Players say that they want to hear the

enemy NPC footsteps from greater distance

even if it sounds unrealistic. However, does
hearing the NCP footsteps from further
away actually help players to accurately
estimate the enemies' distance as those
enemies’ approach?

William Söderberg

Audio Technology, bachelor's level

2022

Luleå University of Technology

Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts
Abstract
This study explored to answer if video game
players could estimate distance to an NPC
walking towards them based on the footsteps
sounds of the NPC using amplitude attenuation.
The reason was to create a framework or a
recommendation for sound designer to work
with when implementing footsteps sounds in a
game where distance estimations are of
importance. A listening test was conducted
using Unreal Engine 4.26 (Epic Games, 2022)
where 18 participants completed the test. The
participants played through 4 courses to
complete the test. The courses were:
walkthrough of training, walkthrough of main
study test, training, and main study. They were
asked to estimate the distances to invisible
NPCs in full meters. After the test, a
questionnaire including demographical data
was answered by the participants. The results
were then analyzed. The results showed no
statistical significance. The results show that,
by only using amplitude attenuation and
disregarding reverb and occlusion, which is
frequently used when sound designing footsteps
sounds in video games does not give sufficient
information to accurately estimate distance to
footsteps cues of an NPC.

0
Table of contents
Abstract .................................................................. 0
Table of contents .................................................... 1
1 Background ......................................................... 2
1.1 Introduction ................................................. 2
1.2 Sound and performance in games ................ 2
1.3 How sound informs...................................... 3
1.4 Diegesis and non-diegesis ............................ 3
1.5 Unreal Engine .............................................. 4
1.6 Footsteps as an example .............................. 4
1.7 Performance and Strategy ............................ 5
1.8 Aim and purpose .......................................... 5
1.9 Statement of the Research Question ............ 5
2 Methodology ....................................................... 5
2.1 Resources ..................................................... 5
Software ........................................................ 5
Hardware ....................................................... 5
2.2 Game level courses ...................................... 5
2.3 Sounds and implementation ......................... 6
2.4 Pre-study ...................................................... 7
2.5 Pre-study results........................................... 8
2.6 Main study ................................................... 9
2.7 Questionnaire ............................................. 10
Questionnaire questions .............................. 10
2.8 Informal observations ................................ 10
2.9 Data analysis .............................................. 10
2.10 Statistical Hypothesis............................... 10
2.11 Demographic data analysis ...................... 10
2.12 Test results corelated to the demographic 11
3 Results and analysis .......................................... 11
3.1 Results ....................................................... 11
4 Discussion ......................................................... 13
4.1 The results.................................................. 13
4.2 Advice for Sound Designers ...................... 13
4.3 Critique of Method .................................... 14
4.4 Informal Observations ............................... 14
4.5 Future research........................................... 15
4.6 Conclusions ............................................... 15
5 Acknowledgements ........................................... 15
6 Bibliography...................................................... 16

1
1 Background
1.1 Introduction
Sound in video games can have many different
functions and purposes. Music, ambience and
foley all contribute to player experience in some
way. It might be immersion or emotional, for
example. However, sound can also fill an
informative function (Gaver, 1986). When it
comes to informing the player of an action in the
game world, sound can provide information that
is not represented visually on the screen, and it
can help the player keep track of certain objects
and events. Players who are receptive to sonic
information can potentially achieve an
advantage in the game unlike those who do not
utilize the sonic information.
Jackfrags (2020), who is a content creator on
Youtube (YouTube, n.d.) and video game
player. He uses his platform on Youtube to
bring his subjective takes on entertainment and
news for video games. He is an experienced
video game player which can be seen through
his many uploaded videos on Youtube.
“Footstep audio in Call of Duty Warzone has
been a hot topic since the game released with
many players complaining that they simply
can’t hear enemies approaching them and
requesting changes to be made”
“If you are inside a building and want the best
possibility of opportunity to hear enemies
running up to you, smash the windows and open
the doors. It will allow you to hear footsteps
from further away and they will be slightly
louder”
“You have to pay attention to what surface you
are running on and the routes you are taking to
get on top of an enemy without them hearing
you”
jackfrags (2020) did some informal testing
where he subjectively analyzed how soft in
amplitude the footsteps were in the game when
an enemy approach from a distance. He found
that audibility of the footsteps is too quiet in
general and that the players should be able hear
enemies from further away. However, jackfrags
did not conduct a controlled, scientific study.
Sound design research is needed to investigate
if the suggested change in design actually
impacts player performance.
1.2 Sound and performance in games
Ng, Nesbitt & Blackmore (2015) examined if
there was a correlation between sound and
performance in games. They tested both
individual and team-based performance with
and without sound. The test stimuli were the
game Dota 2 (Defense of the ancients 2) Valve
corporation (2009). Ng et al., (2015) describes
“The game pits two teams of five players
against each other in a highly competitive
match. Each player controls a single unique
character called a hero who grows in power
overtime.” (p.167). The goal of the game is to
destroy the enemy´s stronghold and to get there,
the players need to communicate and inform
each other of the game state. There are many
necessary steps to win the game, for example,
killing enemy heroes and structures before the
player is strong enough to defeat the enemy
stronghold.
Ng et al. (2015) conducted a test to find the
relationship between sound and performance.
They recorded a total of 140 comparative
measurements and then analyzed the
performance of the individuals. There were 7
performance measures with 5 players in each
team and a total of 4 teams. They also measured
the 4 different teams in 4 different performance
aspects, which in total sums up to 16 team
measurements. All subjects but one had earlier
experience with or a similar game to Dota 2.
The individual measurements were Hero kills,
Hero levels, Hero deaths, Kill assist, Total gold
earned, Gold per minute and Experience points
per minute. The team-based measurements
were Total gold earned, Total experience points
earned, Hero kills and Hero deaths. To gather
the measurements, the built-in tools in Dota 2
was used and the data was later analyzed. The
players were divided into 2 groups based on
their skill, novice and experts. Players were then
randomized into 4 different teams and practiced
against Dota 2’s AI (artificial intelligence) to
get accustomed to the controls. The 2 novice
groups then played against each other and the
experienced did the same. A total of 4 matches
were played where 2 of the games were sound
was off and the other 2 had sound.
2

