How about sound effects? Distracting? Fun?

[Aggnavarius]

So how about it? What's you opinion on sound effects? I kind of want to include them, but not saturate the experience with them. I've played Dungeons of Dredmor, and I think that provides a good example of "too many" sound effects. You can't step or swing your weapon without audio input.

My idea is to have sound effects be low key and kind of quiet except for big things like fireballs and explosions, and maybe critical hits. Since the player will be hearing these over and over again, I don't want to make it annoying, but I also would like some of the bigger things to have impact.

What's been your experience with using/playing with sound effects?

[kraflab]

Since you should have an option to disable/adjust the sound effects, there's no reason not to include them.

I think sound is especially useful if you want an audio feedback in the game.  For instance, if you get a kill while blind in epilogue, you still hear the death sound effect.  This replaces the need to have your eyes fixed on the log.  Of course, the log is still there if anyone wants to turn the sound off.

[Leaf]

Even better, make the soundset user-configurable, kinda like OS alert sounds.  Then we can turn off the ones we find annoying and leave the rest of 'em on. :3

[XLambda]

They're fun, yes, but hard to find. (At least good ones are hard to find.)

[Alex E]

My first roguelike I've added sound to is Left Field Hotel. My older roguelikes did not have any sound, and honestly, audio is a big deal. You don't need to overload your game with sound effects, but even a small amount can add another dimension to the game, which is good.

In Left Field Hotel, the sounds mainly include opening things, clicking, banging, completing an objective and other miscellaneous things. Almost all of the time, there will be some background ambience, whether it be wind, or sound cues telling you there is an enemy near by. Many actions create no sound whatsoever, however. You sort of need to decide what is worth having a sound for, and what isn't.

I'm not saying that all games need to have sound, especially roguelikes. Heh, most roguelikes barely have any graphics.

[TheCreator]

Very early versions of Fame used to have sound effects, but in the end I decided to throw them out. I think that sounds just don't fit the roguelike idea. Additionally, while it's not difficult to implement sound, gathering all the needed assets is too much work. You can either find sounds in the net or record your own. Both ways are difficult and require that you are already an expert in the sound effects area, otherwise you end up having a set of crappy noises that in fact make your game annoying.

However, in some specific games like Left Field Hotel sound effects can be an advantage or even an essential feature.

[XLambda]

My first roguelike I've added sound to is Left Field Hotel. My older roguelikes did not have any sound, and honestly, audio is a big deal. You don't need to overload your game with sound effects, but even a small amount can add another dimension to the game, which is good.

In Left Field Hotel, the sounds mainly include opening things, clicking, banging, completing an objective and other miscellaneous things. Almost all of the time, there will be some background ambience, whether it be wind, or sound cues telling you there is an enemy near by. Many actions create no sound whatsoever, however. You sort of need to decide what is worth having a sound for, and what isn't.

I'm not saying that all games need to have sound, especially roguelikes. Heh, most roguelikes barely have any graphics.

Mind sharing where you got those from? They are quite good.

[Alex E]

Mind sharing where you got those from? They are quite good.

I made many of the sounds. For example, for a knocking sound, I banged my hand against my desk, recorded it, and added some muffling in audacity (a free sound editing software).

Some of the sounds I just couldn't physically make, so I got them off of soundbible.com. Many of the sounds there are creative commons.

[Omnomnom]

Mind sharing where you got those from? They are quite good.

I made many of the sounds. For example, for a knocking sound, I banged my hand against my desk, recorded it, and added some muffling in audacity (a free sound editing software).

Some of the sounds I just couldn't physically make, so I got them off of soundbible.com. Many of the sounds there are creative commons.

Nice to know microphone plus audacity works. Did you record any death screams for monsters? I want to but I fear the neighbours might call the police.

[Alex E]

Nice to know microphone plus audacity works. Did you record any death screams for monsters? I want to but I fear the neighbours might call the police.

Hah! I didn't record any monster screams since you can't kill monsters in my roguelike. If there were, I probably would, on a weekend, when I know no one's around to hear .

[NON]

Very early versions of Fame used to have sound effects, but in the end I decided to throw them out. I think that sounds just don't fit the roguelike idea. Additionally, while it's not difficult to implement sound, gathering all the needed assets is too much work. You can either find sounds in the net or record your own. Both ways are difficult and require that you are already an expert in the sound effects area, otherwise you end up having a set of crappy noises that in fact make your game annoying.

Totally agree, and it made me think of something someone wrote of my game:

Naturally, Infra has no music. And no sound effects. And no effects of any other kinds either. Why would you forgo collecting the lowest hanging fruits in enhancing the atmosphere of such a gloomy game like Infra? They're not even low hanging, they've dropped straight at the developer's lap and they just shrug them away.

Haha, "dropped in my lap"

[yam655]

Personally, I don't know about sound effects in a turn-based game.

That said, I've thought about music.

Specifically, I've thought about old "module" style music, where you have separate instruments samples from the music pattern. My idea need not have music so much as an atmospheric track where one or more instruments could be swapped out depending on the level or local environment.

In my case, there are Java-based module players, but I want it drivable in a way that most folks creating a Java class wouldn't allow, so I'm probably looking at a fork.

Modules should easily support things like transitions where you change the track without dropping a beat.

If I'm actually forking the code, it's even possible to leverage it to drive ASCII-based "cutscenes" where dialog and grid changes are handled via the track containing music and sound effects.

Cheers,
Steven Black