The making of Torment effects began with ambient sound. This was to set the tone, convey the mood of each area in the game, and ultimately immerse the player in a deep atmosphere. Every corner in Torment is filled with ambient noises and looping backgrounds. These sounds even change with the time of day. "If a stove is off at night, you can hear rats running around in the pipes, or scary demon birds flying around outside," describes Duman. Interplay Audio Director, Charles Deenen, created the approximately 450 ambient effects in the game. Several weeks before Torment was to final, Charles propositioned Interplay sound designers to listen to a looping ambient sound from Torment and try to figure out what the original sources were for the final effect; extrapolating a recipe from a cooked meal. The effect resembled distant crickets chirping through an eerie wind. The cricket sound was strange, otherworldly, but the source could have been a summer night in the desert. That analysis was too obvious; Charles is a master of creative sound manipulation. Loading the file back into ProTools, the digital audio system in which the sound was created, allowed the team to do a little investigative research into the origins of this mysterious wind. To unlock the secret, the sound was pitched up an octave. The ambient sound became smoother, the wind and the cricket elements melted into each other but still there was nothing recognizable. Another octave and behold, the familiar hollow wailing of a….camel. It was still mutated, but the camel call was clearly identifiable. Next day there was another ambient to examine for its creative origins. This one was surely a wind, odd, but surely just a wind. This time the sound designers were mistaken. The source for this spooky, aggressive wind was a bear roar, stretched out, looped, and transformed. Deenen created the strange world of Torment out of completely alien elements with the intent to manifest a sense of disorientation, a sense of altered reality.
Chattering over the camel inspired crickets and bearish winds are the many voices of Torment. The denizens of the marketplace talk to each other, and to you. They have heated familial arguments, sell their wares, and generally get on with their strange existence. From bars to small rooms, Torment is populated with intriguing background characters. Interplay's Voice Talent Director Chris Borders, wrangled in one of Hollywood's best-known walla groups to fill every area of the game with life. The Barbara Harris walla group has performed crowd sounds for around half of all recent Hollywood features. A walla group supplies background chatter, it is called "walla" because actors originally used "walla walla walla" to create the illusion of nondescript chatter.