Dota 2 is played from a top-down view where
the visuals might not show important
information that the players need to take a more
successful goal-driven action. Pings on the map
to alert teammates of possible danger. Since
Dota 2 is a team-based game, audio cues play a
big role in giving information to the entire team
that might otherwise be missed. Since not all
players share the same screen, visual cues may
not be sufficient in all circumstances to achieve
critical information. Ng et al., (2015) found that
the initial results were mixed. The individual
comparative measurements did show an
increase for 82 of the measurements, 10
measurements showed no difference and 48
decreased in performance. A similar
performance for the team-based comparative
measurements was found. The mixed results
indicated that it might have been caused by the
lack of control during the experiment.
Therefore, did the experiment design need more
work to measure how sound affects
performance. However, a survey was conducted
after the test and most subjects felt their
performance was negatively impacted without
sound.
1.3 How sound informs
Sound has the potential of influencing player
performance by delivering information.
Informative sounds in games are often
necessary to give the player information when
the field of view can´t provide that information.
Therefore, game designers frequently add
sound in addition to the visuals to give
necessary information to the player. However,
this does not always work as intended if the
sounds and visuals are misinterpreted which
might confuse the player more than help. When
multiple senses are engaged to gather
information, it could either help (complement,
where the multiple senses complement each
other to get all the information), disrupt
(conflict, where the multiple senses are
contradictory to each other) and be neutral
(redundant, where the multiple senses are
neither complimenting nor conflicting)
(Collins, 2013).
Kohlrausch and van de Par (via Collins, 2013),
offer a theory of multisensory integration
(multiple senses) that suggests that there´s
important information to be gathered from
multiple senses where one sense doesn’t obtain
all the necessary information. Then also the
different information obtained needs to be put
together to understand what´s being perceived.
MacInnis and Park (via Collins, 2013) calls this
emergent meaning. Murch (via Collins, 2013)
explains, that sound and image are integrated
through what he calls “conceptual resonance”
when the sound and image together create a
specific meaning. If the image changes, the
sound will be interpreted differently and same
for the new image. Therefore, sound and image
are interconnected and analyzing them
separately could possibly alter the emergent
meaning.
Collins (2013) states it´s common to
misinterpret the sound and image in video
games because most games don´t use exact real-
world sounds. Even if though they are designed,
they are designed to enhance believability
(rather than represent realism).
1.4 Diegesis and non-diegesis
Much of the research around sound and games
is revolves around music and sound-based
games for the visually impaired. The function of
sound in video game hasn’t been researched
very much. Ekman (2005) Investigates the role
of sounds and is more focus on diegetic sounds.
From this he constructs a framework between
sound signals and referents. Ekman (2005)
refers to diegetic sounds as something that
belongs in game or story world. If there were a
character in the game, they would be able to
hear the sounds. For example, foley sounds such
as footsteps, guns and vehicles would be
diegetic. The opposite would be non-diegetic
sound which is not a part of the fictional world
such as music and interface sounds. Ekman
(2005) defines one aspect of diegetic sounds
that might be overlooked. Diegetic sounds need
not only to have impact in the game world, for
example, effects such as sneaking. Where
sneaking is a mechanic that allows a player to
not alert guards or other players in a multiplayer
game. Then the interaction between player or
non-playable characters (NPC) creates possible
consequences if ignored.
3
Jørgensen (2006) explains how in Hitman
Contracts different sounds are played to indicate
if the knife has hit or not. A slashing sound is
played when an NPC is hit and if it misses it
plays a whooshing sound. This gives the player
information whether the knife hit or not, thus
making the player need to react to the new
situation. Like Counter-Strike: Global
Offensive (CS: GO) is a first-person shooter,
foley sounds are used as a medium to give
players information about the events in the
game. The game is usually played 5 versus 5
where one team seeks to either plant the bomb
and make it explode by waiting and the other
team is supposed to stop them from planting or
defuse the bomb before the time runs out. Both
teams can win through eliminating the other
team. Most of the I nformative
sounds that give crucial information about the
enemies are through foley sounds like footsteps
and gunshots. There is no music and ambience
in the game, therefore, foley becomes the main
source of auditory information.
1.5 Unreal Engine
Game engines include functionality and options
that constrain how sound can inform in games.
Unreal engine (Epic games, 2022) is one of the
more popular game engines on the market. The
possibility of customization is large, the ability
to make a high-quality game and it’s possible to
make games for different consoles and
computers (Lee, 2016). Therefore, is it a good
representative of how game engines impact
sound design. Sound designers in Unreal
Engine usually works with “sound cues” which
is where sounds are implemented and triggered.
Sound cues can be triggered in several ways.
Animations and event trigger are two of the
options (Lee, 2016). Unreal Engine (Epic
Games, 2022) offers many ways to work with
audio. To control how sound behaves at a
distance relative to the listener/player is
controlled by the “sound attenuation” (Unreal
Engine 4 Documentation, n.d.). One of the
settings in sound attenuation is “attenuation
distance”, which defines how the amplitude will
reduce the further away the listener/player gets.
The options to control in the attenuation
distance are: attenuation function, attenuation
shape, inner radius and falloff distance. The
attenuation function determines at which rate
the amplitude will reduce. Attenuation shape
determines how the sound will propagate in the
virtual world. The inner radius defines at what
distance will the sound reach the maximum
amplitude. The falloff distance defines at what
distance will the sound no longer be audible to
the listener/player.
1.6 Footsteps as an example
Footsteps are a good example of foley sound
that players may want to hear at a distance,
particularly NPC or enemy players, because this
can help respond to threats. Gaver (1986)
explains that there is much information to be
