Sable
This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series.
Sable, which was nominated for Excellence in Audio at the 2022 IGF Awards, takes players to a sprawling desert world to help the title character with a rite of passage. As they explore this world of ruined spaceships and blowing sands, their hoverbike will be their constant companion and travel aid.
Game Developer sat down with Creative Director Gregorios Kythreotis and Sound Designer Martin Kvale to talk about how they breathe life into the environments using sound and music, how they used audio to make the hoverbike feel more like a living companion on the journey, and the emotional power you can bring to an action through careful attention to the sounds that accompany it.
What's your background in making games?
Kythreotis: I’ve always worked at Shedworks, working on a variety of smaller mobile project prior to Sable, but I studied Architecture at university and that informs a lot of my approach to game making and design
How did you come up with the concept for Sable?
Kythreotis: The idea appeared after seeing The Force Awakens, particularly the opening of the film where Rey is scavenging giant fallen ships and thinking ‘What if you never left that planet? What if you weren’t the hero?" The rest of the concept developed from there.
What development tools were used to build your game?
Kythreotis: We developed the game in Unity, and we used a variety of other software such as Inky, Maya, Blender, Photoshop, Procreate, and FMOD to generate assets that went into the project.
What thoughts went into creating the soundscape for the desert world of Sable? Into breathing life into it through audio effects?
Kythreotis: The soundscape needed to work as a complement to player
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