Sound Effects

Sound effects! Sound is the only part of a video game that comes from the real world and makes it into the game. Using microphones, sound designers will record common video game sounds such as voiceovers, music, UI sounds, weapons, and ambient sounds to help bring a game to life! Sound tends to have a very subtle effect on how players perceive a video game’s quality. A good-looking animation in a game can only be as good as its sound.

In this chapter, we will be going over the five elements of selecting or designing sounds. These are Source, Envelope, Pitch, Frequency, and Layering. Understanding these five elements will give you a strong foundation to ensure your sounds fit the overall design of the narrative, character, environment, and mechanics we’ve worked through so far. Then we will go into how to scale these elements in the game engine with our code and mixing! Sounds tell a story on an individual sound effect basis as well as working together...