gathered from a sound like weight and size.
Foley artists consider the character before
creating footsteps for them, considering things
such as age and weight but also if the character
is stressed or relaxed. Footsteps could arguably
also give information about the location and the
distance from the source. depending on
reverberation it could also give information
about the surrounding such as a room or a
church. The sound could also possibly give
information about material when the foot falls
on a surface or characters travel.
There has been little research done on how
foley, specifically footstep sounds impact
auditory information gathering. Researchers
have investigated diegetic versus non-diegetic
sounds but not specifically in the category of
foley. Therefore, more research needs to be
done in the field to make informed arguments
on how it impacts the success on goal-driven
tasks. Ekman (2005) explains how sneaking can
create an interactive experience between
players and NPCs. This suggests that footsteps
would be informative in this case and would
impact the game depending on the players
choice.
As described by jackfrags (2020), there are
many factors that is important to determine the
distance of an enemy such as surface, occlusion,
and reverberation. Sound designers does not
always have the same thinking as the player and
could therefore implement the sound design
differently. Since jackfrags mentions that the
audibility of the footsteps is too quiet in Call of
Duty: Warzone (Activision, 2020), probably he
has experienced other video games where this
was not the case. In addition to research, some
recommendation or framework in certain types
4
of gameplay for sound designers when
implementing footsteps could be helpful.
If sound effects were audible at a greater
distance, as jackfrags requests, then it is not just
an issue of when to trigger them, but also the
attenuation. Thus, raising the question of which
factors are of importance. Does natural/realistic
sound attenuation give more accurate
information of distance than consistency in
amplitude? Also, sound propagation may not be
straightforward if there are building or obstacles
in the way because of the potential attenuation
that might alter the amplitude and filtering of
the sounds. All these things may further
complicate whether sounds perceived from a
further distance is desirable and enhance
gameplay.
1.7 Performance and Strategy
Players use this information to play, to
determine how act, defend themselves,
strategize, approach, and stay away from
enemies. It could be that hearing footstep
sounds from further away acts like a perimeter
alert. It could help players keep track of threats.
Alternatively, it could be that players are
estimating the distances of NPCs or enemies.
More research is needed to determine which of
these strategies is in use.
1.8 Aim and purpose
The purpose of the study is to bring light to the
issue of wanting to hear footsteps from a further
distance and to collect data on how players
perceive distance and how it differs from the
actual distance. The aim of the study is to give
sound designers a more knowledgeable
framework using distance attenuation with
footsteps and therefore make more informed
choices when designing.
1.9 Statement of the Research Question
Players say that they want to hear the enemy
NPC footsteps from greater distance even if it
sounds unrealistic. However, does hearing the
NCP footsteps from further away actually help
players to accurately estimate the enemies'
distance as those enemies’ approach?
2 Methodology
To test how players estimate distances to NPCs,
an in-game listening test was created. In the
listening test, participants estimated the
distance of an NPC based on the sound of the
NPC's footsteps only using attenuation distance.
A pre-study was conducted to take decisions
about the design of the test for the main study.
The pre-study involved a listening test and also
the testing of some refinements to the
experimental procedure.
2.1 Resources
Software
Unreal Engine 4.26 (Epic Games, 2020)
Fruity Loops Studio (Image-Line, 2022)
Hardware
PC (Windows, (Microsoft, 2020) operating
system)
Beyerdynamic DT 770
Focusrite Clarett 2Pre USB
Mouse and keyboard
2.2 Game level courses
Both the pre-study and the main experiment
used the same basic game level. Additional
elements were added for the main study, and
these will be detailed below. To create a game
level where participants could estimate the
distance of an NPC from the sound of their
footsteps, the game level was created in the
Unreal Engine 4.26 (Epic Games, 2022). Free
assets from Unreal Engines marketplace were
used for implementation. Footsteps recordings
were obtained from Splice (Splice, 2022).
Fruity Loops Studio (Image-Line, 2022) was
used to edit the footsteps from one wave-file to
16 individual assets for implementation in the
game level. The one game level was designed
with five different courses in it. One of the five
courses was used only in the pre-study. There
was a training course used in both the pre-study
and the main study and the rest were used in the
main study. The requirements needed to
participate was earlier experience with playing
video games on a computer to minimize the risk
of failure while also having at least some
experience with game sound.
The five courses were as follows: walkthrough
of training shown in figure 1, walkthrough of
main study test shown in figure 2, training
shown in figure 3, pre-study test shown in figure
4 and main study test shown in figure 5.
5
Figure 1. Walkthrough of training.
Figure 2. Walkthrough of main study test.
Figure 3. Training.
Figure 4. Pre-study test.
Figure 5. Main study test.
All the courses were of the same size. The only
difference in layout of the courses was that a
grid was added in the walkthrough of the train-
ing and the training course. The metric system
set in Unreal Engine (Epic games, 2022) was
centimeters. 1 Unreal Unit (uu) equaled 1 centi-
meter in the game engine. The size of the
courses was measured to be 73 unreal engine
meters (UEM) long, 38 UEM wide and 5.5
UEM tall. To assure the NPC walked the same
route for every participant, target points was
then added. The NPCs movement was based on
where the target points was located within each
course. Target points can be seen in figure 2 as
round black object to determine where the
NPCs should walk.
2.3 Sounds and implementation
The only sounds present in the game were the
footsteps that the NPC generated. From the
source file, 16 footstep sounds were extracted.
The footsteps sounds were then imported to the
Unreal Engine 4.26 (Epic game, 2022) project
into a blueprint called sound cue, this one
specifically called Footsteps_Cue, which can be
seen in figure 6. All the footstep sounds were
then outputted into a randomizing blueprint
node. The function of the random blueprint
node is to randomize and choose one of the 16
footsteps when the sound cue is being triggered.
6

