Hi everyone, I'm HAL9K, a composer and sound designer based between Italy and Netherlands.

I've been hired to make some music and FX for a series of mobile games.
I have almost all the material ready but now I'm stuck with a doubt: apart from apple products that usually have stereo speakers, how many smartphones and tablets actually have stereo output? Should I just optimize the tracks for just mono output and forget about the stereo field?

Thanks!
H9K

P.S.: I couldn't find a presentation thread for newcomers so if there is one can someone point that out for me? Thanks!

One thing to remember - many gamers (fortunately, for the rest of us!) use earbuds - so stereo would seem like the option, wherever possible?

Is Stereo and Mono sound implementation not possible as choice to the user?
Sometimes games have a sound menu where you can choose, speakers, headphones, internal speaker and the likes.
This way you could have the best of both.

I just got a Nokia Lumia 630 an even tough it has a powerfull speaker it's mono only, I think only the top models have stereo...

All of this wouldn't be too hard to implement programming wise, even on something like Unity.

Thanks for the quick replies, the games are some kind of addictive puzzles like angry birds and and flappy bird so I'm not sure many people will actually play them with earphones. For this same reason I also think the developers want to keep it as straightforward as possible, it would be actually nice to call the correct audio file depending on the specific system and if you have earphones plugged in or not... But file size both for download for the store and for realtime playing could be also an issue including both mono and stereo files.

Mmm.. Any other suggestion?

Cheers,
H9K

ALWAYS produce stereo BUT make sure that your music and sounds fold down nicely to mono. This isn't for speaker limitations but memory instead.

So - careful with the wide stereo phase effects and just get your stuff working clearly and nicely.

Also - check with your dev what the main focus is ; a preference for in built device speaker or headphones.

Thanks narcoman, that's actually what I ended up doing, I preserved a bit of stereo image (even if way less than that I'm used to leave for movies) but I made sure all the main elements sit nicely in the centre. The work is sent, I'll wait for feedback from the devs

Thanks to everyone!

H9K