Soundwalking and the Aurality of Stardew Valley: An Ethnography of Listening to and Interacting with Environmental Game Audio
First author: GallowayYear: 2020
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the sound culture of the popular indie farming simulator Stardew Valley, and how its game audio reconnects players with nature and ecology, using music and environmental sounds that model ecological principles and facilitate ludic interaction with the materiality of nature. Applying the practice of soundwalking to gameplay revealed the subtle yet significant role of listening in Stardew Valley’s gameplay that is not explicitly stated in the directions for the game. Video games demand that we listen past this implicit assumption and come to understand how the “digital” and “natural” converge in productive ways to reframe and extend public discourse surrounding the environment. Stardew Valley and other environmental games take places seriously in their rendering of environments, but also in their detailed weather conditions and the interactions among human and nonhuman-organic and inorganic actors. Games have a growing influence on culture and can be used as tools to inject positive messages and modes of being-in-the-world.Details
Language: EnglishCountry of affiliation: United States
Published in: Music in the Role-Playing Game: Heroes & Harmonies
Publication type: Book chapter
Source: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351253208
Games
No Results
Franchises
No Records
Studies
Description: Autoethnographic analysis, based on thick description of gameplay fieldwork
Research type: Non-experimental
Data type: Qualitative
Comparator: none
Control group: no
Pilot study: no
Pre/post measures used: no
Follow-up: no
Sample type: Game(s)
Sample size: 1
Power analysis: no
Sample countries: null
Games studied: Stardew Valley
Franchises studied: null
Study outcomes: Representing nature