Figure 6. Sound cue, Footsteps_Cue.
The Footsteps_Cue was triggered by the
animations blueprint. The animation itself plays
for 34 frames before looping, the
Footsteps_Cue was added at frames 7 and 26 to
match the animation footstep to the
Footsteps_Cue as seen in figure 7.
Figure 7. Implementation of Footsteps_Cue to
the animation of the NPC.
To make the footstep sounds of the NPC change
in amplitude based on the distance from the
player, an attenuation setting was needed to
alter the amplitude. The settings used for the
attenuation distance can be seen in tables 1 and
2 below. The inner radius and the fall off
distance was not altered and were the default
settings.
Table 1. Settings of the attenuation used for the
footsteps in the pre-study and main study.
Attenuation distance Value
Attenuation function Logarithmic
Attenuation shape Sphere
Inner radius 400 uu
Fall off distance 3600 uu
Table 2. Setting of the attenuation used for the
footsteps in the pre-study.
Attenuation distance Value
Attenuation function Linear
Attenuation shape Sphere
Inner radius 400 uu
Fall off distance 3600 uu
2.4 Pre-study
The pre-study was conducted to determine two
things needed for the main study. Is a linear or
a logarithmic attenuation function more
accurate when one should estimate distance of
footsteps generated from an NPC? And, how far
away does the Zone of Confidence (ZoC)
stretch? ZoC meaning, how many UEM away
from the player would be close enough that one
could confidently estimate the distance from a
sound source. Within that range, the distance
auditory cues are not really helpful to the player
since the player knows the NPC is very close.
The pre-study also functioned as debugging and
feedback for what to improve for the main
study.
The pre-study included a test and a
questionnaire. Four subjects participated. All
had earlier experiences with critical listening
and playing video games. The test was divided
into two parts, training, and pre-study test. The
purpose of having a training course was for the
participants to familiarize themselves with the
footstep audio and how it sounded in the game.
The pre-study subjects walked around in the
training course and had 1 minute to listen to an
NPC walking around. To give them an even
better grasp of the distance instead of just using
audio alone, subjects could see a grid on the
floor and walls. In this grid one square indicated
one square meter, and this was known to the
participants before the training through the
instructions. After 1 minute had past the NPC
7
would then disappear and the participant then
moved on to the pre-study test through a portal.
When they entered the pre-study test course,
they were no longer able to move around, but
still had the possibility to turn the camera and
look around. There were five hidden sound
sources in the course placed in front of them
from which footsteps would emanate. No NPC
was visible. The distances that were chosen was
3, 6, 9, 15 and 30 UEM. They played the stimuli
with the keyboard buttons 1 to 5 and could
repeat them. Their task was to estimate the
distance between themselves and the sound
source.
Both training and the pre-study test were
repeated twice, and the only thing changed
between the tests was the attenuation function
between linear and logarithmic attenuation.
Two of the four subjects started with linear
attenuation function and the others started with
logarithmic. The headphone volume could be
altered during the training courses but not
during the test. The volume could be adjusted
by a knob on the audio interface.
After the training and test were done, a semi-
structured interview was conducted to gather
information about potential improvements for
the main study.
Questions in the interview were the following:
1. Did you notice any difference between
the two tests?
2. Was the length of the training course
sufficient or should it be longer or
shorter?
3. Was the grid helpful to estimate the
distance to the NPC?
4. What was easy/hard with the test?
5. Could the instructions have been more
effective?
6. Do you have any ideas of how the main
study could improve?
2.5 Pre-study results
The semi-structured interviews gave valuable
information for the main study. All four
participants agreed that having 1 minute of the
training course was sufficient to calibrate to the
NPC footsteps. However, only using a grid on
the floor and walls did not give the participants
good enough representation of how far away the
NPC were. Two of them mentioned that the
further away the NPC was from them, the
blurrier the grid got. Also counting how many
meters away the NPC was when at further
distances got difficult since the NPC moved
during the entire minute and therefore also
removing focus on listening to the footsteps. For
the main study, a “get distance to” node and a
“print string” node was added to get the distance
from the player to the NPC which updated every
millisecond. This was added to give the
participants an easier time to calibrate the
distance during training. This was viewed in the
top left corner of the screen during the training
course.
Figure 8. Implementation to get the distance to
NPC from the player.
The results for estimating distance with either
linear or logarithmic attenuation was observed
by the author and indicated that the logarithmic
attenuation function gave more accurate
information of the distance to the NPC.
Therefore, were the logarithmic attenuation
function chosen for the main study. No
statistical analysis was made for the results,
since there were only four participants.
The participants had a better understanding of
the test the second time they did it, which could
indicate the instructions were not sufficient. The
result of this feedback was to add a walkthrough
of the training and a walkthrough of the test to
give the participant a better understanding of
how the experiment would work.
The walkthroughs were added to minimize the
risk of failure. The differences between the
walkthroughs, training and main study test were
that the walkthrough was silent for the
participants and was supposed to get familiar
8
with the movement and the buttons to activate
the walking of the NPC’s. The NPC’s seen in
the walkthrough of the test were visible while in
the main study test, they were not. In the corner
top left corner of the screen there were an
indication of the distance to the NPC from
themselves in the game which was given in
centimeters.
2.6 Main study
The main study was held in Musikhögskolan in
Piteå, Sweden. The requirements needed to
participate was earlier experience with playing
video games on a computer to minimize the risk
of failure while also having at least some
experience with games sound. In total, 18
subjects participated in the main study.
The four courses were used in the main study
was the: walkthrough of the training,
