Peggle’s addictive sonic ingredient
I’ve been playing a fair amount of Peggle lately now that PopCap’s version of Plinko on steriods via Lisa Frank has been released on Xbox Live Arcade. It’s my first time really playing through the game. I have the iPod version, but the tiny screen isn’t the best vehicle for the game so I didn’t stick with it.
That’s despite Peggle’s well-documented addiction factor — it’s a hardcore wolf in casual sheep’s clothing. (Clive Thompson wrote a nice piece about this last week for Wired.) With a controller in hand and a big screen to let the rainbow colors pop, I’ve been having fun and fully hooked. But there’s another factor at play for me, one that’s very small but interestingly crucial.
It’s the sound. Specifically, the sound the pegs make as the ball lights them up in succession during each turn. Each time a peg is lit, the sound creeps up in pitch just a hair. And when you get a really good bounce, and you string them together for a great turn, the sound becomes music to your ears. Add in the choir-like “baaah” when the ball lands in the bucket (giving you a free ball) and you’ve got a super-satisfying sonic sequence. I’m telling you, ratcheting up those sounds is as gratifying as the number score I get out of a good turn. There’s something about it that connects with my gaming lizard brain and lights up the synapses that control the “aww, yeah” and “just one more go” parts of it.
It’s such a tiny little thing that I almost feel silly writing about it. But it’s definitely there, at least for this player. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it if I hadn’t been listening to a podcast with the game sound turned off. I felt like something was different, missing. It didn’t break anything — it was just kind of like tasting a recipe that didn’t quite have enough of that one ingredient, maybe garlic or cumin. Not a deal-breaker, but it lacked a little something. When I turned the sound back on, there it was.
Bink. Bink. … Bink. Bink. Bink … … Bink, Bink, bink, bin bin bin bi bi bi bi bi … BAAAAH!
I have no idea if the PopCap folks knew just what they were doing when they decided to do this. We talk a lot about highly-technical and realistic sound design in games — the erie groans of Rapture’s walls holding back the sea in Bioshock, the cinema-like mix of Uncharted, the synesthesia of Rez. But great sound design can come in small packages, too; so tiny you might not even notice at first, even while it grabs hold of your subconscious and doesn’t let go.
