PrettyUglyGameSoundStudy (or PUGS) is an experiment to gather as many examples of audio in games that people consider either to be ‘good’ (or ‘pretty’) and ‘bad’ (or ‘ugly’). On one hand we wish to get a better understanding of game audio that people consider to work well in games and on the other we would like to get an overview of (typical) game audio blunders, from which the field can benefit. We hope that eventually this archive can grow out to be an inspiration (as well as the occasional good laugh) for those working in the field of game audio.
The moderators of PUGS are Richard van Tol and Sander Huiberts. For the past three years the have been giving a course Game Audio Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Netherlands), in which the students were asked to reflect upon game sound, similar to the idea behind PUGS.com (“gather 1 minute of footage of what you consider to be ‘good’ game audio and 1 minute of footage of what you consider to be ‘bad’ game audio”).
Please feel free to contribute to this website either by uploading your favourite example of good or bad game audio, or by commenting the uploaded examples of others!