walkthrough of the test, training, and main
study test. Questions was allowed to be asked
from the participant during the whole
experiment. This was to minimize the risk of
failure. The headphone volume was only
allowed to be changed during the training
course and not during the main study test
course.
The participants began the test with the
walkthrough of the training where they were
free to move around to familiarize themselves
with moving and also learning how the actual
training would function. When they started the
game by pressing the play button, the NPC
started walking to predetermined target points.
After they had understood the how the training
course would function, they would then move
on to the walkthrough of the main study test.
Through a portal seen in figure 1.
When they entered the walkthrough of the
training course, their ability to move around was
disabled to not alter the distance between the
NPCs and themselves. As seen in figure 2, they
would see two NPCs in front of them and by
pressing the keyboard buttons 1 and 2, the NPCs
would then walk to a specific target point in
front of them. When the participants understood
how to activate the walk function of the NPCs,
they would then press the HOME-button on the
keyboard to continue to the training course.
When the HOME-button was pressed, the
participant got teleported to the training course
which also made the NPC in the training course
start walking. The ability to move around was
enabled again. After one minute of walking
around and listening to the footsteps of the
NPC, they would then take another portal to the
main study test which can be seen in figure 3.
When the entered the main study test their
ability to move around was disabled. The
participant’s task was then to activate the
stimuli with the buttons 1 and 2 on the keyboard
to make the invisible NPCs start walking
towards them and then estimate the distance
from themselves to where the invisible NCP
stopped walking. They were asked to answer in
full meters and had the ability to replay the
stimuli as many times as they wanted.
NPC 1 started from 36 UEM away and NPC 2
started from 20 UEM away. The second time
they did the main study test, the target point was
changed. The predetermined target point was 9
and 15 UEM. Half of the participants started
with the target points begin 9 UEM and the
other 15 UEM. When they’ve had completed all
four courses, they would then do the main study
test again but with changes in the target point
for the NPCs. When both variations of the main
study test were completed, they were then asked
to answer a questionnaire, also containing
demographic data.
Complications was observed after the first test
was completed. Some changes were therefore
made during testing. A sentence was added in
the instructions to give more clarification on the
function on the training, this was added after the
first participant completed the experiment.
After the test was completed, the different
stimuli got categorized based on starting and
end position of the stimuli, meaning the UEM
away from the player shown in table 3.
Table 3. Categorization of the tests.
Starting distance End distance
Category from the player from the player
A1 36 UEM 9 UEM
A2 20 UEM 9 UEM
B1 36 UEM 15 UEM
B2 20 UEM 15 UEM
9
2.7 Questionnaire
The main study was held in Swedish and the
questions in the questionnaire have therefore,
been translated to English in the list below.
Questionnaire questions
1. During a time of playing video games,
how many hours in a week do play
video games?
2. Do you have any experience with
game sound design?
3. What program are you studying?
4. What genre of video game do you
prefer?
5. Do you have any additional comments
about the experiment?
2.8 Informal observations
During the test, the experimenter was present to
observe the participants computer screen and to
be available for potential questions. The
observations were done to get a better
understanding of how the participants would
perform during the test.
2.9 Data analysis
For the analysis, both two-tailed one-sample t-
tests and two-tailed paired t-tests were
calculated to measure the results statistical
significance. Two-tailed one-sample t-tests
were calculated for A1, A2, B1 and B2. These
measurements are shown in table 4. Two-tailed
paired t-tests were calculated to measure how
far away each participant was from the target
end point to see if hearing NPC footsteps from
further away improve distance estimation, these
are shown in table 6 and 7. The two-tailed
paired t-tests were calculated for A1-A2 and
B1-B2. For all statistical calculations the
significance level was set to 𝛼 = 0.05. With 18
participants, the degree of freedom is:
𝑑𝑓 = 𝑛 − 1 = 18 − 1 = 17
A t-table (Seb, 2021) showing the critical t-
value was used to measure the studies t-values.
T-values greater than the critical t-value would
discard the null-hypothesis and show statistical
significance.
2.10 Statistical Hypothesis
Two hypothesis is needed for the two t-tests.
The statistical hypothesis (HA1) for the two-
tailed one-sample t-tests states that that there is
a statistically significant difference between the
estimated distance and actual distance in UE4.
The null-hypothesis (HA0) for the two-tailed
one-sample t-tests states that there is no
statistically significant difference between the
estimated distance and the actual distance in
UE4. The hypothesis (HB1) for the two-tailed
paired t-tests states that there will be a
statistically significant difference between the
mean of A1-A2 or B1-B2. The null-hypothesis
(HB0) for the two-tailed paired t-tests states that
there will not be statistically significant
difference between the mean of A1-A2 or B1-
B2.
2.11 Demographic data analysis
The demographic data in figure 9 showed many
participants having no previous experience with
game sound design (GSD). 12 of the
participants did not have any experience with
GSD. 2 had little experience, 1 had moderate
experience and was 1 had much experience
whereas 0 participants were very experienced.
Experience with game sound
design
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Figure 9. The experience with GSD within the
participants.
The distribution of preference of game genre
shows that the participants play a variety of
video games genres. The most frequent was
Role-playing game (RPG) with 6 participants.
10
 that the data is spread from the means of the t-
Preference of game genre tests.
7
6 3 Results and analysis
5
A total of 18 participants completed the
4
3 experiment where 16 studies sound engineering
2 and 2 music related courses. All participants had
1 prior experience with games which was the
0 requirement to participate in the study. Some
answers were not given in full meters, therefore
some answers were then rounded up to the
closest meter.

