Guess That Sound: Video Game Edition

Casey (0:00)

You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

Dallas Taylor (0:04)

I'm Dallas Taylor.

Every year on Twenty Thousand 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 game sounds you can guess.

Guess That Sound!

Grace (1:10)

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, De facto 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.

Jeffrey Brice (1:56)

Hello.

Grace (1:57)

Finally, we have sound designer and composer Jeffrey Brice. He's worked on Disney Wish, Uncharted Adventure, Medal of Honor Above and Beyond, and Blade Runner 2049 Memory Lab. Hello.

With that, I will pass it over to our wonderful supervising producer, Casey, to say hello and explain the rules.

Casey (2:16)

Thank you, Grace, and hello, everyone. We're very happy to have you here.

All right. 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. 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. Then hit two is the context in which you hear the sound in the game. For every hint that we give, the point value for that answer goes down by one. 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?

Joanna Fang (3:19)

Yeah, I have a 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?

Casey (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 like 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.

Grace (3:56)

Yeah, as listeners might remember from previous episodes, I'm very suggestible.

SPEAKER_8 (4:00)

And so if if pitched properly, I will happily award.

Jeffrey Brice (4:05)

You're saying there's a chance.

SPEAKER_8 (4:06)

Exactly. Exactly.

Grace (4:08)

Great question, though.

Mark Kilborn (4:10)

I am fully expecting Mark to just blow Joanna and me out of the water.

Joanna Fang (4:14)

I'm fully expecting you to blow me and Mark out of the water.

Jeffrey Brice (4:17)

I'm fully expecting to get fired for my lack of game sound knowledge.

Joanna Fang (4:23)

That's a very real, very real fear. Oh, no.

Jeffrey Brice (4:26)

My boss is going to listen to this and be like, you didn't know that sound? Come on, man.

Casey (4:30)

I made that sound.

Jeffrey Brice (4:32)

Oh, even worse.