions.

Here's what you'll learn

Section 1. Understanding the Basics of Game Sound Design

In games, sound is not simply 'something heard' but a 'signal' that provides information to players.
How do unconscious sounds that play in the background differ from conscious sounds that alert danger? From a planner's perspective, we define the role and structure of sound and build a foundation for logically explaining "Why is this sound necessary?" Additionally, through failure cases and the overall production pipeline, we first understand the big picture of development.


Section 2. Essential Sound Terms and Concepts for Game Designers

No more vague expressions like "You know.. that grand feeling?"
We'll clearly cover essential concepts that planners must know, such as Diegetic, Non-linearity, and 3D Audio. You'll understand that sound isn't just a simple sound effect file, but operates as a 'system' responsible for the game's sense of space and immersion.


Section 3. Sound Direction Techniques that Bring Game Mechanics to Life

How is the impact of combat and the satisfying feedback when pressing buttons created?
You'll learn production strategies that maximize gameplay fun, such as Adaptive Music that changes according to situations, and sound effect design methods that don't get tiresome even after hundreds of listens. We'll also clearly define what role sound middleware like Wwise or FMOD plays and how much a planner needs to know.


Section 4. Detail and Atmosphere: Creating an Immersive Experience

The difference between an ordinary game and a high-quality game lies in the 'details'.
Learn how technical elements like layering, which creates texture by overlapping sounds, and occlusion, which makes sounds muffled behind walls, enhance the realism of games. Discover the principle and application of how sometimes 'silence' and 'contrast' can be more powerful directing tools than flashy sounds.


Section 5. Practical Workflow: From Planning Document to QA

This is the final stage of implementing your ideas into an actual game.
Learn about mixing priorities that determine which sounds should be heard more prominently, optimization considering mobile/PC environments, and even the easily overlooked sound QA checklist—covering the A to Z of practical work. Above all, become the best collaboration partner through clear planning request writing methods that the audio team will acknowledge as "easy to work with."

We recommend this for

  • "Sound design documents... where do I even start?" Junior planners with 1-3 years of experience who feel lost

  • "Just make it... more epic." For those who struggle to find the right words when giving feedback to the audio team

  • "Why does it feel so weak when I hit?" For those who've been hurt by feedback that combat and sound effects feel disconnected

  • "Ducking? Layering?" A planner who feels small at every meeting because they don't know the terminology

  • "The game is fun, but the sound..." Indie developers worried that their game's appeal is diminished due to sound quality

After taking this course, you will see these changes

  • With 'Logic', Not 'Intuition': Instead of vague feelings, you'll design sound with systematic structure and principles.

  • A Clear Analytical Eye: You'll develop solid 'criteria' to explain why a sound works well or feels awkward.

  • Master Professional Terminology: Enhance your details by using technical terms like ducking, layering, and priority in the right context.

  • A Beloved Collaboration Partner: You'll write clear proposals that make audio teams and developers exclaim, "This is so easy to work with!"

  • From start to finish: You'll gain practical skills to lead the entire flow of sound direction, from prototype to launch.

Features of This Course

All lecture slides are provided as PDF files.

The slides used in the lectures are provided as PDF materials for review.
With these materials, you can take notes directly on the PDF or print them out for note-taking,
and refer to them anytime when designing your own projects or portfolio.

Clear explanations using AI voice and condensed progression enable efficient learning.

Like my other courses, this course was also recorded using AI voice. Using the latest AI models, the course content is delivered with accurate pronunciation and natural explanations that rival professional voice actors.

All lectures were recorded and edited using pre-prepared lecture scripts, and as a result, you will experience the most condensed lectures without a single second of wasted time.

Additionally, thanks to the AI's accurate pronunciation, nearly 100% accurate automatic subtitles are generated. Therefore, improved delivery of lecture content is now possible for those who listen to classes with subtitles enabled.

And I've added slight variations to the AI voice for each lecture. Therefore, you can listen without getting bored, as if each lecture is being explained by a different instructor.

Points to Note Before Enrollment

Learning Materials

  • For all lectures, we provide PDF versions of the slides used during recording. You can download and use them freely.

Prerequisites and Important Notes

No special technical prerequisites are required to take this course.
Even without programming or audio tool experience,
it is structured so you can understand the structure and principles of game sound from a designer's perspective.

However, if you come with knowledge of the following, you'll be able to follow the course more easily.

  • Experience playing games across various genres such as action, RPG, and adventure
    (This helps in intuitively understanding the role of hit impact, UI feedback, and environmental sound)

  • Basic game design terminology
    (feedback, balance, state changes, system flow, etc.)

Recommended for
these people

Who is this course right for?

  • A junior game designer who is struggling because they don't know how to plan game sound in their ongoing project

  • A planner who feels frustrated when collaborating with the audio team because they don't know what to request or how to request it beyond just saying 'please make it sound good'

  • A game designer who frequently receives feedback that the UI, combat, and environmental sounds feel disconnected from each other, resulting in a lack of immersion in the game

  • A non-programmer designer who finds the concept of audio middleware (Wwise/FMOD) difficult to understand

  • Indie/solo developers who need to create basic sound design during the prototype stage but don't know where to start

Need to know before starting?

  • This course is designed so that even beginner game designers without specialized sound knowledge can take it, so no prior knowledge is required.

  • However, it would be good if you have general gameplay experience with action, RPG, adventure games, etc., and know basic game design terminology.

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I am an active developer with extensive practical experience in game development. I have participated in developing commercial games across various platforms, including PC, online, mobile, console, and VR. My lectures are produced using AI voices. That is why I am Machine Tutor.

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20 lectures ∙ (1hr 15min)

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