3.1 Results
Table 4 shows each participant’s results for
each test. The answers are given in meters
Figure 10. Preference of game genre between where the participant estimated the end point for
the participants. each NPC. The right most column shows if the
participant started with test A or B.
Table 4. Distance estimation given in UEM.
Hours played in a week in a
time period of playing video Partici-
Test A1 Test A2 Test B1 Test B2
S=36m S=20m S=36m S=20m Started
games regularly pant E=9m E=9m E=15m E=15m with test
1 2 1 2 1 A
0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 25+ 2 10 10 11 8 B
3 5 2 4 6 A
4 2 2 3 2 B

3 3 5 6 7 8 8 A
6 20 22 22 20 B
1 7 17 14 20 18 A
8 1 4 6 8 B
4 9 3 2 1 3 A
10 1 2 3 5 B
11 3 2 4 3 A
7
12 1 2 6 8 B
13 4 2 3 2 A
14 5 4 7 5 B
Figure 11. Pie chart of hours played in a week 15 4 2 3 3 A
in a time period of playing video games 16 8 9 18 10 B
regularly. 17 5 3 4 3 A
18 25 15 20 5 B
2.12 Test results corelated to the
demographics
The results show a wide range of game genre The distance estimations shown in figure 12
preference with little to no experience for most shows a consistent mean-value. This means that
participants. The hours played in a week in a the distance estimations were similar between
time period of playing regularly shows in figure having a starting point a 36 UEM and 20 UEM,
11 that most participants play between 11 and similarly the results for the end points 15 UEM
15 hours a week. 3 participants did have and 9 UEM. B1 shows a greater spread than the
between 0 and 5 hours played. The standard rest of the test especially compared to B2 which
deviation and variance shown in table 5 shows showed a lower spread. A1 compared to A2
show similar spread and mean value even
though the end point were different. There were

11
5 outliers of the 18 total participants, which also Table 5. Summary of calculations for table 4.
indicates the wide spread of the data. B2
Test A1 A2 B1 B2
showed the lowest spread of the four tests. p-value 0.193 0.037 0.0006 0.000003
Interestingly, the NPC in B2 only walked 5 T-test -1.355 -2.27 -4.204 -6.869
UEM where A2 was the closest in walking Standard 6.958 5.924 7.008 5.216
distance with 11 UEM. Contradictory, B1 did deviation
not walk the furthest and still had the most Variance 48.418 35.088 49.114 27.203
T-critical 2.11
spread data of the four tests. A1 walked the
furthest distance walking 27 UEM. The number 𝜶 0.05

of steps taken by the NPC was:

𝐴1 = 28 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝𝑠 Tables 6 and 7 show the est1imations for each
subject and how many UEM away they were
𝐴2 = 14 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝𝑠 from the correct end points. The difference
column shows how far off they were. It can be
𝐵1 = 22 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝𝑠
seen table 6 that only 1 subject got the correct
𝐵2 = 6 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝𝑠 estimation when the end point was 9 UEM away
from the participant. Looking at both tables 6
and 7, 7 participants was within 3 UEM of the
correct answer.
Table 6. Distance estimation for each subject
and how many UEM away they were from the
correct end point for A1 and A2.
Parti- A1 EST. A1 Diffe- A2 EST. A2 Diffe-
cipant UEM rence UEM rence
1 2 7 1 8
2 10 1 10 1
3 5 4 2 7
4 2 7 2 7
5 6 3 7 2
6 20 11 22 13
7 17 8 14 5
8 1 8 4 5
9 3 6 2 7
10 1 8 2 7
11 3 6 2 7
12 1 8 2 7
13 4 5 2 7
Figure 12. Boxplot of the distance estimations.
14 5 4 4 5
15 4 5 2 7
Table 5 shows 3 of the 4 two-tailed one-sample
16 8 1 9 0
t-tests that statistical significance was found.
17 5 4 3 6
The results indicate that there were difficulties
18 25 16 15 6
estimating distance to NPC footstep sound
when only using amplitude attenuation for 9 and
15 UEM as end points for the t-tests. Since the
t-test are of negative value means that the
estimated distance was shorter than the actual in
UE4. The hypothesis (H1) could then be
accepted for the tests A2, B1 and B2. The null-
hypothesis (H0) could not be discarded for A1.

12
Table 7. Distance estimation for each subject estimated the same distance when the end
and how many UEM away they were from the point of the NPCs was the same. The reason
correct end point for B1 and B2 for the results might have been that when the
sound is rendered by Unreal Engine, for every
Parti- B1 EST. B1 Diffe- B2 EST. B2 Diffe-
cipant UEM rence UEM rence single footstep, the footsteps amplitude was
1 2 13 1 14 not the same. On the other hand, it might also
2 11 4 8 7 indicate that having two different starting
3 4 11 6 9 points and different end points led to two
4 3 12 2 13 difference perceptions. This is plausible since
5 8 7 8 7 the number of footsteps is higher in the NPC
6 22 7 20 5 starting at 36 UEM away from the player than
7 20 5 18 3 20 UEM away. However, no statistical
8 6 9 8 7 significance was found, and the differences are
9 1 14 3 12
small where most participants estimated within
10 3 12 5 10
3 UEM when the NPCs had the same end
11 4 11 3 12
point.
12 6 9 8 7
13 3 12 2 13 4.2 Advice for Sound Designers
14 7 8 5 10 Given that no statistical significance was found
15 3 12 3 12 shows that distance estimation of NPC footsteps
16 18 3 10 5
sounds using amplitude attenuation is difficult.
17 4 11 3 12
Using a logarithmic attenuation function instead
18 20 5 5 10
of linear showed from the pre-study to give
better estimations of distance. This does not
take into account that using a logarithmic
Table 8 shows a small mean difference and a
attenuation has lower amplitude at a further
narrow spread meaning that the further away the
distance than linear attenuation. In a realistic
NPC were did not help to accurately estimate
game scenario, footsteps sounds are not the only
the distance of an NPC.
audio cue present. Music, ambience and other
Table 8. Summary of calculations for table 6 foley sounds are frequently used in FPS games
and 7. that creates the potential for other sounds to
mask the footstep sounds. Thus, raising the
Test A1 and A2 B1 and B2
question if a linear attenuation factor would be
Mean difference 0.278 -0.167
useful in video games where footsteps cues are
p-value 0.544 0.644 of importance and needs to be audible at a
T-test 0.619 -0.47 further distance. Assuming that players of
Standard deviation 2.967 2.093 commercial games are having similar
Variance 8.801 4.382 difficulties, then it is likely that instead of
T-critical 2.11
distance cues, NPC footstep sounds might
function as to give an audio cue alerting the
𝜶 0.05
player of potential danger. As mentioned by
jackfrags (2020), on what surface the footsteps
are walking on can help give information of
4 Discussion enemy’s whereabouts and may therefore be of
4.1 The results more value to get a better understanding of
3 of the 4 two-tailed one sample t-tests showed where enemies are. Other potential reasons why
statistical significance which indicates there the results did not show statistical significance
were estimating distances were difficult and might be that the footstep sounds weren’t
looking at the standard deviation for all the t- realistic. Similarly, the footsteps being
test makes it difficult to claim if any unrealistic would make it difficult to utilize
demographic data gathered had any correlation familiarity to how footsteps sound in the real
with the wide spread of the data points. One world. Also, since the surface was not of a
interesting finding was that few participants familiar material for the participants the sounds

13
might not have been believable for the game
world.
One reason for this study was to give sound
designer a framework or a recommendation to
work with when implementing footstep sounds
in their game. However, looking at the collected
data shows that when only utilizing amplitude
attenuation and disregarding reverb and
occlusion that it is difficult to estimate
distances. Therefore, when implementing
footsteps sound and distance estimations are of
importance, only using amplitude attenuation
does not give sufficient information of distance.
4.3 Critique of Method
The implementation of the footsteps and the
choice of stimuli showed to be problematic after
the main testing was done. The choice of using
16 different footstep sounds may have impacted
how distant the footsteps were estimated,
especially the last step closest to the subject.
Since the timbre and amplitude are not the same
for every footstep the estimation might then
have been difficult because the last footstep
sound the participants heard had a probability of
6.25% chance of repeating as last footstep
sound again. Another solution could have been
to instead use fewer footstep sounds and using
slight pitch modulation to gain better control of
how each footstep might have been perceived.
Pitch modulation changes the timbre of the
footstep sound, but the tradeoff might be losing
ecological validity for sound design techniques
while gaining control. The aim of the research
was to answer how distance is perceived in
video games, therefore the increase in control
could arguably have given more accuracy and
clearer results.
The size of the NPC was mentioned in the
questionnaire answers by two participants. The
distance of the footsteps and the size of the
NPCs did not match for all subjects. Only two
mentioned it but others may have been impacted
too. This incongruency might have made the
training course less effective in terms of helping
the players learn to estimate the distance to the
NPCs. There are a few possible solutions to
decrease the incongruency. Changing the layout
of the courses to a more familiar location where
the players could have used a relative size to a
building or an object for example. The courses
were not placed in a realistic game world
location, which may have impacted the
subject’s judgement. However, this design
choice was made to control the experiment and
avoid potential distractions. In hindsight,
implementing a realistic game world location
could have also helped the player with the
relative size of the NPC. Another solution to the
incongruency could have been to alter the
amplitude of the footstep sounds differently.
The footsteps stimuli was subjectively
evaluated by the author and adjusted manually
to sound like a believable implementation. This
was to assure that there was no footstep sound
that was too loud or too soft. Normalizing the
sounds or making sure that every sound was in
close amplitude proximity would have arguably
increased the control and also lessened the
impact of the randomization of which footstep
sound played in each time they activated the
stimuli.
During the tests, participants often asked
questions. This would imply that the
instructions given to them, or the walkthroughs
of training and main study test did not give
sufficient information to complete their given
task. The pre-study gave results on how long
time the player should be given in the training
course which was 1 minute in total before the
NPC would disappear. An increase in time
would arguably have given closer estimations to
where the NPCs in main study test stopped, but
that would have also increased the potential
time it would take for each participant to
complete the experiment, introducing the risk of
fatigue. The participants in the pre-study also
mentioned that the instructions were confusing
during the first test and became easier the
second time due to gaining experience with the
test and a better understanding of the task. This
was the reason to implement the walkthrough of
training and walkthrough of main study. If the
instructions and walkthrough would have given
sufficient information about the task, then the
estimation of distance could arguably have been
more accurate.
4.4 Informal Observations
The experimenter was present in the room
during the testing. The informal observations
made by the experimenter during testing found
that a few participants looked at the instructions
14
after the walkthrough of training and
walkthrough of the main study test. The purpose
of adding the walkthroughs was to maximize
the attention of the participant to their given
task. Since the participants got 1 minute of
walking around and listening to the NPC
walking in the training course, some
participants therefore used less time focusing on
familiarizing themselves with the footsteps
sounds. Taking into account that the results
showed a wide spread in standard deviation, the
instructions and the methodology were arguably
confusing for the participants. Another
possibility that might have occurred is the
observer effect since the author was present in
the same room during the tests.
NPCs in full meters. The results show that, by
only using amplitude attenuation and
disregarding reverb and occlusion, which is
frequently used when sound designing footsteps
sounds in video games does not give sufficient
information to accurately estimate distance to
footsteps cues of an NPC.
5 Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Nyssim Lefford
for supervising the study with ideas and to
answer many questions during the process.
Thanks to Adam Alvin, Eddie Lundin, David
Baker and Axel Svahn for feedback on the pre-
study.

4.5 Future research

There are many possibilities to continue the
research surround footsteps in video games.
This study only incorporated the factor of
amplitude attenuation and did not consider
reverb attenuation, occlusion and surface which
is common practice to implement when sound
designing footsteps for video games. jackfrags
(2020) described that the factors named are all
important when trying to estimate distance of
footsteps. The results from the pre-study
showed that the logarithmic attenuation
function gave the clearest information of
distance compared to a linear attenuation
function. Since there were only four participants
in the pre-study, statistical significance cannot
therefore be calculated, but is of interest in
future research. There is little to no research that
has been done in the field relating to estimating
distance in video games. Therefore, were
choices in the study subjectively chosen. The
reason for testing how for the ZoC stretches was
mainly to avoid having distance estimations in
the main study test being redundant. The results
from the pre-study did show an indication of
where the ZoC lies. of A more thorough study
would be needed to find more accurate
estimation of where the ZoC lies.

4.6 Conclusions
This study explored to answer if video game
players could estimate distance to an NPC
walking towards them based on the footsteps
sounds of the NPC using amplitude attenuation.
A listening test was conducted. The participants
asked to estimate the distances to invisible

15
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